253: A Novel for the Internet about London Underground in Seven Cars and a Crash is a constrained composition depicting how all 253 people on a Tube train appear, what they they really like, and what they are doing or thinking. This early Web novel was published in a print remix in 1998. See the Directory entry for more information about this piece.
MACHINE Reading Series Gears Up for 2006
The MACHINE reading series, which takes place at the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia, on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, has a new Web page. MACHINE is co-sponsored by the Electronic Literature Organization, and the three events in the series so far have featured ELO board members Scott Rettberg, Stephanie Strickland, and Nick Montfort along with several other electronic literature authors: Interactive fiction authors Emily Short, Dan Ravipinto, and Star Foster, and Unknown co-authors William Gillespie and Dirk Stratton. Past events have included Interactive Fiction Walkthroughs and Joint Work, a reading of literary collaborations with digital dimensions.
Two Spring 2006 events are being planned now; information about them will be added to the page and announced on the ELO site as soon as it is available.
The Minotaur Project
The Minotaur Project is a cluster of four poems fused with image, movement and sound. It is part of a hypermedia novel in verse that explores contemporary issues of identity using the framework of classical myth. Minotaur appears as a fragmented persona confined in the computer’s labyrinth. It attempts to understand self and others (specifically Kore, the main character in this verse novel) without that primary means of connection to the sensate world, the body. See the Directory entry for more information about this piece.
Elective Affinities
IAWIS/AIERTI 7th International Conference on Word & Image Studies:
Elective Affinities
Philadelphia, 23-27 September, 2005
[The conference includes four sessions dealing with electronic literature: Words on Screen: Hierarchies of Text and Picture in Cyberculture and VVV-on-line: Verbal-Visual-Vocal Poetries in Hyperspace I, II, and III. ELO directors Matthew G. Kirschenbaum and Nick Montfort will be among those presenting in these sessions.]
The University of Pennsylvania hosts the 7th International Conference on Word & Image Studies. The conference title is borrowed from Goethe’s 1809 novel Elective Affinities. In the novel, the chemical term “elective affinities” extends to human relationships, both intimate and political. Like the alkalis and acids of which Goethe’s characters speak, words and images, though apparently opposed, may have a remarkable affinity for one another. At the same time, as one of the characters in the book objects, such affinities are problematic, and “are only really interesting when they bring about separations.
How words and images represent and whether they enjoy a harmonious kinship, engage in border skirmishes, or seek to annihilate one another, are not merely formal matters. The history of iconoclasm tells us about the ideological stakes of the debate. Contemporary discussions of memorialization seem to demand multi-media expression, and urban inscriptions such as graffiti and mural arts express political positions. New technologies for meshing words and images – such as medical imaging, virtual archives, the Internet – will also be discussed. Themes of the conference are: the arts of the book; early correspondences; political inscriptions; sacred words, sacred images; scientific imaging; spaces, places; photographic texts.
Professors Peter Stallybrass (Penn) and Yve-Alain Bois (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), and author Art Spiegelman will offer keynote lectures.
For more information, details about registration, and a list of speakers, panels, topics, times and locations, please visit: archive of: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/affinities/
Duke Seeks Lit, Film, and Digital Prof
Duke University. The Literature Program announces a position at the Associate or Full Professor level in film, video, and digital studies. The candidate is expected to teach both graduate and undergraduate courses in international film, history of cinema, and film theory. Interests in new media and digital technologies are welcome. The ideal candidate will be able to contribute as well to the full intellectual life of the Literature Program, which emphasizes literature and aesthetics, critical theory, cultural studies and film, video, and digital studies. Position begins on August 1, 2006. Please submit a CV and letter of application as MS word attachments to: Pam Terterian, Administrative Manager, [litadmin@duke.edu]. Use “Faculty Search” as subject line. Applications received by October 15, 2005 will be given full consideration. Duke University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer.
They Come in a Steady Stream Now
Powers’s compelling short story meditates on spam and connects our computer-mediated commuications and experiences with the contents of our memory. This Flash presentation provides the story in a series of email messages, delivered to a simulated inbox. See the Directory entry for more information about this piece.
