The Electronic Literature Organization was founded in 1999 to foster and promote the reading, writing, teaching, and understanding of literature as it develops and persists in a changing digital environment. A 501c(3) non-profit organization, the ELO includes writers, artists, teachers, scholars, and developers.
(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.
In pursuit of these goals over the long term, the ELO employs the following strategies:
For the near term, resources have been allotted for the following activities:
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.
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:
The ELO showcase, to which new works are continually added, provides a few outstanding examples of electronic literature.
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.
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.
The ELO website is powered by WordPress and uses a theme by Nick Montfort that is based on Joni Mueller’s Zen Minimalist.
Call for Papers and Works: Seminar on Electronic Literature in Europe
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. (more…)
A new book by N. Katherine Hayles: Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary was released today from the University of Notre Dame Press. The publication of the book is a major event for the field of electronic literature. In addition to the printed book, each copy comes with a CD-ROM of The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1. In addition, there is a great website accompanying the book hosted here on the ELO site at newhorizons.eliterature.org that includes syllabi for electronic literature courses, a blog/forum, and an additional online anthology of essays by students and scholars of e-lit. (more…)
The newest edition of Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures is now online. This issue, which focuses on electronic literature, features work from
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. Â 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.
ELO Meetup at the MLA
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. (more…)
Call for Proposals
The Nebraska Digital Workshop
October 5 & 6, 2007
The Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (CDRH) at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) will host the second annual Nebraska Digital Workshop on October 5 & 6, 2007 and seeks proposals for digital presentations by pre-tenure faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and advanced graduate students working in the digital humanities. The goal of the Workshop is to enable the best early career scholars in the field of digital humanities to present their work in a forum where it can be critically evaluated, improved, and showcased. Under the auspices of the Center, the Workshop will bring nationally recognized senior scholars in digital humanities to UNL to participate and work with the selected scholars. Selected scholars will receive full travel reimbursement and an honorarium for presenting their work at the Nebraska Digital Workshop.
Selection criteria include: significance in primary disciplinary field, technical innovation, theoretical and methodological sophistication, and creativity of approach.
Please send proposed workshop abstract, curriculum vitae, and a representative sample of digital work via a URL or disk on or before May 1, 2007 to: Katherine L. Walter, Co-Director, UNL Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, at kwalter1@unl.edu or 319 Love Library, UNL, Lincoln, NE 68588-4100. For further details, please see the Center’s website.
The most important International Festival of Digital Poetry
Every two years, the E-Poetry series of Digital Poetry Festivals constitutes the most important digital literary gathering in the field. Authors and researchers worldwide meet and present their ideas and works. E-Poetry plays an essential role in the emergence of this new literary field, and provides a forum for the circulation of the ideas and the debates that animate it.
The festival has two facets: a university symposium and numerous artistic presentations.
The symposium will take place at the Université Paris VIII. It will permit researchers to present their latest research and for artists to premier their newest works. Symposium papers will be published by Hermès Science Publications.
Artistic events will take place at key Parisian venues, providing notable authors the opportunity to present their works to a public curious about new literary and artistic trends employing technology and communication.
E-poetry 2007 is organized by:
Opening Sunday, May 20. 2007.
Symposium and evening events: from Monday, May 21 to Wednesday, May 23, 2007.
The symposium will take place at the Université de Paris VIII (Saint-Denis), artistic works at le Cube and at Point Ephémère.
Organizers: Loss Pequeño Glazier, Philippe Bootz, Patrick-Henri Burgaud, Jean Clément, Alexandre Gherban
Information regarding the Symposium: philippe.bootz (at) univ-paris8.fr
Information regarding Works: pburgaud (at) laposte.net
Links:
