diversity

The Electronic Literature Second Tuesday Salon will discuss specific actions and solutions for ensuring that everyone can explore and enjoy electronic literature. Join us for breakout rooms for brainstorm sessions.* Electronic literature writing and reading solutions-- what are the barriers to finding, reading and writing e-lit and how can we address these? Samya Brata Roy moderating*Electronic literature conference solutions--what are the conferences out there, how do we make these more accessible? Maria Mencia moderating*Electronic literature discourse -- what are scholarly issues (curriculum, criticism, etc. that disadvantage specific groups, and how can we address these (e.g., canon, literary value, academia vs. practice, North American-centricity, etc.)? Lai-Tze Fan moderating* Electronic curriculum--how do we infuse and include electronic literature in classrooms and universities? What are the scholarly barriers? Sarah Lozier-Laiola moderating

Note that these conversations will not be recorded, but solutions will be placed in a living Google Doc for further expansion.

(Salon Invitation)

Electronic literature exists at the intersection of the humanities, arts, and STEM: an acronym that itself defines a contested battleground of technical skills. The lack of diversity in STEM has received considerable scrutiny, and computer-related fields particularly suffer from a lack of diversity. Salter notes that this has contributed to the rise of “brogrammer” culture in disciplines with strong computer science components, and with it a rhetorical collision of programming and hypermasculine machismo. Brogrammer culture is self-replicating: in technical disciplines, the association of code with masculinity and men’s only spaces plays a pivotal role in reinforcing the status quo. Given this dramatic under-representation of women in computer science disciplines, the privileging of code-driven and procedural works within the discourse of electronic literature is inherently gendered. The emergence of platforms friendly to non-coders (such as Twine) broadens participation in electronic literature and gaming space, but often such works are treated and labeled differently (and less favorably) from code-driven and procedural works that occupy the same space. Salter argues that electronic literature communities must be aware of the gendered rhetoric and socialization surrounding code, and be vigilant against the tendency to value code (and, by extension, male-coded labor) over content when evaluating works in this form.

(Source: http://kathiiberens.com/)

Electronic poetry encompasses works very different from one another. Talking about electronic poetry as if it were just one creative form seems to be inaccurate. On the other hand the interest to be had in electronic poetry seems to reside exactly in the diversity which electronic poetry has to offer to its reader.
This paper will feature an empirical approach to electronic poetry. The aim of this paper is a two-fold goal. On the one hand it will study the “development” of electronic poetry, and our hypothesis is: the text is disappearing in e-poetry; and on the other it will compare e-poems written in different languages to see if there are differences of style in composing e-poetry.
By comparing some of the e-poems published in the Electronic Literature Collection Vol. 1 and 2 we will try to see if there have been any changes in creating electronic poetry in more than a decade (“Windsound”, by John Cayley was first published in 1999); and if yes how e-poetry has changed and is changing. The two mentioned goals are strictly connected since in the Second Volume of the Electronic Literature Collection 7 languages are represented by works, besides in English and French, in Catalan, Dutch, German, Portuguese and Spanish. Do different cultural backgrounds and literary traditions still affect the creation of a kind of poetry that for its medium seems to be global? And if so, how?
By using the descriptive approach systematic aspects of electronic poetry will be singled out in order to trace the changes in e-poetry. A hermeneutic and analytic work will also be done. Finally, by locating rhetorical figures, new media-figures, emerging aesthetic forms we will try to describe the new text puts forward by e-poetry.

(Source: ELO 2013 Author's abstract)

A reflective essay on the history of Afsnit P, from the beginning, through finding its form as a contemporary electronic culture critical website, towards the end and a new function as archive over added digital content and own development.

In an increasingly monolingual, globalized world, the second volume of theElectronic Literature Collection may just offer a map of the territory. The question the reviewer, John Zuern, poses is how do we navigate this terrain going forward?
(Source: ebr.)

A review of Alan Liu's The Laws of Cool.