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CFP: ELO 2023 Coimbra (Extended Jan 31; July 12-15, 2023)

ELECTRONIC LITERATURE ORGANIZATION 2023 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE AND MEDIA ARTS SHOW

OVERCOMING DIVIDES: ELECTRONIC LITERATURE AND SOCIAL CHANGE

JULY 12-15, 2023 – COIMBRA, PORTUGAL

Deadline January 31

(CFP: updated January 20, 2023)

Join us this summer for four days of digital art and scholarship at the ELO 2023 Conference and Media Arts Show in beautiful Coimbra, Portugal, the 12th to the 15th of July.

The 2023 conference, “Overcoming Divides: Electronic Literature and Social Change,” advocates the dismantlement of economic, political, linguistic, and cultural barriers, focusing on the relation between art and society, as well as on the subversive potential of electronic literature.

Art and literature compulsively respond to undergoing socio-political transformations. Whether overtly committed to social causes or inevitably engulfed by waves of change, writers and artists are influenced by dramatic shifts motivated by local or global issues such as climate change, economic crisis, military conflicts, and repressive or coercive government policies. The field of electronic literature, whose continuous reconfiguration is deeply intertwined with technological advancements, is no exception to this pattern. Equipped with the pervasiveness of network technology, as well as with software that can analyze and portray reality with the utmost detail, electronic literature is harnessed with adequate tools to voice environmental and social concerns and to expose oppressive and corrupt regimes. Highly experimental and focused on an introspective journey that aims to explore the creative amplitude of emerging technologies, electronic literature’s self-reflexive nature is also frequently mobilized to defy normative perspectives over literature and art, as well as to challenge deep-rooted cultural misconceptions.

During this conference, we aim to explore how electronic literature uses its critical media approach, as well as its close affinity with computation, to assume a socially engaged stance. In a time when walls are being raised once again, this conference examines electronic literature’s role in the dismantlement of new and old barriers between people.

ELO23 will be held in a national monument (Convento São Francisco), overlooking the University of Coimbra as well as Coimbra’s Uptown and Downtown areas, both designated World Heritage by UNESCO in 2013. Challenging the social asymmetry represented by the uptown/downtown divide, ELO23 will be extended from the university to the entire city center. Performances will be opened to the public, and exhibitions will take place at different locations in the city, thus integrating ELO Conference into Coimbra’s rich cultural life. Remote (online) participation will be limited to the scholarly dimension of the conference.

We welcome scholarly and artistic proposals that explore a connection between electronic literature and the following themes, among others:

  • the role of literature in social change;
  • collaborative platforms and activist software;
  • digital humanities and memory preservation (archive);
  • environmental damage caused by digital technologies;
  • the impact of climate change;
  • language barriers, translation and linguistic diversity;
  • disabilities and accessibility;
  • mental health, trauma and cognitive diversity;
  • social and economic inequality;
  • digital literacy and societal transformation;
  • gender divide and identity diversity;
  • migrations and border enforcement;
  • hybridity, recombination and multilinearity as aesthetics of subversion;
  • documentary forms and nonfiction narrative.

Organizers
Electronic Literature Organization (ELO)
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra (FLUC)

Partners and Sponsors
Center for Portuguese Literature (CLP)
Instituto de Comunicação da NOVA (ICNOVA), Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Programa de Doutoramento em Materialidades da Literatura, Universidade de Coimbra
Universidade Fernando Pessoa (UFP)
Câmara Municipal de Coimbra
Exploratório – Centro Ciência Viva de Coimbra
Museu da Ciência da Universidade de Coimbra
Berkeley Center for New Media

How to submit your proposals

How to submit your proposals

All proposals will undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review process. Please read the instructions carefully. You may submit only one proposal for each mode of participation (paper/panel; workshop; artwork; performance).

ACADEMIC PRESENTATIONS: PANELS AND PAPERS

We welcome submissions for stand-alone papers as well as organized panels. Individual submissions for stand-alone papers should include an abstract (250-350 words), as well as a short list of references (4-6 main works). Individual papers will be presented as part of conference organized panels. Each presentation will be 15 minutes long, followed by a 20-minute Q&A. Please specify in your submission if this presentation will be in person or online.

Three or four-person panels should include a brief overview of the panel’s rationale (100-150 words), as well as individual abstracts of each presentation: abstracts (250-350 words), including a short list of references (4-6 main works). Panels will have a total presentation time of one hour, and should allow for a 20 minute Q&A section. Please specify in your submission whether this panel will be in person or fully online. Hybrid panels will not be supported.

