December 2, 2007

From Command Lines to Software Studies

by Noah Wardrip-Fruin · , 8:19 am
Command Lines illustration

November’s last week marked two major milestones for Jeremy Douglass, of GTxA neighborhood blog Writer Response Theory. First, on Tuesday, he posted his recently-accepted dissertation, “Command Lines: Aesthetics and Technique in Interactive Fiction and New Media.” I’m digging in to this document right now, planning to cite some of Jeremy’s work on the aesthetics of breakdown in my forthcoming book.

Next, on Thursday, Jeremy got a UCSD ID card issued. I’m happy to report that he did this after accepting a postdoctoral research position to work with Lev Manovich and yours truly as part of UCSD’s new Software Studies initiative. As it’s described in the online announcement, Jeremy will be working with us “to develop models and tools for the cultural criticism of software, establish the [Software Studies] field as a compliment to existing research in cyberculture and new media, and investigate how next generation cyberinfrastructure technologies can be used by humanists, social scientists, and cultural practitioners.”

4 Responses to “From Command Lines to Software Studies”


  1. scott Says:

    Congrats to Jeremy! Look forward to reading the diss.

  2. nick Says:

    Jeremy, congratulations! I was going to post about this myself, but Noah beat me to it. I am looking forward to reading the final version in full. Thanks for making it available rapidly online.

  3. andrew Says:

    Looks very impressive! Congrats

  4. Joining the Software Studies Initiative at UCSD at WRT: Writer Response Theory Says:

    […] and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, both familiar figures to WRT readers. Noah was kind enough to recently announce my hire (alongside my dissertation) over at Grand Text Auto. My current project is organizing […]

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