Electronic Literature Organization

The Chronicle of Higher Education has devoted three pieces to the ELO/MITH Open Mic & Mouse event that was held as a kick-off to the Electronic Literature Symposium that was held at the University of Maryland in early May.

Click here for an article covering the event. Below the lead picture, you’ll find a link to the video story. And, on the right-hand side of the screen, under “Related Material,” you’ll see a link for an audio interview with N. Katherine Hayles.

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH POSITION
University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

We are currently recruiting for a Postdoctoral Researcher to join a
new Software Studies initiative at UCSD. The researcher will work
with Dr. Lev Manovich (Professor, Visual Arts) and Dr. Noah
Wardrip-Fruin (Assistant Professor, Communication), playing a key
role in all projects and field-building activities.

The goals of Software Studies initiative at UCSD are:

* to foster research and develop models and tools for the study
of software from the perspectives of cultural criticism, the
humanities, and the social sciences;
* to help establish a new field of “software studies” that will
complement existing research in cyberculture and new media;
* to develop projects that will demonstrate how next generation
cyberinfrastructure can be used by humanists, social scientists, and
cultural practitioners.

For an introduction to “software studies,” see: Software Studies
Workshop, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, February 2006.

POSITION DETAILS

The position is full time (40 hrs/week). The initial appointment is
for 1 year, with the possibility for renewal. The position comes with
full benefits covered by UCSD. The starting salary range is USD 38,000 - 42,000. The selected candidate can start immediately.

Required qualifications:

* a PhD in the humanities, social sciences, information science,
or related interdisciplinary area that has been completed and
defended before starting the position at UCSD;
* broad understanding of contemporary global culture and
familiarity with current debates in one or more cultural fields;
* familiarity with current IT developments; understanding of Web
2.0 concepts and social media optimization;
* the ability to write engaging and jargon-free texts that are
accessible to diverse global audiences.

Desired qualifications:

* experience installing and using research-oriented software
tools (e.g., data mining tools, GIS packages, visualization
technologies, databases, and/or other software used in digital
humanities);
* understanding of programming language and system integration
concepts; practical experience with computer programming or scripting;
* previous experience working with computer scientists on joint projects;
* previous research projects and/or publications which address
software from the perspectives of the humanities, social sciences, or
cultural criticism (for example: the history of software; studies of
software use in the sciences, cultural industries, and other fields;
the analysis of software structures and code).

This position is supported by the UCSD Division of the California
Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2)
and the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA). Housing
over 900 faculty, graduate students, and staff researchers, Calit2 is
developing next-generation cyberinfrastructure tools with a
particular focus on multidisciplinary collaboration.

Calit2 is located on the UCSD campus, which is internationally
renowned as a place for study and research in digital art, computer
music, and digital theory. Between the departments of Visual Arts,
Music, and Communication, there are close to 30 full-time faculty
working in these areas.

The technical facilities and staff support for research in digital
media on the UCSD campus are among the best in the world. They
include a number of state-of-the-art research labs and performance
spaces which provide both current and next-generation tools for
immersive visualization, multi-channel audio spatialization, digital
cinema, motion capture, interactive performance, 3-D fabrication, and
computer gaming research. The UCSD campus also houses the San Diego
Supercomputing Center which provides facilities for petascale
computing, data storage, and visualization.

The position is open until filled, but application review will begin
after June 10th, 2007. For priority consideration, candidates are
encouraged to apply before this date. Applicants should send a
current CV with cover letter to Helena Bristow
with subject line “Application for Software Studies Postdoc Position.”

Manovich and Wardrip-Fruin will be available for preliminary
interviews at the 2007 Digital Humanities conference during the first
week of June, 2007. Please indicate whether you will be attending DH ‘07 in your application.

For further information, please contact:

Helena Bristow
Administrative Director
Center for Research in Computing and the Arts
bristow@ucsd.edu

The Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) is pleased to announce two new additions to its series of publications. N. Katherine Hayles’s primer, “Electronic Literature: What Is It?” and Joseph Tabbi’s “Setting a Direction for the Directory: Toward a Semantic Literary Web” are now available on the Electronic Literature Organization’s website.

N. Katherine Hayles’s “Electronic Literature: What Is It?” establishes a foundation for understanding e-lit in its various forms and differentiates creative e-lit from other types of digital materials. This primer serves the twin purposes of reaching general readers and serving students and institutional audiences by providing descriptions of major characteristics of electronic literature and reflections on the nature of the field. This piece will also appear as the introductory chapter of Hayles’s book Electronic Literature: Playing, Interpreting, and Teaching (coming from Notre Dame Press in fall 2007). The book will also include the CD-ROM of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume One — a compendium of 60 digital works of poetry and prose, published by the ELO in October 2006.

Joseph Tabbi’s “Toward a Semantic Literary Web: Setting a Direction for the Directory” outlines and analyzes the critical issues relating to the description and classification of e-lit. Tabbi describes an approach that will allow the ELO Directory and other digital resources to be more useful, maintainable, transparent, and integrated with evolving technologies. The work organizes the terms of the problem into a call for an overall strategy of editorial and community-driven discourse about e-lit that will also be dependent on metadata solutions that are convergent with those described and implemented in other ELO publications.
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