Please submit via Easy Chair <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=elo2023> by January 31, 2023, 11:59pm EST. While proposals should be in English, panels can be presented in other languages. Note that no translation services will be offered. In case of acceptance, abstracts will be included in the program and proceedings.

Participants will be notified of acceptance by February 20, 2023.

WORKSHOPS 

We welcome submissions for hands-on and participatory workshops. Proposals should include a 250-350 word abstract (as well as a short list of references if applicable; 4-6 main works). Please specify in your proposal the structure of the workshop, any tangible outcomes (if any), pedagogical goals, expectations from participants, requirements for participants (previous knowledge, technical expertise, devices needed, etc.). Make sure you describe any technical requirements for your workshop’s implementation at the conference.

All workshops will have an allocated time of 2 hours. Please specify in your submission if this workshop will be in person or online.

Please submit via Easy Chair <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=elo2023> by January 31, 2023, by 11:59pm EST. While proposals should be in English, workshops can be presented in other languages. Note that no translation services will be offered. In case of acceptance, abstracts will be included in the program and proceedings. 

Participants will be notified of acceptance by February 20, 2023.

ARTWORK: EXHIBITION OF DIGITAL WORK
We welcome submissions for two different public exhibitions addressing (1) environmental issues and (2) social issues, i.e., repression, inequality, and segregation.

Please send proposals including an artist statement (250-350 words) detailing the aesthetic intentions, the structure of the piece, and its relationship to the conference and chosen exhibition theme (Exhibition 1 or Exhibition 2). In addition, provide documentation of the work (URLs), author name(s), biographical note(s), and specific technical requirements for display at the exhibition venue.

Please submit via Easy Chair <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=elo2023> by January 31, 2023, 11:59pm EST. Proposals should be in English, but displayed work can be in other languages. In case of acceptance, artist statements will be included in the program and proceedings.

Artists will be notified of acceptance by February 20, 2023.

PERFORMANCES

ELO23 will host two nights of performances open to conference participants and the general public. We welcome performance proposals addressing the conference’s main theme of electronic literature and social change.

Please submit proposals including an artist statement (250-350 words) detailing the aesthetic intentions, the structure of the piece, and its relationship to the conference theme. In addition, provide the author name(s), biographical note(s), and a description (250 words max.) of the nature of the performance, as well as any technical requirements.

Please submit via Easy Chair <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=elo2023> by January 31, 2023, 11:59pm EST. Proposals should be in English, but performances can be in other languages. In case of acceptance, artist statements will be included in the program and proceedings.

Performers will be notified of acceptance by February 20, 2023.

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As with any ELO event, ELO23 will follow the organization’s code of conduct. We are committed to providing an inclusive, equitable, and harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, age, race, class, religion, or linguistic and cultural background. For more information, please refer to https://eliterature.org/about/code–of–conduct/

Chairs

Daniela Côrtes Maduro (Universidade de Coimbra)
Manuel Portela (Universidade de Coimbra)
Alex Saum-Pascual (University of California, Berkeley)
Rui Torres (Universidade Fernando Pessoa)

Feel free to contact us: eloconference2023@gmail.com.

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ELO Presidency Transition from Flores to Fisher

President Caitlin FisherAt the ELO 2022 Conference, we announced the leadership transition from Leonardo Flores to Caitlin Fisher, as Flores completed his three-year term. Fisher, who had previously served as Treasurer and Vice President, assumed office on July 1. Along with that change, Rui Torres took on the role of Treasurer, and Mark Sample, the role of Secretary. Anastasia Salter continues in her role as Vice President.

The Director of both the Immersive Storytelling Lab and the Augmented Reality Lab at York University in Toronto, where she is also Professor and Chair of the Department of Cinema and Media Arts, Fisher has long been a member of the ELO Board and an active member of our digital literary community. She most recently assisted as International Coordinator for the ELO 2021 conference. A foundational member of ELO, her work was first celebrated in 2001, when she won the Electronic Literature Organization’s Award for Fiction for ‘These Waves of Girls.’

