Resources for the Study and Teaching of Electronic Literaure
The resources included in this list represent those that directly
address Electronic Literature and refer to it implicitly as a literary
art form. There are many excellent works, for example, that talk about
digital media forms that intersect with those of Electronic Literature.
Books like like Oliver Grau's MediaArtHistories and Stephen
Wilson's Information Arts discuss net art, which may, depending
on the level of its literariness, be considered a form of Electronic
Literature. Those like Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media
and Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's Remediation have done
much to build the field in which Electronic Literature resides but are
silent about Electronic Literature.
Thus, for the purpose of this list of resources, we are concentrating
only on scholarly works, online journals, organizations —
initiatives, websites & blogs, and conferences that pertain directly to
Electronic Literature either by focusing on it as an area of study or on
primary works associated with it. People interested in gaining
information about primary and secondary works of Electronic Literature
should be aware of two excellent resources: The Electronic
Literature Directory, created and hosted by the Electronic
Literature Organization in the U.S., and Knowledge Base, developed and
hosted by Electronic
Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
(ELMCIP) in Europe.
What should strike visitors to the exhibit and this website is that
Electronic Literature has been an art form and a topic of scholarly
study for over 20 years. It has developed a faithful following of
researchers and practitioners who have spent careers studying and
creating it. This exhibit is intended to be an invitation for you to
join us in these endeavors.
Please crowdsource with us by sending citations we have overlooked or
are not aware of. As scholars we believe in the gift of sharing
information and resources and making them freely available for others.
Help us achieve a robust and useful list for our field. Let us learn as
we mean to educate: openly and collegially.
Books
Espen Aarseth. Cybertext: Perspectives of Ergodic
Literature. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, MD,
1997.
Jay David Bolter. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the
History of Writing. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers:
Hillsdale, NJ, 1991; and Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and
the Remediation of Print, 2001.
Philippe Bootz and Sandy Baldwin, Editors. Regards Croisés:
Perspectives on Digital Literature. West Virginia Press: Morgantown,
WV, 2010.
David Ciccoricco. Reading Network Fiction. The University of
Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, AL, 2007.
C. T. Funkhouser. New Directions in Digital Poetry. NY, NY:
Continuum, 2012.
---. Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms,
1959-1995. The University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, AL,
2007.
Loss Pequeño Glazier. Digital Poetics: The Making of
E-Poetics. The University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, AL,
2001.
Terry Harpold. Ex-Foliations: Reading Machines and the Upgrade
Path. University of Minnesota Press: Minnesota, MN, 2009.
N. Katherine Hayles. Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the
Literary. Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, IN, 2008.
---. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics,
Literature, and Informatics. University of Chicago Press: Chicago,
IL, 1999.
---. My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary
Texts. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, 2005.
---. Writing Machines. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 2002.
Christiane Heibach, Karin Wenz, Bill Seaman, Eduardo Kac. P0Es1S: The
Aesthetics Of Digital Poetry. Hatje Cantz Publishers: Ostfildern,
Germany, 2004.
Michael Joyce. Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics.
University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI, 1995.
---. Othermindedness: The Emergence of Network Culture.
University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, 2000.
Eduardo Kac, Editor. Media Poetry: An International Anthology.
Intellect Books: Bristol, UK, 2007.
George Landow. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical
Theory and Technology. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore,
MD, 1992.; and Hypertext 2.0, 1997.
---. Hyper/Text Theory. Johns Hopkins University Press:
Baltimore, MD, 1994.
Nick Montfort. Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive
Fiction. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 2003.
Adalaide Morris and Thomas Swiss, Editors. New Media Poetics:
Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
2009.
Janet Murray. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in
Cyberspace. The Free Press: NY, NY, 1997.
Jaishree K. Odin. Hypertext and the Female Imaginary. University
of Minnesota Press: Minnesota, MN, 2010.
Marie-Laure Ryan, Editor. Cyberspace Textuality: Computer
Technology and Literary Theory. Indiana University Press:
Bloomington, IN, 1999.
Jorgen Schafer and Peter Gondolla, Editors. Beyond the Screen.
Bielefeld: Germany, 2010.
Roberto Simanowski. Digital Art and Meaning: Reading Kinetic Poetry,
Text Machines, Mapping Art, and Interactive Installations.
University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, 2011.
