Dad of Divas' Reviews: The Electronic Literature Organization Announces the Electronic Literature Directory 2.0

Friday, May 28, 2010

The Electronic Literature Organization Announces the Electronic Literature Directory 2.0

This June, ELO announces the Electronic Literature Directory 2.0, the latest version of its online directory of 21st-century electronic literature, full of novel interactive works, like: http://eld.eliterature.org/node/407

And that's just the beginning....

The Directory will officially launch at Brown University at the fourth International Conference and Festival (
http://ai.eliterature.org), June 3-6, 2010, hosted by professor and poet John Cayley.

"Print books on a Kindle are not electronic literature. E-lit uses computer processing to deliver new forms of story, poetry and drama," says ELO President and University of Illinois professor Joseph Tabbi. "And we're even seeing works that, while they're clearly literary, fit none of those settled genres inherited from print."
The works in the directory run the gamut from the first pieces of e-lit, such as Michael Joyce's "afternoon," to Jhave Johnston's 2009 "human-mind-machine." Authors include novelists, such as Kate Pullinger; poets, such as Stephanie Strickland; and literary scholars, such as N. Katherine Hayles of Duke University. The Directory includes international e-lit authors Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (South Korea) and Jaime Alejandro Rodríguez Ruiz (Colombia).

The latest version of the directory leaves behind the static layout of version one to take up the "Web 2.0" model of collaborative curation through a wiki structure. "However, unlike the just-about-anything-goes format of the Wikipedia, the Directory relies on the review and detailed annotations of an extensive directory review board," says Davin Heckman, who currently coordinates the working group and teaches English at Siena Heights University.

"The Directory is ready to serve you some outstanding 21st-century summer reading or novel novels for your Fall 2010 syllabus," says Heckman.

"Did you really buy that iPad just so you can read Sense and Sensibility? Reading print books on your iPad is like using your e-mail to send Morse Code," says Mark Marino, Director of Communications of ELO and writing professor at the University of Southern California College of Letters, Arts & Sciences.

Although just in its initial stages, the working group has vetted more than 150 works and has as many more in the pipeline of this ever-expanding collection. Along with artistic pieces readers will ultimately find critical essays on electronic literature and venues for publication.

At the June conference entitled "ELO Archive and Innovate," ELO will honor Robert Coover, whose New York Times essays ushered in and out the "golden age" of hypertext. Coover's son Roderick appears in the Directory with his work "Unknown Territories."

This year, ELO will also be publishing the second volume of its Electronic Literature Collection. To view the first volume, go to
http://collection.eliterature.org/1/


More electronic literature is just a click away!

Inanimate Alice: Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph
A multimedia online novel in four episodes set in China, Italy, Russia, and the protagonist's "Hometown," featuring a girl growing up in the 21st century. Reader participation and interactivity increase as the series progresses, reflecting Alice's engagement and influence in her environment as she grows older.
http://eld.eliterature.org/node/514

Roulette: Daniel C. Howe and Bebe Molina
A language game for readers, a single work that can be read in roughly 64,000 ways. The lines of the poem shift every time readers interact with one of the three lines of the poem.
http://eld.eliterature.org/node/511

The Jew's Daughter: Judd Morrissey with Lori Talley

An interactive, non-linear, multivalent narrative. A hypertext, but one that transforms the text (rather than just linking from one stable text to another). As soon as the reader moves the mouse over highlighted keywords (links), segments of a page replace one another fluidly.
http://eld.eliterature.org/node/509

JB Wock: Eugenio Tisselli
JB Wock is a self-described "English-speaking blogmachine" created by poet and programmer Eugenio Tisselli. JB Wock, a PHP script, searches the web for a phrase that it "likes" (from a site that publishes notable quotations), "twists" these phrases by substituting synonyms, and publishes the results daily on its blog (which also includes a comment feature, inviting readers to respond).

slippingglimpse: Stephanie Land and Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo
A 10-part generative Flash poem combining videos of ocean patterns with text.
http://eld.eliterature.org/node/507

Sydney's Syberia: Jason Nelson
A poetic meditation on urban space presented through a Flash-based "infinite zoom" interface, which Nelson has repurposed and re-titled as "infinite click and read."
http://eld.eliterature.org/node/487

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