Fisher’s Presidency marks the first time the institutional home of the Electronic Literature Organization will move outside of the United States: “bringing the ELO to York University – a large, urban, innovative and incredibly diverse university – represents an exciting opportunity for both organizations” she said. During her talk at the Como conference, Fisher expressed her optimism for ELO as she takes us into this next era. She also thanked Flores and the rest of the Board for their service to the community.

ELO has an all-volunteer board with members serving renewable 3-year terms. See a complete list of the current Board of Directors here.

Caitlin Fisher Bio:
Caitlin Fisher directs both the Immersive Storytelling Lab and the Augmented Reality Lab at York University in Toronto where she held the Canada Research Chair in Digital Culture for over a decade. A co-founder of York’s Future Cinema Lab and a former Fulbright Research Chair, Fisher is the recipient of many international awards for digital storytelling including the Electronic Literature Award for Fiction and the Vinaròs Prize for her AR poetry. She also serves on the international Board of Directors for HASTAC – the Humanities Arts Science Technology Alliance and Collaboratory. She is currently working on an AI Storytelling project funded through the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and recently completed a SSHRC project exploring souveillance, Humanistic Intelligence and phenomenological AR for next-generation headsets. She is also co-PI on a New Frontiers grant investigating “Immersive digital environments and indigenous knowledges: co-creation in virtual reality environments to advance artmaking, digital poetics and reconciliation.” She recently directed Fiery Sparks of Light, a volumetric AR project featuring iconic Canadian women poets (Atwood, Brossard, Tolmie, Lubrin). Produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada, ‘Fiery Sparks of Light’ is a CFC Media Lab and York University Immersive Storytelling Lab Co-Production in Partnership with Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry.

About York University: “York is a leading international teaching and research university and a driving force for positive change, empowered by a welcoming and diverse community with a uniquely global perspective.”

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Extended Deadline for ELO 2022 Papers

Attention, all ELO 2022 participants with accepted papers:

The full paper submission deadline has been extended to May 2, 2022.

The ELO 2022 Conference accepts both abstracts and full papers. If you input just an abstract in the online form, you will be able to present your work at the Conference, and we will include the abstract in the Conference Guide.

If you also  upload the full paper, we will be glad to include it in the Conference Proceedings.

Use this form: https://forms.gle/tzDDMtiFZaWEWeq99

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Call for Nominations: ELO Awards

The Electronic Literature Organization is proud to offer the following three prestigious awards:

  • The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature,
  • The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature, and
  • The Marjorie C. Luesebrink Career Achievement Award.
2022 nominations are currently open through 3/21/2022 Extended to 3/28/2022, and you are welcome to self-nominate for the Robert Coover and N. Katherine Hayles awards. Submit your nomination here.

Winners will be announced online and in-person at ELO 2022 in Como, Italy!

The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature is an award given for the best work of electronic literature of any length or genre. Bestowed by the Electronic Literature Organization and funded through a generous donation from supporters and members of the ELO, this annual prize aims to recognize creative excellence. The Prize for 1st Place comes with a $1000 award, with a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level. One prize for Honorable Mention is awarded and consists of a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level.

Judges:
Deena Larsen
Madison McCartha
Illya Szilak

The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature is an award given for the best work of criticism, of any length, on the topic of electronic literature. Bestowed by the Electronic Literature Organization and funded through a generous donation from N. Katherine Hayles and others, this annual prize recognizes excellence in the field. The Prize for 1st Place comes with a $1000 award, with a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level. One prize for Honorable Mention is awarded and consists of a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level.

Judges:
Sarah Laiola
Viola Lasmana
Marisa Parham

The Marjorie C. Luesebrink Career Achievement Award honors a visionary artist and/or scholar who has brought excellence to the field of electronic literature and has inspired others to help create and build the field. Bestowed by the Electronic Literature Organization and funded through a generous donation, it comes with a $1000 award that can go directly to the awardee or to a young scholar who would use the funds in support of developing content for online sources about the awardee’s achievements; a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement; and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level.

Judges:
Angélica Huízar
Jessica Pressman
Jody Zellen

For more information about the Awards, contact Erik Loyer, ELO Board Member and 2022 Awards Manager, at eloyer at eliterature.org.