Roberto Simanowski, Jorgen Schafer, and Peter Gendolla, Editors.
Reading Moving Letters: Digital Literature in Research and Teaching,
a Handbook. Bielefeld: Germany, 2010.
Sarah Sloan. Digital Fictions: Storytelling in a Material
World. Ablex Publishing: Stamford, CT, 2000.
Brian Kim Stefans. Fashionable Noise: On Digital Poetics. Atelos:
Berkeley, CA, 2003.
Joseph Tabbi. Cognitive Fictions. University of Minnesota
Press: Minnesota, MN, 2002.
Jan Van Looy and Jan Baetens. Close Reading New Media: Analyzing
Electronic Literature. Leuven University Press: Leuven, BE,
2003.
Online Directories & Anthologies
Electronic Literature DirectoryThe Electronic Literature Directory (ELD), an initiative of the Electronic Literature Organization, is "a collection of literary works, descriptions, and keywords. As the Web evolves, the work of literature co-evolves in ways that need to be named, tagged, and recognized in a Web 2.0 environment. For this purpose, the ELD is designed to bring authors and readers together from a wide a range of imaginative, critical, technological, and linguistic practices."
Contact: Davin Heckman, davinheckman@GMAIL.COM
Knowledge Base
The Knowledge Base is an initiative of ELMCIP aimed as a "research resource for electronic literature. It provides cross-referenced, contextualized information about authors, creative works, critical writing, and practices.
Contact: Scott Rettberg, scott.rettberg@uib.no
Anthology of European Electronic Literature
The Anthology of European Electronic Literature is an initiative of ELMCIP and is edited by researchers at Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (Blekinge Institute of Technology) in Sweden, including Maria Engberg, Talan Memmot, and David Prater.
Contact: Maria Engberg, maria.engberg@BTH.SE
Online Journals
Active
The Drunken
Boat: An Online Journal of Art and Literature
In publication since 2001, Drunken Boat, publishes works of
literary art annually. The journal is managed by a large staff of
editors and directed by Ravi Shankar.
Contact: editor@drunkenboat.com
ISSN: 1537-0000
Electronic Book Review (ebr)
ebr is a top tier academic journal with a strong international
focus. Founded by Joseph Tabbi, the journal gathers essays into 11
"threads," or themes, developed by a series of guest editors at various
institutional locations. Work appears continuously, on the network
model, not on the model of the print 'periodical,' and each essay is
presented for peer-to-peer review by everyone who has ever published in
the journal.
Contact: ebr-contact@listserv.wvu.edu
ISSN: 1553-1139
Hyperrhiz: New
Media Cultures
Hyperrhiz is both an academic and literary journal published
bi-annually. Edited by Helen Burgess, it is "a forum for experimental
new media projects (both critical and creative) located outside or
across current disciplinary boundaries." This approach has resulted in
the journal's strong reputation for the quality of the works
published.
Contact: editor@hyperrhiz.net
ISSN: 1555-9351
Leonardo
Electronic Almanac (LEA)
LEA is the online journal of Leonardo: Journal of Art, Science
& Technology. A top-tier international journal in publication since
1993, it publishes critical and creative writing relating to the arts,
science, and technology, with a particular interest in experimental
media art. Lanfranco Aceti is Editor in Chief, and Paul Brown is
Co-editor.
Contact: info@leoalmanac.org
ISSN: 1071-4391
The New River: A Journal of Digital Writing &
Art
The New River was founded in 1996 by Edward Falco and publishes
work of Electronic Literature and other forms of digital art. The
journal is indexed by the Library of Congress and enjoys an excellent
reputation for its quality and focus. It is published twice a year.
Contact: thenewriver@vt.edu
ISSN: 2151-8475
In Archive or Notable Past Journals
The
Iowa Review Web (TIR-W)
TIR-W, launched in 1999, was the online arm of the prestigious
print literary journal The Iowa Review in publication for over 40 years.
A top tier publication, TIR-W published some of the best literary
criticism and works relating to Electronic Literature. In 2008 TIR-W was
discontinued. The Iowa Review has retained past issues on archive.
