People of the ELO

(Board of Directors – Staff – Literary Advisory Board)

The board of directors, headed by Nick Montfort, our president, plans and implements ELO programs and projects. After five years at UCLA, in 2006, ELO moved to the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 2011 the ELO moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.  The literary advisory board provides guidance and offers the perspective of the broader literary community. Members of the ELO provide some financial support and form a community that participates in conferences, online chats, and other events.

Goals

1. To bring born-digital literature to the attention of authors, scholars, developers, and the current generation of readers for whom the printed book is no longer an exclusive medium of education or aesthetic practice.
2. To build a network of affiliated organizations in academia, the arts, and business.
3. To coordinate the collection, preservation, description, and discussion of works in accessible forums, according to peer-to-peer review standards and technological best practices.

Strategies

In pursuit of these goals over the long term, the ELO employs the following strategies:

1. Hosting regular conferences and symposia to bring artists, writers, teachers, developers, and scholars into contact with each other and to build a larger audience for the digital arts.
2. Sponsoring and distributing the biennial Electronic Literature Collection.
3. Featuring a curated online showcase of electronic literature on its website.
4. Maintaining the Electronic Literature Directory for open source, semantic web-based development.
5. Engaging a team of graduate students and international scholars with a career commitment to the field of electronic literature, to coordinate submissions to our collections and stay current with curatorial and technical standards.
6. Offering online access to essays about and syllabi for electronic literature.

Current Projects

1. Completing the DVD-ROM publication of the Electronic Literature Collection volume 2, which has already been made available on the Web.
2. Continuing the development of the Electronic Literature Directory, a resource for critical writing on e-lit.
3. Preparation for the 2012 ELO conference at West Virginia University.

What is Electronic Literature?

The term refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. Within the broad category of electronic literature are several forms and threads of practice, some of which are:

• Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web
• Kinetic poetry presented in Flash and using other platforms
• Computer art installations which ask viewers to read them or otherwise have literary aspects
• Conversational characters, also known as chatterbots
• Interactive fiction
• Novels that take the form of emails, SMS messages, or blogs
• Poems and stories that are generated by computers, either interactively or based on parameters given at the beginning
• Collaborative writing projects that allow readers to contribute to the text of a work
• Literary performances online that develop new ways of writing

The ELO showcase, to which new works are continually added, provides a few outstanding examples of electronic literature.

Context

The field of electronic literature is an evolving one. Literature today not only migrates from print to electronic media; increasingly, “born digital” works are created explicitly for the networked computer. The ELO seeks to bring this network and the process-intensive aspects of literature into visibility.

The confrontation with technology at the level of creation is what distinguishes electronic literature from, for example, e-books, digitized versions of print works, and other products of print authors ‘going digital.’

Electronic literature often intersects with conceptual and sound arts, but reading and writing remain central to the literary arts. These activities, unbound by pages and the printed book, now move freely through galleries, performance spaces, and museums. But electronic literature does not reside in any single medium or institution.

Because information technology is driven increasingly by proprietary concerns, authors working in new media need the support of institutions that can advocate for the preservation, archiving, and free circulation of literary work. The ELO has from the start made common cause with organizations such as Creative Commons, Archiving the Avant Garde, ArchiveIT.org, and the United States Library of Congress, to ensure the open circulation, attributed citation, and preservation of works, without which no field can develop.

Equally important is the discovery of talent and common areas of interest among our membership. Our affiliation with numerous organizations attests to the extensive network of people who produce works and the growing audience that reads, discusses, and teaches e-lit. The collection and circulation of works is another way that developments in the field are recorded and made available to our membership – continuously in the Electronic Literature Directory, periodically at our online Showcase, bi-annually in the Electronic Literature Collection, and perennially in the Library of Congress Archive-IT initiative.

History of the ELO

The Electronic Literature Organization was initiated in 1999 by electronic author Scott Rettberg, novelist Robert Coover, and internet business leader Jeff Ballowe. Realizing the promise that electronic media offered for literature but the lack of a supporting infrastructure, the three assembled a board of directors that included writers, publishers, internet industry leaders, and literary nonprofit experts to found this not-for-profit organization.