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CFP: ELO 2022 Special Call: Mentoring Exhibition (March 15)

“Show me how to do this”
Learning E-lit by Making Together

CFP: ELO 2022 Special Call: Mentoring Exhibition
Deadline March 15, 2022
Extended to April 1, 2022
Online Exhibition: June 2022
Curated by María Goicoechea and Mark Marino
Submission form:

Call for Works

The making of electronic literature is an artisanal practice, born of community practices of sharing. While some artists find their own way into the rabbit holes of e-lit, most follow a guide or teacher, learning as a sorcerer’s apprentice.  Whether this happens in a formal setting, like a classroom, or in an informal context, like a rainy day passtime for a family, the time spent sharing the forms and tools of electronic literature as well as techniques for making e-lit is crucial to bring new artists into the field and new works into being. In that way, the process is very much like teaching other forms of craft, like sewing, or even cooking, which has in turn inspired e-lit, such as the field of gastropoetics.  

For this exhibition, we seek works that have emerged out of such tutelage and collaboration, where a mentor, teacher, or parent has introduced one or more new artists to the field by making a work of electronic literature with them.  

Works will be exhibited in an online exhibition as part of the ELO 2022 hybrid conference.  We will also plan an online launch either during or before the conference.  

Given the pedagogical emphasis of #ELOitalia and the setting of the in-person conference in a K-12 school, any  works aimed at or appropriate for younger audiences are especially welcomed. This exhibit will have a special section for works aimed at middle grade and young adult audiences. 

We are calling for all genre of works, including:

interactive fiction, poetry generators, hypertext, Third Generation E-Lit (including works on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok), VR/AR/XR, et cetera.

Note: Works already submitted to ELO 2022 that fit the exhibition criteria will be considered. If you submit a work that you have already submitted to the conference, just indicate that in your application. 

Various details: 

At least the submitting author (or mentor) will be required to have a current ELO Membership (minimal unaffiliated member $25) to have their work exhibited. That membership fee does not include ELO 2022 registration.  

By March 15 April 1, use this form to send us:

Form:
Title
Author (submitting)
Author email addresses.
Additional authors:
Additional email addresses
Credits/Roles.
Video: (short demo video, under 1 minute) (opt)
Link:
1-sentence description
Age of audience
email
Description of the work
Description of the context of the collaboration (200-400 words)
Type of work: Twitterbot, Twine Fiction, VR. etc.
Has this work already been Submitted to ELO 2022: Y/N
(You may submit the same work. This question is just to guide our tracking with EasyChair)
Bio-of-contributors
Language
Platform
Web-ready Images of the work
Link to the work
Any video documentation of the work.

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ELO Welcomes 3 New Board Members

ELO is pleased to announce the addition of three new members to its Board of Directors: Lai-Tze Fan, Erika Fülöp, and Reham Hosny.  These top scholars and artists extend ELO’s global representation as they reside in Canada, England, and Egypt, respectively.

ELO President Leonardo Flores welcomed the new members, saying, “We had a great community response to our first-ever open Call for Nominations resulting in a wonderful lineup of dedicated scholars and artists in the field. After much deliberation and keeping in mind our goal of continuing to diversify the Board of Directors, we chose three great scholars who will bring new energy and perspectives to our governing body. I am looking forward to collaborating with our new Directors! And huge thanks to all who put their names forth or accepted nominations. We will seek opportunities to get you involved in our projects!”

ELO has an all-volunteer board of members who serve renewable three-year terms. These new directors, for the first time, were drawn from a set of nominations from ELO’s members.  The organization continues to work to make this process more inclusive and transparent and is very pleased with the results.

Meet the new Board Members:

Lai-Tze Fan

Lai-Tze Fan

Dr. Lai-Tze Fan is an Assistant Professor of Technology and Social Change in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Fan is an interdisciplinary researcher who combines the fields of media studies, science and technology studies, digital storytelling, critical design, and cultural studies. Her research appears in the journals Mosaic, Convergence, Media Theory, and elsewhere.

Fan is also a practitioner of art installations, digital textuality and writing, interactive games, and critical making, with 15 solo and collaborative works of research-creation. With Nick Montfort, she created “Dial” (2020), a generative emoji-embedded poem representing networked, distant communication. With Anne Sullivan and Anastasia Salter, she created Masked Making (2021), a generative work that captures both the imagined making and fragments of text that represent the invisible faces, hands, and labour of women’s mask making during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also of note are video games for children’s health research that Fan helped design with the international Breathing Games Commons, as well as a smart phone application called Global Urban Wilds (2021) that she helped develop for the city of Montréal.

