December 11, 2007

ELO Meetup and E-Lit Conference Guide for the 2007 MLA Conference

by Scott Rettberg · , 8:30 am

ELO Meetup at the MLA

As we have for the past several years, we are planning an informal meet-up for people affiliated with or interested in the Electronic Literature Organization at this year’s MLA conference. This year, we are planning on meeting at the “Big Bar” at the conference hotel, the Hyatt Regency, after the “Electronic Literature: Reading, Writing, Navigating” panel, from 5-6 PM on Friday, December 28th. We plan to converge on the bar and have a drink or two. Afterwards, for those who would like to continue the conversation and take advantage of the world’s best deep-dish pizza, we’re reserving some tables at a nearby restaurant. If you’re only planning on joining us for a drink, just show up at the Big Bar at 5PM. If you want in on the pizza, please send an email to Stefanie Boese (sboese2 at uic dot edu), indicating how many people plan to attend and your preference for sausage, spinach, or mixed vegetarian pizza. We’ll put the order in ahead, so we won’t have to wait long in the restaurant to eat. We will “go dutch,” splitting the bill evenly and paying in cash.

Electronic Literature & Related Panels at the MLA 2007

This year’s convention features several panels (“New Reading Interfaces,” “Electronic Literature: Reading, Writing, and Navigating,” and “Electronic Literature: After Afternoon”) that are explicitly focused on electronic literature, and several that are more tangentially related to the subject. Below is a mini conference guide focused on e-lit.
Thursday, 27 December

79. Persuasive Games

5:15–6:30 p.m., Toronto, Hyatt Regency

Program arranged by the Division on Literary Criticism

Presiding: Rita M. Raley, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

1. “Introduction to Procedural Rhetoric,” Ian Bogost, Georgia Inst. of Tech.

2. “War Games,” Rita M. Raley

3. “Guy Debord’s ‘Kriegspiel’: Nostalgic Algorithms in Late
Modernity,” Alexander Galloway, New York Univ.

Friday, 28 December

215. Novel History, Media History

10:15–11:30 a.m., Atlanta, Hyatt Regency

Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Media and Literature

Presiding: Ivan Kreilkamp, Indiana Univ., Bloomington

1. “Beyond Fashion: From the Nineteenth-Century Urban Mysteries Reader
to the Cinema Spectator,” Sara Hackenberg, San Francisco State Univ.

2. “Ulysses Player Piano,” Paul K. Saint-Amour, Univ. of Pennsylvania

3. “Remediating the Modernist Novel: Judd Morrissey’s Digital Remix,”
Jessica Pressman, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

Friday, 28 December

250. New Reading Interfaces

12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Missouri, Sheraton Chicago

Program arranged by the Association for Computers and the Humanities

Presiding: Elizabeth Swanstrom, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

1. “Tag Clouds: Reading the Poetic Interface,” Jeremy H. Douglass, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

2. “Toward a Semantic Literary Web: Three Case Histories,” Joseph Paul Tabbi, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago

3. “Reading Shaw’s Legible City,” Elizabeth Swanstrom

4. “Reading the Margins of The Magic Book,” Sarah Jane Sloane, Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins

5. “Texts in Virtual Contexts: Reading Scholarly Work in 3-D Environments,” Victoria E. Szabo, Duke Univ.

Friday, 28 December

256. Professionalization in a Digital Age

1:45–3:30 p.m., Columbus Hall C and D, Hyatt Regency

A forum arranged by the Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession

Presiding: William Erwin Orchard, Univ. of Chicago

1. “Rethinking the First Book: Dissertations as Bits and Bytes,” Jennifer Crewe, Columbia Univ. Press

2. “New Media Scholarship: Implications for Graduate Study,” N. Katherine Hayles, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

3. “Digital Pedagogy: Taming the Palatiri,” Ian Lancashire, Univ. of Toronto (abstract available)

Respondent: W. J. T. Mitchell, Univ. of Chicago

For coordinated workshops, see meetings 373 and 472.