In the fall of 2001, the ELO moved its headquarters from Chicago to the University of California, Los Angeles, where the ELO received generous assistance from the UCLA English Department, SINAPSE (Social Interfaces and Networks in Advanced Programmable Simulations and Environments) and the Design|Media Arts Department.

After five productive years at UCLA, in the summer of 2006 the ELO moved to the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland, College Park, where Professor Matthew Kirschenbaum, MITH’s Associate Director, is the ELO’s faculty advisor. The summer of 2011 marked the ELO’s move to the MIT community.

The ELO has grown to be a vital part of the electronic literature community. Landmark events in the organization’s short history have included the launch of an acclaimed database-driven Directory of electronic literature maintained by authors and visited by thousands of readers; readings and outreach events in Chicago, New York, Seattle, Boston, and Los Angeles; an Electronic Literature Awards program that recognized exemplary works of poetry and fiction and rewarded winners with substantial cash prizes; the State of the Arts Symposium which united over one hundred international writers, scholars, and publishers of electronic literature at UCLA for two days of panels and presentations; and a yearlong reading series to showcase the latest advances in the emerging field of electronic literature.

Sponsors

The ELO acknowledges the support of the Ford Foundation for the 2002 State of the Arts Symposium, and the Rockefeller Foundation for their generous support of the Electronic Literature Directory project. We also thank our hosts at UCLA: the Center for Digital Humanities, the English Department, the Design| Media Arts Department, the School of the Arts and Architecture, and SINAPSE. We thank also the Illinois Humanities Council and the Illinois Arts Council, which supported the 2001-2002 Interactions program, and 2001 Awards and founding sponsor ZDNet and founding sponsor NBCi.

Colophon

The ELO website is powered by WordPress and uses the Custom Community theme.

• February 16, 2003: How MOOs are used in writing and teaching writing, with Dene Grigar and Katherine Parrish. How should writers and writing teachers find out about using MOOs? What particular MOO projects best illustrate the innovative use of MOOs for writing?
• June 15, 2003: Discussion on archiving [new media] outside of institutions: what private folks can do to preserve our creative e-legacy.

• January 20, 2002: Literature and the Internet with Andrew Gallix, editor of 3am magazine and is organising the International Conference on Literature & the Internet: New Forms of Electronic Writing.
• February 17, 2002: Performances and theatrics: how do we present electronic literature to live audiences? Come gather ideas on stagecraft, crafing works, and more.
• March 17, 2002: Incubation2 is the second trAce International Conference on Writing & the Internet. It will be held 15th-17th July 2002 at the Nottingham Trent University. Organisers, presenters & potential attendees came along to Chat to hear about and discuss some of the issues that will be important at the conference.
• April 06, 2002: Join in the ELO Symposium vicariously.
• April 21, 2002: Come celebrate the ELO gallery with us! Peruse the pages, caress the screens, find the best and brightest in new media literature and art. The ELO Symposium showcased 52 of today’s hits in electronic literature in the Symposium Gallery. Meet the artists, mingle with the crowd and toast to the genius of the age. You can see descriptions of work at the Gallery page in ELO.
• May 19, 2002: Welcome to the zany world of elit. What ARE we talking about anyway? What makes this writing different from any other writing? What makes this art different? What are we doing that you just can’t do on paper? Guest speakers: Jill Walker, Robert Kendall.
• June 19, 2002: Mystery games with Marjorie Luesebrink. TrAce’s Incubation conference will host an online and in real life mystery for your entertainment and edifyment. Calling all sleuths!
• July 15, 2002: Special online and live chat with Incubation about collaboration and life on the internet.
• August 18, 2002: Music and the muse: experimenting in sound and imagery with Jim Andrews.
• September 15, 2002: Blogging and journaling and literature with Mark Bernstein, Doug Lawson, and Adrian Miles
• October 20, 2002: Poems that Move chat as part of a two month long discussion with ELO and trAce.
• December 15, 2002: Mapping the Transition from Page to Screen. Kate Pullinger chaired an online seminar with guests Deena Larsen, Rita Raley and Rob Wittig