Fan currently serves as an Editor and the Director of Communications for the open-access journal electronic book review and Editor of the multimodal journal the digital review. She edited a special double issue of both journals called “Critical Making, Critical Design” (September 2021), which was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. She also co-edited a special journal issue of electronic book review on “Canadian Digital Poetics” (February 2021). She is Co-Editor of the collection Post-Digital: Dialogues and Debates from electronic book review (Bloomsbury 2020).

Erika Fülöp

Erika Fülöp

Erika Fülöp is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at Lancaster University. She previously held a Lectureship at New College, Oxford (2012-13) and an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship at the Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology at the University of Hamburg (2013-15). Since her doctoral thesis and first monograph on Proust and philosophy titled Proust, the One, and the Many: Identity and Difference in À la recherche du temps perdu (Oxford: Legenda, 2012), she has been exploring increasingly recent and increasingly diverse modes of writing and authorship that question and expand the concept of writing and literature, including interferences between print books and networked writing, the impact of social networks on authorship, video writing on YouTube, and digital poetry and its translation. She has run several projects and conferences around these subjects, including Screening the Literary (2016-17) and The Creative Web of Languages (2017-19). In 2020 she completed a monograph co-authored with Gilles Bonnet and Gaëlle Théval on French creative literary experimentation on YouTube (‘Qu’est-ce aue la LittéraTube?’), and in 2021, adventured into learning to code & co. thanks to an EPSRC grant in order to carry out truly interdisciplinary research and analyses of electronic literature. You can find her research and learning diary here.

Reham Hosny

Reham Hosny

Dr. Reham Hosny is an Assistant Professor in English literature at Minia University, Egypt and previously, she was a Lecturer at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on creating links between the well-established western electronic literature communities and the growing digital culture innovators of other underrepresented communities. She is particularly interested in investigating the cultural, social, and political contexts of Arabic and Anglo-American electronic literature. Additionally, she is a creative writer. She is directing arabicelit, the first initiative focusing on globalizing Arabic electronic literature in the English language. She is an international consultant for the Electronic Literature Organization’s ELC4. She was also a co-organizer of the first international conference on Arabic electronic literature at RIT-Dubai, Feb. 25-27, 2018. She initiated and co-delivered the first electronic literature workshop in the Arab World and co-curated the first electronic literature exhibit in the Arab World at RIT-Dubai in 2018. She initiated the first autobiographical collection of Arab electronic literature authors on the ELMCIP knowledge base in 2015. She spent two years as a visiting scholar at College of Liberal Arts at RIT-New York and West Virginia University. She is an invited speaker in many international conferences, workshops, and symposiums at different places around the world such as the USA, the UAE, the KSA, Canada, Scotland, Norway, Egypt, Jordan, and the UK. She is a member of different international research networks such as the Intersections, Feminism, Technology & Digital Humanities network (IFTe) funded by UKRI-AHRC and the Irish Research Council. She is also a member of the Global AI Narrative (GAIN) network in the MENA region. Besides her scientific achievements, she received the Ihsan Abdel Quddous Literary Prize for short story writing for her short story collection Amma Ba’d (and thereafter) (2012). She also wrote Al-Barrah (The Announcer), the first Arabic artificial intelligence novel, in collaboration with Mohamed A. Nasef (2019, 2021). For more information, you can visit her personal website.

Leaving the Board

After years of service, a few Board members have also stepped down, including Helen Burgess, Serge Bouchardon, Stuart Moulthrop. We thank them for their service and their generous contributions of their time and talent.

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ELO Welcomes 2021-2022 Fellows

ELO is happy to announce the 2021-2022 ELO Fellows.

Hannah Ackermans, University of Bergen, Norway
Laura Sánchez Gómez, Faculty of Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid
Alexandra Martin, Université du Québec à Montréal
Shanmuga Priya, Department of History, Lancaster University, UK
Zahra Rizvi, Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia

The ELO Fellows program is aimed to expand our scholarly activity, and our curatorial and creative practices with the appointment of six graduate and early career fellows. Extending our community, the fellows are also advancing our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion efforts. The Fellows program is overseen by Joseph Tabbi, who was assisted by Anna Nacher, Erik Loyer, and María Mencía on the selection committee.

The ELO Fellows are fivegraduate and early career Research Fellows for the academic year 2021/22, each of whom have been awarded a $500 stipend along with a one year ELO membership. Fellows help contribute to various ELO projects, including the Electronic Literature Directory and its alliances with partner organizations such as ELO.