Friday, 28 December

317. Electronic Literature: Reading, Writing, Navigating

3:30–4:45 p.m., Columbus Hall K and L, Hyatt Regency

Program sponsored by the MLA Ad Hoc Committee on the Structure of the Convention in conjunction with the MLA Committee on Information Technology

Presiding: Susan Schreibman, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

1. “Exploring Electronic Literature,” Helen DeVinney, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Jessica Pressman, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

2. “Sculpting E-Poetry in Fractal Space: ConTextTree,” Jeremy H. Douglass, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

3. “Selections from Selections,” Christopher T. Funkhouser, New Jersey Inst. of Tech.

4. “Reading Unwritten Poems: Developing Critical Tools for Electronic Literature,” Davin Heckman, Siena Heights Univ.

5. “ Beta Writer: Portrait of the Author as Early Adopter,” Mark Marino, Univ. of Southern California

6. “No Exit in Sight: Navigating Giselle Beiguelman’s ‘Esc for Escape,’” Elizabeth Swanstrom, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

7. “ RolandHT,” Vika Zafrin, Brown Univ.

Friday, 28 December

373. Scholarship in New Media

7:15–8:30 p.m., Columbus Hall C and D, Hyatt Regency

A workshop arranged in conjunction with the forum Professionalization in a Digital Age (256)

Presiding: Markus Zisselsberger, Binghamton Univ., State Univ. of New York

1. “On Scholarship,” Matthew Gary Kirschenbaum, Univ. of Maryland, College Park (abstract available)

2. “On Electric Editing,” Dino Franco Felluga, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette

3. “On Pedagogy,” Todd Samuel Presner, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (abstract available)

4. “On Collaboration,” McKenzie Wark, New School

Saturday, 29 December

541. Electronic Literature: After Afternoon

3:30–4:45 p.m., Mississippi, Sheraton Chicago

Program arranged by the Division on Methods of Literary Research

Presiding: Neil Fraistat, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

1. “Picture and Book Remain: After Two Decades of Hypertext Literature,” Michael Joyce, Vassar Coll.

2. “This Afternoon,” Matthew Gary Kirschenbaum, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

3. “Play, Flow, and Mix: Paradigms for Electronic Literature,” N. Katherine Hayles, Univ. of California, Los Angeles

Saturday, 29 December

649. Sampling the Original: Rethinking Appropriation, Attribution, and Copyright

9:00–10:15 p.m., Plaza Ballroom A, Hyatt Regency

Program arranged by the MLA Committee on Information Technology

Presiding: Thomas C. Spear, Lehman Coll., City Univ. of New York

1. “Remixing Free Culture: Twentieth-Century Copyright in the Twenty-First-Century Classroom,” Kari M. Kraus, Univ. of Rochester

2. “Media-Enriched Critical Writing as Gray-Market Transgression,” Victoria E. Szabo, Duke Univ.

3. “You Can, but You May Not: Copyright, Scholars, and the Temptations of New Media,” Jeffrey Ankrom, Bloomington, IN

Sunday, 30 December

670. Annotated Bibliography: New Work in Literature and Science

8:30–9:45 a.m., Water Tower, Hyatt Regency

Program arranged by the Division on Literature and Science

Presiding: Henry S. Turner, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

Speakers: Mark B. N. Hansen, Univ. of Chicago; Ursula K. Heise, Stanford Univ.; Megan Massino, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison; Arielle Saiber, Bowdoin Coll.; Joseph Paul Tabbi, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago

2 Responses to “ELO Meetup and E-Lit Conference Guide for the 2007 MLA Conference”


  1. Jena Osman Says:

    I will be giving a talk comparing Newsreader (by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Co.) to John Cage’s mesostics on a panel called “Documentary Poetics.” Thursday, 27 December, 5:15–6:30 p.m., Water Tower, Hyatt Regency

  2. noah Says:

    Jena — thanks for letting us know. I’ll help spread the word. Wish I could see it myself!

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