• January 7, 2001
  Topic: The last of the book? How we approach online and print literature with Alan Sondheim and Talan Memmott
• January 21, 2001
  Topic: Jumpin’ at the Diner: What’s happening with the best hypertexts from the men with Marjorie Luesebrink, Jennifer Ley, Stephanie Strickland, and featured authors.
• February 04, 2001
  Topic: Celebrate trAce Alt-X new media competition winner, Talan Memmott’s Lexia to Perplexia. What is new media? What are we calling ourselves?.
• February 18, 2001
  Topic: frAme 5, the February 2001 issue of trAce’s Journal of Culture and Technology, is on the theme of Digital Labour — for Love or Money. Writers, editors, and readers talk about the rewards of digital labor.
• March 4, 2001
  Topic: Learning to Write Online. The internet transformed teaching and learning. Now we meet in cyberspace, learning from the comfort of our living room computers.
• March 18, 2001
  Topic:The business end. Where are the business models? How can we have our art and eat, too? With Mark Bernstein of Eastgate Systems, Amy Eisner, COO of Night Kitchen, Jeff Ballowe,Chairman of DejaNews and as a director of drkoop.com, VerticalNet, XOOM.com and ZDTV, and with Laurie Morgan, CEO Digital Stories.
• April 1, 2001
  Topic: Ap<rill> F<eu>loose with Rob Wittig and Mez. A jazz piece, a performance piece with riffs and riffles and swirls. Follow us through this journey through langu/is\h/age. (note due to technical difficulties, this transcript is lost.)
• April 15, 2001 with Loss Pequin Glazier
  Warm up for E-Poetry Festival 2001 (April 19 -21 at SUNY in Buffalo, New York) and Digital Arts and Culture ( April 26-28 in Providence Rhode Island) If you are coming to the conferences, share your ideas and topics. If you aren’t coming, get a taste of what will be covered: How has electronic literature changed in the last year or so? What are the new trends? What do you hope to gain from these conferences?
• May 6, 2001 with Helen Whitehead, Alan Sondheim, Talan Memmott, Sue Thomas, andother writers and teachers at trAce. Now you can take writing courses online and learn from the best! The trAce Online Writing School, opening June 2001, will offer online tuition in a range of writing and web-related areas.
• May 20, 2001 with semifinalists and winners of the ELO Awards.
• June 3, 2001 discuss the challenges of professional writing. The life of a professional author is more likely to be strewn with invoices and tax-bills than laurels and fame. A career in writing demands stamina, commitment, and persistence – but even then, most writers have to supplement their earnings with teaching, editing, readings, and residencies.
• June 17, 2001 Web, Warp and Weft and the Year of the Artist with Helen Whitehead.
• July 1, 2001 Follow a deep philosophical discussion on identity and the web and real life with mystery guests.
• July 15, 2001 Interactive drama with Andrew Stern and Adam Chapman. Interactive drama lets readers drive the story. What are the essential elements in interactive drama? Where does the reader enter the story? What are some reader/author interactions in interactive drama?
• August 5, 2001 Seminar, Literature in Transition: The Impact of Information Technologies with Katherine Hayles and students. Come sit in on this class as we talk with participants about insights into new trends in literature, future possibilities, theoretical and practical developments, and more.
• August 19, 2001 World-wide state of electronic literature with Lucio Agra, mez, and Gonzala Fraca: What are the exciting happenings in elit around the world? What are the challenges? Why are we speaking in English and not Chinese?
• September 16, 2001 University presses and electronic literature: where does new media literature and electronic publishing fit in the long standing traditions of academic presses?
• October 21, 2001 How have electronic artists dealt with the tragedy of September 11 in their works?
• November 4th 2001: The new Alt-X Press brings to web-readers a must-have library of uncategorizable writing being produced by some of the most provocative artists in contemporary new media culture.
• November 18, 2001 Collaborating with ELO, trAce, the fineArt forum, and ISEA : getting electronic writers and artists together.
• December 02, 2001 The writers and artists in the new frAme6 talk about their new works, spirituality, spirit, and the net.
• December 16, 2001 Our end of year party and talent show–see what folks have been up to this year.