“We are excited to welcome this excellent group who will support ELO’s efforts to promote scholarly and creative work in electronic literature while working to create an inclusive and welcoming community,” said President Leonardo Flores, announcing the Fellows. “The Fellows enrich our community and help us realize our plans to promote and celebrate electronic literature.”

Presenting the 2021-22 ELO Fellows:

Hannah Ackermans

Hannah Ackermans

As a PhD candidate in digital culture at the University of Bergen (Norway), Hannah Ackermans researches the digital practices in the (academic) field of electronic literature. In addition to their research and teaching record in electronic literature and digital humanities, Ackermans was co-director of the Digital Humanities Network at the University of Bergen throughout 2019 and is a member of the ELMCIP Knowledge Base editorial board. Their current research interest is the digital accessibility of electronic literature and this will be the focus of their work as an ELO Research Fellow.

Laura Sánchez Gómez

Laura Sanches Gomez

Laura Sánchez Gómez currently teaches Didactics of Literature and Digital Humanities at University Complutense of Madrid and Nebrija University. She has a PhD in Literary Studies at Complutense University of Madrid with a thesis about electronic creation and the relationship between literature and art. She is member of the interdisciplinary Research Group LEETHI (European and Spanish Literatures from Texts to Hypermedia), and co-founder of CIBERIA, a platform about Spanish Language Electronic Literature. She has worked on different interdisciplinary cultural management projects at the Cervantes Institute, such as the exhibitions Return to Max Aub or Quijotes around the world; and she is co-curator of the exhibition Lorem BITsum: Electronic Literature, in Matadero de Madrid (2018). Her research focus is based on an interdisciplinary perspective focus in the changes brought by digital transformation in literature, arts and education.

Alexandra Martin

Alexandra Martin

Alexandra L Martin (she/her) is a researcher and doctoral student specializing in digital literary arts, living and working in the unceded territory of Tiohtià:ke. Since 2019 she has worked at the Laboratoire NT2 at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where she also collaborates as a curator, notably on the exhibition S’éclipser | Phases of Resilience (2020) for the HTMlles Festival as well as Trans[creation] (2021). Her research centers on digital and organic networks of communities and the question of communal memory. Alexandra employs an ecocritical approach to her research and curatorial work, emphasizing the experiential process of reading or consuming digital art and the transformative power of this process over physical and digital spaces.

Shanmuga Priya

Shanmuga Priya

Shanmuga Priya’s research and teaching interests include an interdisciplinary focus in the areas of digital humanities, digital environmental humanities and digital literature. She is particularly interested in building and applying digital tools and technologies for Humanities research. She completed her Ph.D. at Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India. She was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Lancaster University, UK. She also received Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Toronto, Canada. She has published papers in national and international journals. She is one of interim executive committee members of DHARTI.

Zahra Rizvi

Zahra Rizvi

Zahra Rizvi is Ph.D. scholar at the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, India, and founding-member of the Indian chapter of Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). Her research interests include popular culture and media, young adult participatory spaces, video game studies, and digital humanities. She is currently working on a Media Archaeology project concerning Noha and Majlis E-lit Practices in South Asia. She was recently Ministry of Education-SPARC Fellow in Digital Humanities and Digital Cultures at Michigan State University, where she worked as Project Manager and Research Fellow on the “Digital Apprehensions of Indian Poetics” collaborative project.

 

 

 

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ELO22 Call for Proposals (May 30-June 1)

ELO22 Call for Proposals

Conference: May 30-June 1, 2022
Deadline: January 7, 2022
#ELOitalia
Submit via EasyChair.

The HStudies Research Group of the University of Jyväskylä (Finland), with the University of Nagoya, Graduate School of Humanities (Japan), the Arab Academic Institute of Education/Arab Union for Internet Writers, the Digital Culture Center of Ciudad de México (Mexico), the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Núcleo de Pesquisas em Informática, Literatura e Linguística and the Federal University of São Carlos, Brazilian Digital Literature Observatory (Brazil), the Pontificio Collegio Gallio (Italy) have collaborated to organize the ELO 2022 International Conference and Media Arts Festival.

The theme for ELO 2022 is E2Lit: Education and Electronic Literature. #ELOitalia

We invite artists, researchers, scholars, PhD candidates, experts and practitioners to submit works, papers, case studies, and media artefacts for presentation at the festival and in the different venues of the in-person conference and online workshops and seminars. 