Immediate Residential Fellowship for a Scholar Impacted by Katrina
PLEASE LINK AND DISTRIBUTE WIDELY.
The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the
University of Maryland, College Park is pleased to be able to offer an
immediate residential fellowship available to any one faculty member
or ABD doctoral candidate at an institution closed by Hurricane
Katrina.
Housed in the campus’s primary research library, MITH is a community
of scholars devoted to the application of new media and digital
technologies to humanities scholarship and teaching. Projects have
typically taken the form of electronic editions, scholarly databases,
or high-end teaching materials. See examples here:
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/research/index.php
While colleges and universities seem to be moving very fast to
accommodate displaced undergraduates, the careers of graduate students
and faculty also have to be protected and tended to. We are therefore
able to offer a scholar his or her personal workspace, the use of our
extensive hardware and software resources, easy access to the
university’s library collections (and a base from which to access the
unparalleled academic and cultural institutions of the DC area
besides), and expert-level consulting about digital scholarship.
While we regret we are unable to offer a stipend, *funding is
available* for temporary relocation and some initial start-up
expenses.
To apply, please send a letter of inquiry describing the project to be
undertaken (either new or continuing research), a CV, and contact
information for three references. Application materials may be sent
electronically to mith@umd.edu or by fax to 301-314-7111 or by post to
Neil Fraistat, Acting Director, MITH, McKeldin Library, University of
Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. Consideration of applications to
begin immediately. Applications from women and minorities and graduate
students and faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities is
encouraged.
Neil Fraistat, Acting Director (301-405-3817)
Matthew Kirschenbaum, Acting Associate Director
Carl Stahmer, Acting Associate Director
ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowships
The ACLS announces the first annual competition for the ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowships, thanks to the generous assistance of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This program invites applications to pursue digitally based research projects in all disciplines of the humanities and humanities-related social sciences. It is hoped that projects of successful applicants will help advance digital humanistic scholarship by broadening understanding of its nature and exemplifying the robust infrastructure necessary for creating further such works.
ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowships are intended to support an academic yeadedicated to work on a major scholarly project that takes a digital form. Projects might include but are not limited to: digital research archives, new media representations of extant data, innovative databases, and digital tools that further humanistic research. ACLS does not support creative works (e.g., novels or films), textbooks, straightforward translations, or purely pedagogical projects. The ACLS will award up to five ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowships in this competition year. Each fellowship carries a stipend of up to $55,000 towards an academic year¹s leave and provides for project costs of up to $25,000.
This year’s successful applicants may take up the fellowship in 2006-2007 or at any time up to September 1, 2007, but candidates must commit themselves firmly to their preferred timeframe on their completed applications.
Amount (for stipends): up to $55,000
Amount (for project costs): up to $25,000
Tenure: one academic year, plus institutional support for an additional
period.
Completed applications must be submitted through the ACLS Online Fellowship Application system (ofa.acls.org) no later than 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, November 10, 2005. Decisions will be announced in late March 2006.
More information: archive of: http://www.acls.org/difguide.htm
Bleeding Through
Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-1986 is a co-production between USC’s Labyrinth Project, Germany’s ZKM (Center for Art And Media), and cultural historian Norman Klein. It poetically explores the history of a small area near downtown Los Angeles — a city often thought to have no history or downtown. Images of the city past and present are superimposed upon each other, archival documents are presented for exploration, and Klein appears in a small video window to tell the story of Molly — a fictional neighbor based on a real person, who may have murdered her husband.
Duchampian Net-Lit
Literaturhaus Stuttgart is sponsoring an unusual net-literature competition. The 1st Bachelors’ Prize for Net-Literature is “aimed at making the sterile bachelors’ machine fertile and is calling for entries in a productive net-literature competition.” The site goes on to say: “In accordance with the nature of the venture, participation is restricted to men.” The winner will receive 2000 euros, and the deadline is September 30th. Only web addresses can be submitted.