People of the ELO

(Board of Directors – Staff – Literary Advisory Board)

The board of directors, headed by Nick Montfort, our president, plans and implements ELO programs and projects. After five years at UCLA, in 2006, ELO moved to the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland, College Park. The ELO’s office at MITH is run by managing director helen DeVinney. The literary advisory board provides guidance and offers the perspective of the broader literary community. Members of the ELO provide some financial support and form a community that participates in conferences, online chats, and other events.

Goals

1. To bring born-digital literature to the attention of authors, scholars, developers, and the current generation of readers for whom the printed book is no longer an exclusive medium of education or aesthetic practice.
2. To build a network of affiliated organizations in academia, the arts, and business.
3. To coordinate the collection, preservation, description, and discussion of works in accessible forums, according to peer-to-peer review standards and technological best practices.

Strategies

In pursuit of these goals over the long term, the ELO employs the following strategies:

1. Hosting regular conferences and symposia to bring artists, writers, teachers, developers, and scholars into contact with each other and to build a larger audience for the digital arts.
2. Sponsoring and distributing the biennial Electronic Literature Collection.
3. Featuring a curated online showcase of electronic literature on its website.
4. Maintaining the Electronic Literature Directory for open source, semantic web-based development.
5. Engaging a team of graduate students and international scholars with a career commitment to the field of electronic literature, to coordinate submissions to our collections and stay current with curatorial and technical standards.
6. Offering online access to essays about and syllabi for electronic literature.

Current Programs

For the near term, resources have been allotted for the following activities:

1. Participation in the Library of Congress Archive-It initiative (begun in the Summer of 2007 and continuing through the year 2009).
2. Participation with Leonardo Electronic Almanac, in the selection and presentation of essays and e-lit productions from the 2008 meeting of the ELO in Vancouver, Washington.
3. Preparation for the 2010 ELO conference at Brown University (including bursaries to be awarded to selected conference participants on the model of ELO 2008 in Vancouver, Washington).
4. Launching (in Fall 2008) and further development of the Electronic Literature Directory version 2.0, replacing the version in operation on the ELO site for more than six years.

Context

The field of electronic literature is an evolving one. Literature today not only migrates from print to electronic media; increasingly, “born digital” works are created explicitly for the networked computer. The ELO seeks to bring this network and the process-intensive aspects of literature into visibility.

The confrontation with technology at the level of creation is what distinguishes electronic literature from, for example, e-books, digitized versions of print works, and other products of print authors ‘going digital.’

Electronic literature often intersects with conceptual and sound arts, but reading and writing remain central to the literary arts. These activities, unbound by pages and the printed book, now move freely through galleries, performance spaces, and museums. But electronic literature does not reside in any single medium or institution.

Because information technology is driven increasingly by proprietary concerns, authors working in new media need the support of institutions that can advocate for the preservation, archiving, and free circulation of literary work. The ELO has from the start made common cause with organizations such as Creative Commons, Archiving the Avant Garde, ArchiveIT.org, and the United States Library of Congress, to ensure the open circulation, attributed citation, and preservation of works, without which no field can develop.

Equally important is the discovery of talent and common areas of interest among our membership. Our affiliation with numerous organizations attests to the extensive network of people who produce works and the growing audience that reads, discusses, and teaches e-lit. The collection and circulation of works is another way that developments in the field are recorded and made available to our membership – continuously in the Electronic Literature Directory, periodically at our online Showcase, bi-annually in the Electronic Literature Collection, and perennially in the Library of Congress Archive-IT initiative.

What is Electronic Literature?

The term refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. Within the broad category of electronic literature are several forms and threads of practice, some of which are:

• Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web
• Kinetic poetry presented in Flash and using other platforms
• Computer art installations which ask viewers to read them or otherwise have literary aspects
• Conversational characters, also known as chatterbots
• Interactive fiction
• Novels that take the form of emails, SMS messages, or blogs
• Poems and stories that are generated by computers, either interactively or based on parameters given at the beginning
• Collaborative writing projects that allow readers to contribute to the text of a work
• Literary performances online that develop new ways of writing

The ELO showcase, to which new works are continually added, provides a few outstanding examples of electronic literature.