Poems That
Go
Edited by Megan Sapnar and Ingrid Ankerson, Poems That Go was a
literary journal that specialized in Electronic Literature that ran from
2000-2004. Many of the current Electronic Literature artists got their
start publishing in this journal. Because of its importance to the
field, the editors have kept a robust archive available for researchers
and artists.
frAme: Journal
of Culture & Technology
frAmewas an online journal associated with the Trace Online
Writing Centre, an academic centre located at Nottingham Trent
University in the UK from 1995-2006 and led by Simon Mills. Though no
longer active, the journal enjoyed an excellent reputation for the
cutting edge critical essays and literary works it published and played
a significant role in the development of electronic literature.
Organizations & Initiatives
Creative Nation: Writers and Writing in the New Media CultureCreative Nation is an Australian Research Council funded project at the University of Western Sydney. Beginning in 2011, with Chief Investigators Associate Professor Anna Gibbs and Dr Maria Angel and Partner Investigator Professor Joseph Tabbi at the University of Illinois, Chicago, it will establish an annotated Directory of Australian new media writing and create a strong postgraduate cohort in both practice-led and scholarly research in electronic literature, text in new media art, and associated areas. The project group convenes conferences and symposia and offers seminars and workshops with visiting international and Australian researchers, artists, and writers in conjunction with the Writing and Society Research Centre and the School of Communication Arts at UWS. Website under development. Contact: Associate Professor Anna Gibbs, University of Western Sydney, Australia: a.gibbs@uws.edu.au
Electronic Literature Organization (ELO)
The ELO is a 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1999 "to facilitate and promote the writing, publishing, and reading of literature in electronic media" and currently based at MIT. Its main initiatives include the Electronic Literature Collection, a DVD and website consisting of representative works of electronic literature; the Electronic Literature Directory, a large web-based collection of electronic literature and associated criticism; the ELO website that provides information about events, job openings, and grants for elit authors and scholars; and a biennial conference and accompanying media art show. It has also worked to retain the accessibility of "threatened and endangered electronic literature" through its project PAD (Preservation, Archiving, and Dissemination).
Website: http://eliterature.org
Contact: Nick Montfort, President, MIT, nickm@nickm.com
ELMCIP
ELMCIP stands for "Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice" and is a 3-year research project that began in 2010 and is funded by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) JRP for Creativity and Innovation. A collaboration among eight European academic and non-academic groups, it focuses on the electronic literature community in Europe, studying it as a model of networked creativity and innovation in practice. In that regard it has developed an international database of "cross-referenced, contextualized information about authors, creative works, critical writing, and practice related to electronic literature." It also offers conferences, symposia and other meetings aimed at furthering research in elit.
Website: http://www.elmcip.net/
Contact: Scott Rettberg, Project Leader, University of Bergen, scott@retts.net
Hermeneia Research Group
Founded in 1999-2000, Hermeneia is comprised of 23 researchers from European and American universities, including the Universitat de Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Universidad de Granada, American University (Madrid), Universit&eaute; d'Artois (France), University of Essex (U.K),Università degli studi di Bari, Universtiy of Jyväskylä (Finland), Brown University (USA), United States Naval Academy (USA), University of Miami (USA), Universidad Pontificia Javeriana (Colombia) and Faculdade Paulista de Artes (Brazil). It seeks to "offer resources for people interested on Digital Literature and all the transformations that Literature has experienced in the Digital Era including e-learning of Literature."
Website: http://www.hermeneia.net/
Contact: info@hermeneia.net
Turbulence
Turbulence.orgis a project of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.(NRPA), a not-for-profit media arts organization founded in New York in 1981. Directed by Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green, Turbulence (1996-) commissions, exhibits, and archives net art and hybrid networked art. It also showcases the new media field via its two world-renowned blogs, Networked_Performance and Networked_Music_Review. Turbulence work has been exhibited at such venues as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Ars Electronica, the Sundance Film Festival and numerous media arts festivals world-wide.
Website: http://www.turbulence.org/
Contact: turbulence@turbulence.org
Consortia
Consortium for ELectronic Literature (CELL)CELL is an international alliance of universities and academic organizations whose mission is to connect directories of electronic literature for the purpose of promoting elit and making it accessible world-wide. The project was initiated in 2009 by the Electronic Literature Organization under the leadership of Joseph Tabbi and now includes the University of Western Sydney (Anna Gibbs & Maria Angel), ELMCIP (Scott Rettberg); and the University of Siegen (Peter Gendolla & Jörgen Sch&a;umlfer.