THEME RATIONALE

Our society lives in a moment of complexity, where the exponential emergence of a web-based culture has triggered a different approach in relation to the spaces of communication, relationship, and learning. During the last years, the advent of new personal and wearable devices has favoured the emergence of a new literacy, based on a convergence culture (Jenkins, 2006).

Forms of fiction and literature underwent a process of disembodiment and cross-fertilization during the revolution from the Gutenberg Galaxy — printed paper, mass distribution — to the McLuhan Galaxy — new media, hypertext, collaborative writing — (Castells, 2003). The dimension of literacy has moved from a semiotically-measured geometry (De Saussure, 1916; Hjelmslev, 1969) to a dislocation and a deconstruction of contents and channels that give expression to new products (Derrida, 1974; Landow, 1994; Bolter & Grusin, 1999). The impact of social media on narratology has redefined the meaning of readership and authorship. The author has not only lost their traditional role, but becomes an icon of themself, a collective-minded producer that is self-perceived through the extra-flexed eye of the amniotic network in which they define their narrative experience (De Kerckhove, 2003). 

Literature takes on different roles within the so-called new media. Particularly, digital literature is central to the humanities and to the culture that emerges from the digital environment (Grigar, 2021) and it may play a central role in education too.

Every generation develops blended competencies under the influence of new tools and communication frameworks (Bardi, Ciastellardi, Di Rosario, 2019). For several years now when it comes to storytelling and literature, we have seen cultural references in a continuous process of transformation and redefinition, both because of digital tools available to the public, and because of different emerging channels of dissemination and distribution that are (self)produced in an increasingly massive way. What appears is a different form of understanding and learning, and a new form of education for people at any level and at all ages (not limited, thus, to a scholarly perspective).

This conference seeks to shed light on digital literature according to the epistemological crisis of authorship and the new dimension of participation and relationship offered by both the Web and new media. The conference will offer keynote speeches and talks to examine specific case studies. Moving from the state of the art, the aim is to investigate the interdisciplinary relations in the field of electronic literature, in order to recognize patterns of theories, technologies, and social dimensions of the phenomena to offer a critical toolkit to understand and map out the emerging knowledge and practices created by this field and the multifaceted dimension of education.

Possible topics include but are not limited to the following conference’s tracks:

  • E-lit as Digital Humanities: Digital layers, multifaceted comprehension patterns and critical thought to redefine the e-lit dimension in educative environments.
  • Education beyond the (e)book: The possibilities of participatory culture in educational environments. How can e-lit promote values like democracy, pluralism, participation, diversity and sustainability…
  • Coding education: the use of e-lit to set up essential skills to adapt to the digital age.
  • E-practitioning: Literature and digital practices at crossroads.
  • We are platforms: Rethinking e-lit and its educative role and collaborative practices after the emergence of the pandemic.
  • AIrchive and UXPoetry: E-lit and its preservation between Artificial Intelligence and the need of a new poetic of user experience (UX). 
  • Digital Heterotopies: The possibilities within e-lit to present, criticize and denounce everyday social rhetoric.
  • Education on diversity and sustainability: E-lit as cultural practice to educate about integration, gender respectfulness and global sustainability. 
  • Politics and Policies: Education on e-lit as a framework for civic engagement and civil society.
  • STEAM-punk: The cross-fertilization among STEAM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics) and the different approaches to e-lit culture. 
  • Polysemy and synaesthesia: E-lit forms and works to open a different perspective of meaning and knowledge across multisensorial and plural dimensions of understanding. 
  • Electronic Opificium: The Aesthetics of Tech. Experiments and handcrafted works to revitalize the idea behind literature and its digital possibilities.

Interdisciplinary contributions are especially welcome.

Accepted abstracts will be presented in the parallel sessions of the Conference and full papers will be published in the proceedings of the Conference. The conference organizing committee will provide a selection of the best papers to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Submit via EasyChair.

Conference Talks in COMO (ITALY) & online

Submissions are welcome across the following formats: 

  • Paper (15 min – a presentation of a single paper by one or more authors – 500 words abstract). Paper submissions should be at most 3500 words long.
  • Poster (1- page poster – format A2). 250-word (max) proposal.
  • Panel (90 min – a proposal for a complete panel including 3 or 4 separate papers on the same general topic – 250 word overview plus 250 word individual abstracts).
  • Lightning Talks  (90 min – a proposal for a complete set of lightning talks, including 4-6 participants – 250 word overview plus 50-100 word descriptions of individual  5-7 minute talks).