History of the ELO

The Electronic Literature Organization was initiated in 1999 by electronic author Scott Rettberg, novelist Robert Coover, and internet business leader Jeff Ballowe. Realizing the promise that electronic media offered for literature but the lack of a supporting infrastructure, the three assembled a board of directors that included writers, publishers, internet industry leaders, and literary nonprofit experts to found this not-for-profit organization.

In the fall of 2001, the ELO moved its headquarters from Chicago to the University of California, Los Angeles, where the ELO received generous assistance from the UCLA English Department, SINAPSE (Social Interfaces and Networks in Advanced Programmable Simulations and Environments) and the Design|Media Arts Department.

After five productive years at UCLA, in the summer of 2006 the ELO moved to the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland, College Park, where Professor Matthew Kirschenbaum, MITH’s Associate Director, is the ELO’s faculty advisor.

The ELO has grown to be a vital part of the electronic literature community. Landmark events in the organization’s short history have included the launch of an acclaimed database-driven Directory of electronic literature maintained by authors and visited by thousands of readers; readings and outreach events in Chicago, New York, Seattle, Boston, and Los Angeles; an Electronic Literature Awards program that recognized exemplary works of poetry and fiction and rewarded winners with substantial cash prizes; the State of the Arts Symposium which united over one hundred international writers, scholars, and publishers of electronic literature at UCLA for two days of panels and presentations; and a yearlong reading series to showcase the latest advances in the emerging field of electronic literature.

Sponsors

The ELO acknowledges the support of the Ford Foundation for the 2002 State of the Arts Symposium, and the Rockefeller Foundation for their generous support of the Electronic Literature Directory project. We also thank our hosts at UCLA: the Center for Digital Humanities, the English Department, the Design| Media Arts Department, the School of the Arts and Architecture, and SINAPSE. We thank also the Illinois Humanities Council and the Illinois Arts Council, which supported the 2001-2002 Interactions program, and 2001 Awards and founding sponsor ZDNet and founding sponsor NBCi.

Colophon

The ELO website is powered by WordPress and uses a theme by Nick Montfort that is based on Joni Mueller’s Zen Minimalist.

September 11-13th, 2008 at the University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway.

The Fall 2008 Bergen Seminar on Electronic Literature in Europe will build upon the work of the e-poetry seminar held in Paris in February 2008 at the University Paris 8, the 2007 e-poetry conference in Paris, the 2007 Remediating Literature Conference in Utrecht, and other recent activity in the field of electronic literature in Europe. The goals of this gathering are:

1) To provide an opportunity for European researchers to share and discuss their current research on electronic literature, e-poetry, and digital narrative forms.

2) To provide a forum for European authors of electronic literature to share, demonstrate, read, or perform their work.

3) To discuss and explore the foundation of a European research network focused on electronic literature, funding opportunities for such a network, and network activities.

The seminar will last three days and will include about 20-30 participants. The day-long meetings during the first two days will consist of short presentations of papers in panel format. Additionally, there will be performances, readings, and demonstrations of electronic literature in the evenings. The third day of the conference will be dedicated to proposing and discussing the formal establishment of a research network on electronic literature in Europe. Paper presentations should be in English. Presentation and performances of works can be made in English or in the native language of the presenter.

Registration for the seminar is free. There may be a fee for a conference dinner only. There will be no simultaneous sessions, so the number of presentation slots available will be limited, but researchers not selected to present are also free to attend. Both electronic literature authors and researchers are encouraged to submit proposals.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Any paper topic related to the seminar theme is welcome. Some subjects might include:

- Close readings of specific works of electronic literature.
- Ontologies and definitions of e-lit forms.
- National or language-group histories (or pre-histories) of e-lit.
- Procedural literacy and electronic literature.
- Relations between e-lit and other literary and artistic forms and movements.
- Issues involved in translating electronic literature.
- Issues involved in recording, archiving, and preserving e-lit.
- Electronic literature in cultural contexts.
- Pedagogy and approaches to teaching e-lit.
- Proposals for research network activities (e.g. archiving projects, publications, establishing a journal, pedagogical resources, etc.).