Contact: Joseph Tabbi, jtabbi@gmail.com
Websites
Authoring Software
Authoring Software is a resource that began in 2008 with the
Electronic Literature Organization Conference held at Vancouver, WA, and
edited by elit scholar and artist Judy Malloy, that publishes essays and
other works by new media poets and writers. It offers good in-depth
information about software tools and applications for those interested
in authoring electronic literary works.
Website: http://www.narrabase.net/
Contact:
jmalloy@mail.com
Grand Text Auto
Grand Text Auto is referred to as a "group blog about computer
narrative, games, poetry, and art." Founded in 2003 and housed at the
School of Literature, Language, and Culture at Georgia Tech, it was
initially conceptualized as "centralized blog" where that authors Andrew
Stern, Mary Flanagan, Michael Mateas, Nick Montfort, Noah Wardrip-Fruin,
and Scott Rettberg posted information. Since then it has morphed into
an "aggregator" of information about "authorship, design, and
technology, as well as issues of interaction and reception."
Website: http://grandtextauto.org/
Contact:
scott@retts.net
I ♥ E-Poetry
I ♥ E-Poetry is a website created and administered by Puerto Rican scholar,
Leonardo Flores, Associate Professor at the University of Puerto Rico MayagÜez, that
offers reviews of electronic literary works.
Website: http://leonardoflores.net
Contact: Leonardo Flores, http://blogs.uprm.edu/flores/
SFMOMA
Brian Stefans curated series of new Electronic Literature works,
"Third Hand Plays," for the SFMOMA blog July 5, 2011-September 27, 2011.
He commissioned new works from digital artist/writers Jason Nelson, J.R.
Carpenter, David Clark, Erik Loyer, Alan Bigelow, Jhave, Alison Clifford, Christine
Wilks, Benjamin Moreno Ortiz, and Joerg Piringer--a group of artists
from Australia, Canada, England, Mexico, Austria and the United
States.
Website: http://blog.sfmoma.org/tag/third-hand-plays/
Contact: Brian Stefans, http://blog.sfmoma.org/author/bstefans/
Listservs & Communities
empyre: soft-skinned-space
empyre, an Australian community that was founded in 2002 by Melinda
Rackham, offers an excellent listserv for discussing "critical
perspectives on contemporary cross-disciplinary issues, practices and
events in networked media by inviting guests -key new media artists,
curators, theorists, producers and others to participate in thematic
discussions."
Website: http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/
Contact:
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Archives:
http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/
Conferences
Digital Art and Culture (DAC)
DAC is an international, interdisciplinary, digital media conference that was begun in 1998 in Bergen, Norway. Though more recently a biennial conference, it was originally held yearly and was one of the first academic conferences for the field. It had a rigorous approach to peer review and was known for the quality of the papers that it published in conjunction with the conference. It also offered a gallery show of media art in associated with the conference. The last conference took place in 2009 at UC Irvine.
Electronic Literature Organization (ELO)
The ELO conference began in 2002 at UCLA, three years after the founding of the organization. Following its 2006 conference at University of Maryland, College Park, the conference has been held biennially. It has received a strong reputation for both its academic and artistic focus. The 2012 conference will be held at West Virginia University in June.
E-Poetry: An International Digital Poetry Festival
E-Poetry is a biennial event of "performances, exhibitions, artistic presentations of poetics statements, scholarly papers, talks, and celebration of creative, visionary, and imaginative poeisis at the cutting edge of the triumphant spirit of the arts in the digital age." It began at the University of Buffalo in 2001 and is directed by Dr. Loss Pequeño Glazier. The 2011 conference returned to its roots at the University of Buffalo.
Specialty Presses & Publishers
Eastgate Systems
Founded in 1982 by Mark Bernstein, Eastgate Systems is known for pioneering "hypertext technologies" and publishing "serious hypertext, fiction and non-fiction." Along with publishing a catalog of notable works of electronic literature, Eastgate is also known for creating excellent authoring programs like Storyspace and Tinderbox.
Website: http://www.eastgate.com/SpringGun Press
"SpringGun is a registered not-for-profit web-based journal and print press promoting all forms of previously unpublished quality contemporary writing and interdisciplinary digital art."
Editors: Mark Rockswold and Erin CostelloWebsite: http://www.springgunpress.com/