The Electronic Literature Research Group at the University of Bergen department of Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic studies welcomes you to attend two special events celebrating the launch of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 2.

The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 2 is an international anthology of more than 60 works of electronic literature published under a Creative Commons license online and on DVD. The publication of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1 in 2006 had a significant impact on the field of electronic literature, giving readers and educators working in the field a common set of referents in the form of a diverse collection of literary works made for digital media. Volume 2, just published, offers new digital poetry, hypertext fiction, interactive fiction, multimedia documentaries, and a variety of other forms of electronic literature.

The University of Bergen program in Digital Culture was one of the sponsors of the publication of the ELC 2 and will make use of it in courses in years to come.

In celebration of this publishing event, two events are planned on Monday, May 2, 2011 in cooperation with the Bergen Public Library and Vagant.

14:00-16:00 Bergen Public Library, Auditorium
Presentation of the ELC 2: Talan Memmott and Rita Raley, Editors
The editors will present the collection and briefly highlight a variety of works of electronic literature in the collection.

Editing Electronic Literature, a Roundtable Discussion
Editors of the ELC 2 (Talan Memmott and Rita Raley) and the ELC 1 (Scott Rettberg and Stephanie Strickland) will discuss the process of selecting and contextualizing works for the two anthologies, preparing the two online and disc editions, and distributing the collections to international audiences. Discussion will be led by Andrew Roberts, Professor of English at the University of Dundee and leader of the Poetry Beyond Text project.

19:30-21:30 Bergen Public Library, Auditorium
Reading of works from the ELC 1 and 2
Featuring readings and performances from

• Lexia to Perplexia by Talan Memmott (ELC 1)
• slippingglimpse by Stephanie Strickland, Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo, and Paul Ryan (ELC 2)
• V: Vniverse by Stephanie Strickland and Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo (ELC 2)
• Letter to Linus by William Gillespie (ELC 2)
• The Unknown by William Gillespie, Frank Marquardt, Scott Rettberg, and Dirk Stratton (ELC 2)

Q/A led by Audun Lindholm, editor of Vagant: Journal of Literature and Criticism.

This event is sponsored by the Bergen Public Library, the University of Bergen Electronic Literature Research Group, ELMCIP: Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice, the Electronic Literature Organization, the Fulbright Foundation, the University of Bergen (Småforskmidler), and Vagant.

FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR/LECTURER IN DIGITAL CULTURE

http://catalog.cies.org/viewAward.aspx?n=1543

For the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 years (or any single semester within that time frame), a Fulbright scholar position will be available at the University of Bergen. The scholar will take part in the teaching and reseach activities of the Digital Culture program and Digital Culture research group in the Department of Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic Studies at the University of Bergen. The scholar will be expected to teach three courses in digital culture and digital media aestheics over the course of the year (1.5 courses if a single semester) and to evaluate student work. This is equivalent to a 2/1 teaching load in the American system. Courses will run 13 teaching weeks, with two two-hour meetings per week. Courses will be lecture and seminar. Depending on needs and expertise, courses the scholar might teach include DIKULT103: Digital Genres: Digital Art, Electronic Literature and Computer Games; DIKULT105: Web Design; DIKULT203: Electronic Literature; DIKULT251: Critical Perspectives on Information Technologies and Society; DIKULT303: Digital Media Aesthetics; or DIKULT304: Graduate Seminar: Topics in Digital Culture. The scholar will also be expected to participate in and contribute to the biweekly meetings of the Digital Culture research group and to give one public lecture on a central topic of his/her research.

Fulbright scholarships are available to USA citizens residing in the USA. The position is open to a PhD with at least two years teaching experience, though candidates with another terminal degree in a relevant field, such an MFA in digital writing or an MLIS with a concentration in digital humanities, might also be considered.

Contact Scott Rettberg via the address on the catalog listing for further information. The application deadline for 2011-2012 August 1, 2010. A letter of invitation is recommended.

POSTDOC IN ELECTRONIC LITERATURE BIBLIOGRAPHY

At the Department of Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic studies there is a vacant position as postdoctoral fellow in digital culture, for a period of 20 months. The position is financed by Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA), as part of the project “Developing a Network-Based Creative Community: Electronic Literature as Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice” (ELMCIP — http://elmcip.net).

A postdoctoral position is a temporary appointment. The term of employment for this position is 20 months, beginning in Fall 2010. It is not possible for any person to work under more than one temporary appointment for the same institution.

The position entails 75% work on the ELMCIP project and 25% independent research related to the indexing, archiving, and dissemination of born-digital literature. Work on ELMCIP will include the development of an online bibliography of works and contextual information about twentieth century and contemporary electronic literature. Working with researchers in the digital culture group, the postdoctoral fellow will have primary responsibility for developing the standards and information architecture of the knowledge base, for writing and contributing records to the database, and for editing and preparing materials contributed by other researchers.