Presentations of papers should last no longer than 20 minutes.

Researchers should send an abstract of approximately 500 words before June 20th to elit.in.europe@gmail.com

CALL FOR WORKS

Authors wishing to present works of electronic literature should submit the following before June 20th:

1) A 500 word abstract describing the work, how the author intends to present it, and any technical requirements and how long it will take to present your work (max 30 minutes). The title of the work and all authors should be clearly identified. The abstract should be sent to elit.in.europe@gmail.com

2) If the work is published online, the URL at which it is located should be included in the abstract.

3) If the work is a non-web application, is published in other media than the web, or is performance-dependent, three copies of a CD-ROM or DVD including the work or video documentation of the work should be sent before June 20th to:

Scott Rettberg, Associate Professor
Literary, Linguistic, and Aesthetic Studies (LLE)
The University of Bergen
Postbox 7805
5020 Bergen
Norway

What is Electronic Literature?

The term refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. Within the broad category of electronic literature are several forms and threads of practice, some of which are:

* Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web
* Kinetic poetry presented in Flash and using other platforms
* Computer art installations that have literary aspects
* Interactive fiction
* Novels that take the form of emails, SMS messages, or blogs
* Poems and stories that are generated by computers
* Computer-enabled combinatory literary forms
* Collaborative writing projects that allow readers to contribute to the text of a work
* Literary performances that use the computer or network to develop new ways of writing

CALENDAR

The deadline for abstracts and works is June 20th. A response will be given by July 25th. Final papers must be submitted by September 1st for online proceedings that will be published after the seminar. A website with further information will be published later this summer.

REVIEW COMMITTEE

Scott Rettberg, University of Bergen
Jill Walker Rettberg, University of Bergen
Phillippe Bootz, Paris 8 University
Maria Engberg, Blekinge Institute of Technology
Talan Memmott, Blekinge Institute of Techonology
Raine Koskimaa, University of Jyväskylä
Susana Tosca, IT University of Copenhagen

CONTACT INFO

Submission of abstracts and proposals should go to: elit.in.europe@gmail.com. Questions about the seminar should be directed to Scott Rettberg: scott(at)retts.net.

From the site: A visible presence for some two decades, electronic literature has already produced many works that deserve the rigorous scrutiny critics have long practiced with print literature. Only now, however, with Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary by N. Katherine Hayles, do we have the first systematic survey of the field and an analysis of its importance, breadth, and wide-ranging implications for literary study.

Hayles’s book is designed to help electronic literature move into the classroom. Her systematic survey of the field addresses its major genres, the challenges it poses to traditional literary theory, and the complex and compelling issues at stake. She develops a theoretical framework for understanding how electronic literature both draws on the print tradition and requires new reading and interpretive strategies. Grounding her approach in the evolutionary dynamic between humans and technology, Hayles argues that neither the body nor the machine should be given absolute theoretical priority. Rather, she focuses on the interconnections between embodied writers and users and the intelligent machines that perform electronic texts.

Through close readings of important works, Hayles demonstrates that a new mode of narration is emerging that differs significantly from previous models. Key to her argument is the observation that almost all contemporary literature has its genesis as electronic files, so that print becomes a specific mode for electronic text rather than an entirely different medium. Hayles illustrates the implications of this condition with three contemporary novels that bear the mark of the digital.

Included with the book is a CD, The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1, containing sixty new and recent works of electronic literature with keyword index, authors’ notes, and editorial headnotes. Representing multiple modalities of electronic writing–hypertext fiction, kinetic poetry, generative and combinatory forms, network writing, codework, 3D, narrative animations, installation pieces, and Flash poetry–the ELC 1 encompasses comparatively low-tech work alongside heavily coded pieces. Complementing the text and the CD-ROM is this website offering resources for teachers and students, including sample syllabi, original essays, author biographies, and useful links. Together, the three elements provide an exceptional pedagogical opportunity.

