the general writing and publishing industry and community (in brisbane) 
doesn't seem much interested in engaging electronic writing through either 
new media disciplines or literary disciplines. when i tried to do postgrad 
in creative writing, there was no one available to supervise my interactive 
work who was prepared to understand the links across text, image and 
technology - so this is a much welcome visit and really a bit of a rub 
against the prevailing publishing culture, at least, locally. yay ... linda

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THE CENTRE FOR CRITICAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES PRESENTS
Professor Thomas Swiss
University of Iowa - USA
New Media Literature and Art: A Writer's Perspective

Date: Tuesday 9th August 2005
Place: Social Sciences and Humanities Library Conference Room
Duhig Building, Building No. 2
University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus
Time: 2.00pm-3.30pm

Members of the university community and the general public are invited to 
attend this free seminar with refreshments to follow.

Please scroll down for further information or visit the website at 
http://www.cccs.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=28498&pid=16094

ABSTRACT

The aims of this seminar/presentation are to discuss the possibilities for 
literature offered by the electronic convergence of words, images, and 
sound, with an initial focus on the work of the presenter; explore the 
changing contexts in which literature is produced and consumed as a result 
of new media environments; and showcase a series of visually interesting, 
aurally charged, and dynamic examples of this kind of writing.

In taking up these topics through employing new media works as my tutor 
texts, I will consider some of the ways in which new media literature 
reconfigures the field of literature and literary practices.

The seminar begins from the assumption that "New Media Literature" like 
"Literature" is a conversation-among writers and professional critics, 
writers and other writers, writers and programmers, sound artists, and 
graphic designers, writers and their non-professional readers, writers and 
publishers, publishers and their investors, grant-giving agencies, 
universities, even governments.

This conversation is dispersed throughout many textual and institutional 
sites, not simply in texts already recognizable as literature.  I will 
foreground the "social form" of literature as a genre, with special 
emphasis on new media literature as it makes a place for itself among 
writers, readers, and scholars. The social form of new media literature 
includes, among other overlapping elements, its relationship to 
literature's historical practices and meanings; the interpretations it 
invites from its readers; its uneasy fit in institutions like the 
university and museums; and its evolving material presentations

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Thom Swiss is Professor of English and Rhetoric of Inquiry at the 
University of Iowa, the editor of The Iowa Review Web, a journal for 
digital and experimental writing and art, and President of the Electronic 
Literature Organization. His recent writing and teaching focus on the 
interplay of digital texts, the institutions that support and promote them, 
and the emerging audiences that respond to them. His books include Unspun 
(NYU Press), an edited volume that explores concepts that help shape our 
understanding of the World Wide Web and its wide-ranging influence on 
contemporary culture, Magic, Metaphor and Power: Cultural Theory and the 
World Wide Web (Routledge) and Mapping the Beat: Popular Music and 
Contemporary Theory (Blackwell).  With Dee Morris, he is currently 
co-editing a book for the MIT Press titled New Media Poetics (2005).  His 
collaborative New Media poems appear on-line in such journals as Postmodern 
Culture and electronic book review, as well as in museum exhibits and art 
shows. His books of poetry include Rough Cut (U.of Illinois), Measure (U. 
Alabama).

For further information, please contact:

Ms Rebecca Ralph, Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies
Ph. (07) 3346 9764   Fax (07) 3365 7184
Email: [log in to unmask] 

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