Submissions should include the title of the submission, the name(s) and affiliation(s) of contributor(s), biographical notes for contributors, and a 500-word abstract.

The ELO22 conference will feature different synchronous and asynchronous venues. Online pre- and post-conference workshops and seminars will be organized in Japan, Israel, Finland, and Brazil.

For the in-person conference talks can be given in English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese.

The deadline for submissions is January 7, 2022. Submissions will be peer-reviewed by the members of the scientific committee.

Submit via EasyChair.

Festival Exhibition in Como (ITALY) & online

We invite proposals of digital artworks and e-lit pieces to be featured as part of the in-person ELO Conference and Art Festival on E2Lit: Education and Electronic Literature.

All forms of electronic literature, multimodal writing, digital art, playful narrative, literary games, hypertext, and screen fiction will be considered. 

Please, be detailed on any special requirements. Submissions should provide the following information: 

Author name(s) and biographical note(s); 500-word artist statement detailing the aesthetic intentions, the structure of the piece, and its relationship to the conference theme. 

If you would like your work to be considered for a performance, please indicate that on the submission with an additional description (250 words max) of the nature of the performance as well as any technical requirements.

Statements should be anonymized for peer review. Technical specification providing exact details of what will be required to facilitate the work’s inclusion in the exhibition. This should include information on the materials, technologies, and spatial requirements necessary, and what the artist will require the gallery to provide. Please, be as detailed as possible regarding physical components and needs, including wireless internet. 

Pieces accepted to either exhibition will need to be delivered (physically or virtually) prior to the exhibit’s opening, and will remain on display after the conference ends before being returned to the artist.  

The deadline for submissions is January 7, 2022.

Please, note, do to time constraints, participants may only appear in the program twice, including combinations of artworks and talks.

Submit via EasyChair.

For more information, contact Giovanna Di Rosario ELO 2022 Chair, e2lit@hstudies.net or giovanna.dirosario@hstudies.net 

Partnerships

Pontificio Collegio Gallio (Italy)

Politecnico di Milano (Italy)

University of Jyväskylä (Finland)

The Arab Academic Institute of Education/Arab Union for Internet Writers

Nagoya University (Japan)

Federal University of São Carlos (Brazil)

Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil)

Digital Culture Center of Ciudad de México (Mexico)

 

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Renew Your Membership TODAY!

Dear members of the ELO community,

The Electronic Literature Organization Board of Directors would like to thank you sincerely for your support of ELO in the past, and we want to invite you to continue that support. The organization and its members have had a tremendously successful year and are working hard to support and foster this momentum throughout 2021 and beyond. We hope that you will take this opportunity to support our ongoing mission by renewing your 2021 membership, and consider donating to our initiatives.

The cost of membership is inexpensive: Student/Unaffiliated Artist membership is $25; Regular/Affiliated, $50; Associate, $100; and Patron $500. To renew, visit http://eliterature.org/membership.

All funds generated go to the many exciting events and initiatives the ELO supports on behalf of e-literature artists and scholars. Here are some of our most prominent projects and events:

  • We had a tremendously successful conference and media art shows online at ELO 2021 in May. You can access the online exhibitions, and conference materials, including videos and papers freely at the conference website: https://conferences.au.dk/elo2021/.

  • The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 4 will be published later this year and will also be available open access.

  • We have relaunched our online archives as The NEXT, which showcases our digital preservation projects, including making Flash works accessible to current and future users.

  • We awarded funding for an initiative titled Emerging Spaces for E-Lit Creations, in which we sponsored the creation of two new publication venues: Filter and (RE)VERB.

  • We supported 8 ELO Fellows, who contributed to many initiatives, such as the Electronic Literature Directory, and including two Amplify Anti Racism Fellows, who helped bring fresh perspectives and artwork to the organization.

  • We also maintain a presence on several social media networks, such as:

You can also make targeted donations to support specific ELO initiatives, and the link to do that is available here: https://eliterature.org/membership/#donate.

Help us invest in our community by renewing your membership today!

And if you have already contributed with your 2021 membership dues, we are grateful for your continued support, and invite you to make a tax deductible donation to support our initiatives. The ELO is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in the United States of America.

Many thanks,

Leo Flores

President

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