Applicants must have achieved a Norwegian doctorate or equivalent education abroad, or have presented the dissertation for assessment by the closing date for applications. It is a prerequisite that the dissertation has been approved before appointment is granted.

Additional information about the position is available by contacting:

Scott Rettberg, Associate Professor of Digital Culture
(+47) 555 82264/ (scott dot rettberg at uib dot no)

Tentative salary info: Initial salaries at grade 57 (code 1352/pay framework 24.1) in the Civil Service pay grade table; currently NOK 438,700 per year, about 51000 EUR/year; following ordinary meriting regulations (wage range 57-64). In the case of particularly highly qualified applicants a higher salary may be considered.

This position will be advertised on jobbnorge.no. The deadline for applications is June 7, 2010.

1) Email at implementationphotos at gmail dot com with your postal mailing address, and we will send you an installment of stickers from the novel.

2) Choose interesting places to put the stickers up in public environments and stick them there.

3) Photograph the sticker, attempting to get photos of the sticker both at a close/legible view and from some distance, showing the placement of the sticker in its environment.

3) Standard or high photo resolution on most contemporary digital cameras will work for this — we are trying to get photos that would be of suitable resolution for the book project.

4) Send the photographs to implementationphotos at gmail dot com — in the subject of the email include the location (City, State/Region, Country – you can be more specific if you like) where the photograph was taken and the installment number, which will be indicated on the back of the sticker sheets. Please also indicate if you would like the photo to be attributed to you, or if you would prefer to remain anonymous.

For the purposes of the book project, photos received over the course of the next month (returned before 15 January 2009) will be most useful. By submitting the photos, you agree to grant us the rights to use the photos for the book project and online versions of the project.

Gmail takes up to 25MB attachments per email message.

If you enjoy the experience and would like to put up more stickers, let us know and we will send you another installment.

Happy implementing!

• Social Networks and Networked Cultural Practices
• The Evolving Cultural Landscape of Electronic Literature
• Remix Culture, Machinima, and Mash-ups
• Interdisciplinary Approaches to Producing Interactive Audiovisual Art Forms
• Collective Narratives Online, and
• Approaches to “Close Reading” and “Close Writing” Digital Artifacts

The seminar will be organized by the LLE Digital Culture group, which has invited contributions from about 20 international researchers and artists. In addition to the scholarly seminar Nov. 9th and 10th at the University of Bergen, two evening programs will take place Nov. 8th and 9th at Landmark Café at Bergen Kunsthall, to showcase innovative work (performance descriptions) and will be open to the public. Anyone interested in attending can register on the conference site. We will also be filming the performances, and intend to make some version of those recordings publicly available after the event. As with the Electronic Literature in Europe conference we held here at UiB last year, which helped to strengthen a European electronic literature network, it is my hope that this conference will serve to help build new relationships and strengthen connections between artists, writers, and researchers working in different aspects of collaborative interdisciplinary network-based art, and to suggest some directions for future creative activities and research. It should also be a good deal of fun. I’m looking forward to it.

Binary Katwalk is an online exhibition space for experimental digital work, edited by Jeremy Hight. Each edition will feature artists from around the world and from different points in the spectrum of new media. This edition features five new mini-stories created for Pullinger’s Flight Paths project which is a mixed media communal net based narrative on a large scale, along with three artists she has selected. The next edition of BK will feature codework auteur Mez.

Paying close attention to the incunabular work of Michael Joyce is all very well from a historical perspective. Likewise the close reading of the primitive, almost pre-historical Mystery House and the elaboration of fan frenzy in hacker communities in the Agrippa tale are justified by the novelty of these curiosities. But do any of these works have literary qualities that merit our critical engagement? If these weren’t digital texts would we read them as literature? For all my respect for these folks, I doubt it. Have any works appeared in digital media whose interest goes beyond novelty value? Not yet.

I tend to disagree, pretty strongly, with both the idea that those works don’t merit critical engagement*, and particularly that *no* works have appeared in digital media media whose interest goes beyond novelty value. At the same time, I think I understand where Drucker’s overstatement is coming from. Novelty is clearly a value in our field, and it would be a problem if novelty were the only value we paid attention to. The thing that particularly irritated me about Drucker’s comment is that I think a lot of readers of Digital Humanities Quarterly, including some of the type of people who pass judgement on NEH digital humanities grant proposals, are likely to that comment at face value, when in fact, reading contemporary electronic literature proves it not to be the case. Anyway, it’s an interesting discussion I thought I would pass along and encourage you to read.

Another thought presents itself, however, that it might be worth provoking a discussion here towards answering Drucker’s question. What works do you think go beyond novelty value?

* (although ok I’ll grant that the writing in Mystery House is pretty laughable)