Thom Swiss
Mark Marino
Braxton Soderman
Stephanie Strickland and Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo
Jaka Zeleznikar
Michael Peters
Jeanne Hamming

Also starting this month, the journal introduces { Literal1.Text }, the online forum for teachers of electronic literature, convened by Davin Heckman.  Please consider joining up and sharing your expertise as teachers.

Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures is an online, peer-reviewed publication specializing in new media and net art. We welcome submission of net-ready art projects, electronic literature works and review essays; contact submissions [at] hyperrhiz.net.

As we have for the past several years, we are planning an informal meet-up for people affiliated with or interested in the Electronic Literature Organization at this year’s MLA conference. This year, we are planning on meeting at the “Big Bar” at the conference hotel, the Hyatt Regency, after the “Electronic Literature: Reading, Writing, Navigating” panel, from 5-6 PM on Friday, December 28th. We plan to converge on the bar and have a drink or two. Afterwards, for those who would like to continue the conversation and take advantage of the world’s best deep-dish pizza, we’re reserving some tables at a nearby restaurant. If you’re only planning on joining us for a drink, just show up at the Big Bar at 5PM. If you want in on the pizza, please send an email to Stefanie Boese (sboese2 at uic dot edu), indicating how many people plan to attend and your preference for sausage, spinach, or mixed vegetarian pizza. We’ll put the order in ahead, so we won’t have to wait long in the restaurant to eat. We will “go dutch,” splitting the bill evenly and paying in cash.

Electronic Literature & Related Panels at the MLA 2007

This year’s convention features several panels (“New Reading Interfaces,” “Electronic Literature: Reading, Writing, and Navigating,” and “Electronic Literature: After Afternoon”) that are explicitly focused on electronic literature, and several that are more tangentially related to the subject. Below is a mini conference guide focused on e-lit.

Thursday, 27 December

64. Documentary Poetries

5:15–6:30 p.m., Water Tower, Hyatt Regency

Program arranged by the Division on Poetry

Presiding: Adalaide Morris, Univ. of Iowa

1. “Recitative and Reprise: Turning to Reznikoff’s Testimony,” Catherine Taylor, Ohio Univ., Athens

2. “‘The Wedge of the Whole Front’: Document, Pedagogy, and Postmodernity in Charles Olson’s Cultural Poetics,” Alan C. Golding, Univ. of Louisville

3. “Shredders,” Jena Osman, Temple Univ.

79. Persuasive Games

5:15–6:30 p.m., Toronto, Hyatt Regency

Program arranged by the Division on Literary Criticism

Presiding: Rita M. Raley, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

1. “Introduction to Procedural Rhetoric,” Ian Bogost, Georgia Inst. of Tech.

2. “War Games,” Rita M. Raley

3. “Guy Debord’s ‘Kriegspiel’: Nostalgic Algorithms in Late
Modernity,” Alexander Galloway, New York Univ.

Friday, 28 December

215. Novel History, Media History

10:15–11:30 a.m., Atlanta, Hyatt Regency

Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Media and Literature

Presiding: Ivan Kreilkamp, Indiana Univ., Bloomington

1. “Beyond Fashion: From the Nineteenth-Century Urban Mysteries Reader
to the Cinema Spectator,” Sara Hackenberg, San Francisco State Univ.

2. “Ulysses Player Piano,” Paul K. Saint-Amour, Univ. of Pennsylvania

3. “Remediating the Modernist Novel: Judd Morrissey’s Digital Remix,”
Jessica Pressman, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

Friday, 28 December

250. New Reading Interfaces

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Missouri, Sheraton Chicago

Program arranged by the Association for Computers and the Humanities

Presiding: Elizabeth Swanstrom, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

1. “Tag Clouds: Reading the Poetic Interface,” Jeremy H. Douglass, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

2. “Toward a Semantic Literary Web: Three Case Histories,” Joseph Paul Tabbi, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago

3. “Reading Shaw’s Legible City,” Elizabeth Swanstrom

4. “Reading the Margins of The Magic Book,” Sarah Jane Sloane, Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins

5. “Texts in Virtual Contexts: Reading Scholarly Work in 3-D Environments,” Victoria E. Szabo, Duke Univ.

