canonization

Astrid Ensslin (University of Alberta), offers a critical examination of concepts relating to canon, preservation, and access. Adopting an essentially critical outlook on canonization as a process of scholarly and social elitization, she argues that material (financial, geographic, and technological) access has always been a discriminating, regulatory factor in canon development, even if we assume a dynamic concept of canon (Ensslin 2007) or a crowdsourcing, emergent approach (Rettberg 2013) that align with contemporary, fast changing technological developments. Ensslin’s paper focuses on the ​Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext ​(​EQRH​), published in two volumes between 1994 and 1995, which has been largely neglected by digital fiction scholarship, mainly because of incompatibility and obsolescence issues. Two of the works contained within this early, e-literary journal are highlighted in Grigar’s presentation. ​EQRH ​offers an interesting case study of a publishing strategy that combined primary material with authors’ own reading notes, thus anticipating the highly accessible preservation efforts made by the ​Pathfinders​ project (Grigar and Moulthrop 2013-2017)

Eastgate’s project did not live up to its own aspirations, arguably due to rapid technological changes and the costly adaptations needed to meet the expectations of today’s digital fiction audiences. Because, currently, a media archaeological approach is required to read and analyze the texts published in ​EQRH​, Ensslin demands a scholarly initiative to collaborate with the publishers on updating the series for web browsers and making it accessible as downloads, to allow for broader scholarly engagement with this important yet inevitably sidelined series of artefacts.

(source: ELO 2018, panel, speech)

An in-depth study on four German mailinglists and its relevancy for canonization processes in net literature.

The first experiments in digital literary forms started as early as the 1960s. From then, up to the mid-90's, was a period that, according to Chris Funkhouser (2007), can be considered as a “laboratory” phase. The rise of the Internet has resulted in the proliferation of creative proposals. The first involves indexing creative works in the form of databases, sometimes giving access to hundreds of works without any hierarchical order. Since 2000, digital literature has been experiencing a new phase, marked by the creation of anthologies. Over the years, the evaluation and selection criteria have proved to be as problematic as they are necessary for these projects. The main issue of this paper is to provide a critical discussion of these criteria.

The first experiments in digital literary forms started as early asthe 1960s. From then, up to the mid-90’s, was a period that,according to Chris Funkhouser (2007), can be considered asa ‘laboratory’ phase. The rise of the Internet has resulted in theproliferation of creative proposals. The first involves indexingcreative works in the form of databases, sometimes giving accessto hundreds of works without any hierarchical order. Since 2000,digital literature has been experiencing a new phase, marked bythe creation of anthologies. Over the years, the evaluation andselection criteria have proved to be as problematic as they arenecessary for these projects. The main issue of this paper is toprovide a critical discussion of these criteria.

I will first compare the corpus of two founding initiatives, i.e. collections1 and 2 edited by the Electronic Literature Association(ELO)1 and the ‘improved sheets’ published online by theCanadian nt2 laboratory2, in order to bring out a list of workscommonly considered as ‘worthy’ by these communities. I willthen put the positions of four important players of this field intoperspective: Bertrand Gervais (director of the nt2 lab), ScottRettberg (co-editor of the first ELO collection and leader of theEuropean ELMCIP project devoted to digital literature3), LauraBorràs (co-editor of the second ELO collection and director ofthe Hermeneia research group4) and Brian Kim Stefans (co-editor of the second ELO collection, and author of various workspresented in the ELO collections and nt2 ‘improved sheets’).In spring 2011, I questioned them about their initiatives and theirselection criteria. In the ‘crossed corpus’ of ELO and nt2 works,I will finally identify these selection criteria through a semiopragmaticmethodology.

Source: author's introduction to article

John Zuern considers the significance of the first volume of ELO's Electronic Literature Collection for the future of electronic arts.

(Source: ebr)