Beyond English E-lit: International Electronic Literature

[from WRT - Writer Response Theory]

At the ELO’s “Future of Electronic Literature” conference at the University of Maryland a panel was held on international (non-English) works. To facilitate that discussion, the members of that panel developed a wiki, which is now available at WRT:

Wiki of International Electronic Literature

The wiki features scholars, works, and organizations from around the globe that focus on electronic literature. With your help, we plan to develop that list as a resource for other scholars and teachers of electronic literature.

The primary motivation of the panel was to examine the field of electronic literature beyond the English-language realms that so often dominate discussion (and origin-narratives) and to promote (and connect to) international scholarship across language lines to foster a more global network of electronic literary scholarship. Here, I reference pervasive narratives of the origins of electronic literature (from hypertext to IF to chatbots) in English in the United States, even though works from beyond English (from I-Ching to Rayuela) are often cited as inspirations.

ELO Announces New Publications on Electronic Literature

The Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) is pleased to announce two new additions to its series of publications. N. Katherine Hayles’s primer, “Electronic Literature: What Is It?” and Joseph Tabbi’s “Setting a Direction for the Directory: Toward a Semantic Literary Web” are now available on the Electronic Literature Organization’s website.

Regina Célia Pinto’s “Nests & Magic”

“NESTS & MAGIC, some different ways of creating Cyberliterature” at http://arteonline.arq.br/rufus/

The book is a non-linear narrative created using different processes. It was based on “The Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino and on the “Furnarius Rufus Village” by Celeida Tostes (Brazilian artist). English version: Sabrina Gledhill.

Table of Contents:

1) Prologue: Nests & Magic, a magic experience

“I immediately felt that that this wasn’t a coincidence. It couldn’t be. I had found the nest precisely on the day when I was going to visit an exhibition by Cleone, who had studied the art of clay with Celeida, and when I was just getting starting on a new project that was precisely about the Furnarius Rufus Village … I’m absolutely convinced that this was the way Celeida found to communicate with me from the dimension where she now dwells. “

2)- Question: Rufus, how to introduce the modification of the urban space: cities without walls, rumblings and rage?

A text and a “game – machine” with maps of many cities of the world to you “transform” in nest cities.

3)- The 10 Nest Cities, which were built from bird nests. Each nest city has its own text performing in a semiotic way over its map:

“Aestiva is a city that is rebuilt every day in an attempt to untangle its streets. The result is this: the more it is untangled, the more tangled it gets. Aestiva residents always carry a compass in their pockets. And they like it like that because, the more tangled things get, the safer they feel.”

4)- The pdf book : The ten cities, with their ten texts in English and Portuguese simultaneouly, to you download and print.

More at: http://arteonline.arq.br/rufus/