Friday, 28 December

256. Professionalization in a Digital Age

1:45–3:30 p.m., Columbus Hall C and D, Hyatt Regency

A forum arranged by the Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession

Presiding: William Erwin Orchard, Univ. of Chicago

1. “Rethinking the First Book: Dissertations as Bits and Bytes,” Jennifer Crewe, Columbia Univ. Press

2. “New Media Scholarship: Implications for Graduate Study,” N. Katherine Hayles, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

3. “Digital Pedagogy: Taming the Palatiri,” Ian Lancashire, Univ. of Toronto (abstract available)

Respondent: W. J. T. Mitchell, Univ. of Chicago

For coordinated workshops, see meetings 373 and 472.

Friday, 28 December

317. Electronic Literature: Reading, Writing, Navigating

3:30–4:45 p.m., Columbus Hall K and L, Hyatt Regency

Program sponsored by the MLA Ad Hoc Committee on the Structure of the Convention in conjunction with the MLA Committee on Information Technology

Presiding: Susan Schreibman, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

1. “Exploring Electronic Literature,” Helen DeVinney, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Jessica Pressman, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

2. “Sculpting E-Poetry in Fractal Space: ConTextTree,” Jeremy H. Douglass, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

3. “Selections from Selections,” Christopher T. Funkhouser, New Jersey Inst. of Tech.

4. “Reading Unwritten Poems: Developing Critical Tools for Electronic Literature,” Davin Heckman, Siena Heights Univ.

5. “ Beta Writer: Portrait of the Author as Early Adopter,” Mark Marino, Univ. of Southern California

6. “No Exit in Sight: Navigating Giselle Beiguelman’s ‘Esc for Escape,’” Elizabeth Swanstrom, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

7. “ RolandHT,” Vika Zafrin, Brown Univ.

Friday, 28 December

373. Scholarship in New Media

7:15–8:30 p.m., Columbus Hall C and D, Hyatt Regency

A workshop arranged in conjunction with the forum Professionalization in a Digital Age (256)

Presiding: Markus Zisselsberger, Binghamton Univ., State Univ. of New York

1. “On Scholarship,” Matthew Gary Kirschenbaum, Univ. of Maryland, College Park (abstract available)

2. “On Electric Editing,” Dino Franco Felluga, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette

3. “On Pedagogy,” Todd Samuel Presner, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (abstract available)

4. “On Collaboration,” McKenzie Wark, New School

Saturday, 29 December

541. Electronic Literature: After Afternoon

3:30–4:45 p.m., Mississippi, Sheraton Chicago

Program arranged by the Division on Methods of Literary Research

Presiding: Neil Fraistat, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

1. “Picture and Book Remain: After Two Decades of Hypertext Literature,” Michael Joyce, Vassar Coll.

2. “This Afternoon,” Matthew Gary Kirschenbaum, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

3. “Play, Flow, and Mix: Paradigms for Electronic Literature,” N. Katherine Hayles, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

Saturday, 29 December

649. Sampling the Original: Rethinking Appropriation, Attribution, and Copyright

9:00–10:15 p.m., Plaza Ballroom A, Hyatt Regency

Program arranged by the MLA Committee on Information Technology

Presiding: Thomas C. Spear, Lehman Coll., City Univ. of New York

1. “Remixing Free Culture: Twentieth-Century Copyright in the Twenty-First-Century Classroom,” Kari M. Kraus, Univ. of Rochester

2. “Media-Enriched Critical Writing as Gray-Market Transgression,” Victoria E. Szabo, Duke Univ.

3. “You Can, but You May Not: Copyright, Scholars, and the Temptations of New Media,” Jeffrey Ankrom, Bloomington, IN

Sunday, 30 December

670. Annotated Bibliography: New Work in Literature and Science

8:30–9:45 a.m., Water Tower, Hyatt Regency

Program arranged by the Division on Literature and Science

Presiding: Henry S. Turner, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

Speakers: Mark B. N. Hansen, Univ. of Chicago; Ursula K. Heise, Stanford Univ.; Megan Massino, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison; Arielle Saiber, Bowdoin Coll.; Joseph Paul Tabbi, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago