hypertext event of note
Begin forwarded message:
From: Robert Coover
Date: February 22, 2007 12:11:51 PM EST (CA)
To: Robert Coover
Subject: E-Fest 2007 – Breaking News
Hypertext is now the very grammar of the Internet (http://), but at the very moment this peculiar and mysterious computer concept was first given a name back in the computer’s teenage years of the 1960s, the first ever hypertext editing system was being created at Brown University. Brown has ever since been the internationally acknowledged leader in the development and classroom use of hypertext and other computer tools for scholarly and creative purposes, especially in the humanities. Brown’s list of “firsts” in the field stretches impressively across the decades.
And now continued leadership into the future is assured with the appointment, announced yesterday, of the renowned award-winning digital literary artist, poet and theorist John Cayley as its first Literary Arts professor of electronic writing, an appointment that begins in the autumn semester of the 2007-8 school year.
To celebrate this occasion, there is a roundtable discussion this afternoon at 2 p.m., “From afternoon to imposition: a Symposium on the Future of Digital Literature,” and a performance of literary hypermedia pieces at 8 p.m. tonight, both events in the McCormack Family Theater at 70 Brown Street, entrance in Fones Alley across from the Literary Arts building.
In addition to John Cayley, visiting this week from England, participants in the symposium will include the celebrated author of the ur-text of hyperfiction, afternoon: a story, Michael Joyce; Bill Seaman, recombinant poetics artist and director of the RISD New Media program; Roberto Simanowski, digital arts critic and theorist in the Department of German Studies and editor of the online journal dichtung digital; digital media artist and researcher and current MFA student in e-writing Daniel Howe, and Robert Coover of Literary Arts.
The evening performances will include new hypermedia creative pieces by John Cayley, Michael Joyce, and graduate students Braxton Soderman, Roxanne Carter, Aya Karpinska, and perhaps others, as well as a brief introduction to the new hands-on do-it-yourself CaveWriting text editor for creating spatial hypertext in immersive virtual reality.
Celebrative reception to follow. Come join us for a glass of bubbly!
Robert Coover
Program in Literary Arts – Box 1923
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401.863.1152
Nov 14-17: “Strange Times, My Dear”: International Freedom to Write Literary Festival.
Details: http://www.brown.edu/strange_times