Month: September 2006

Particularly promising-sounding jobs for electronic literature authors have just been posted by Georgia Tech (review begins October 15) and UC Davis (review begins November 15).

From the GA Tech announcement:

Georgia Tech’s School of Literature, Communication, and Culture (LCC) is seeking to fill 2-3 positions at the rank of Assistant Professor in the emerging discipline of Digital Media. We seek practitioner/theorists who combine technical expertise with a strong grounding in the arts and humanities. Candidates should be prepared to teach at the undergraduate and graduate level in LCC’s suite of programs in computational and digital media. A Ph.D. or terminal degree in an appropriate field is required, as is computational proficiency and a demonstrated capacity for significant original research/creative work. […]

Interactive Narrative: Practitioner/theorist of computational expression, with an emphasis on procedural approaches to interactive narrative in various media forms such as virtual/mixed reality, games, and interactive television. Specialties could include one or more of the following: interactive fiction, computational story systems, computational poetry, narrative and cognition, story generation, interactive documentary, narrative intelligence, and AI.

Applicants should send a letter with a statement of research interests and pedagogical approach, a CV, one or two pages of screenshots, and/or a pointer to an on-line portfolio. Applications should be addressed to Chair, Search Committee, LCC, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0165.

From the UC Davis announcement:

The Program in Technocultural Studies of the University of California at Davis has a tenure-track or tenured Open-Rank Professor position available for a faculty member with expertise in media arts practice, preferably to teach in both studies and production, starting in Fall 2007. […]

We are looking for a media artist who can take a critical and creative approach to contemporary culture, technology and the arts, and who possesses a history or demonstrated potential for the high standard of achievement appropriate to employment in a tier-one research university in at least two of the following screen-based areas: interactivity, net, animation, programming, or performed media such as live video. Single-channel film/video makers and scholars are encouraged to apply if they also possess accomplishments in one of these areas. An MA or MFA is required; a PhD. is preferred. Teaching at undergraduate or graduate university levels or equivalent professional practice is required; the ability to teach both studies and production courses is preferred.

Please post (no email applications accepted) a letter of application, curriculum vitae, examples of work, by November 15, 2006, to: Associate Professor Bob Ostertag, Search Committee, Chair Digital Arts Position, Program in Technocultural Studies, One Shields Avenue, University of California, Davis CA 95616-8528. Referees will be will be contacted only for those short-listed candidates invited for campus visits: please include names, street addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, of four people from whom letters of reference may be requested. If materials are to be returned, a self-addressed stamped envelope. For further information, phone 530/752-0573 or check website at http://technoculture.ucdavis.edu

Edward Picot has provided a review of Broken Saints, by Brooke Burgess, Andrew West, and Ian Kirby. Broken Saints is an epic 24-part 12-hour-long Flash-animated comic book, which has been visited on the Web by more than five million people, and has sold almost 10,000 copies on DVD. A new DVD version, distributed by Fox, is published this month. The review appears on The Hyperliterature Exchange for August 2006.

Picot says this about Broken Saints: “Senecan tragedy is a useful point of reference for Broken Saints because it shares the same preoccupation with bloody violence, particularly violence within the family. At the end of Broken Saints a deranged father pulls out one of his daughter’s eyes, wires up her brain to the Internet and hangs her on a crucifix made out of computer monitors as part of his attempt to achieve world-domination: a climax so lurid and grotesque that even Seneca might have found it hard to outdo.” To read the whole review, go to http://hyperex.co.uk/reviewbrokensaints.php . The Hyperliterature Exchange is an online directory and review of new media literature for sale on the Web. More than 120 works are now listed. Please visit and browse at http://hyperex.co.uk.