Two of my books (Vel and .echo, from Blazevox and Alt-X) are print on
demand; there's also one of my Second Life texts available from Fort-Da.
These are easier ways for non-affiliated people like myself to publish,
but that affects the way they're treated academically. I do have mss. at
two academic publishers under review, but I feel that thngs are against me
on this, since there's no Phd. At one point Sandy Baldwin and I were
writing a text together - basically my text and his commentary, and
Minnesota most likely would have published it, but when Sandy had to pull
out for lack of time, they dropped it. So it's a mixed blessing. It also
means that the POD books aren't available in stores of course, and that's
a whole other issue - there's no browsing, so you're buying unseen.
About the list - one thing that held Cybermind together early on was a
series of 'fleshmeets' which culminated in a Cybermind Conference in
Parth, Au., around 1995. So everyone had a stake and community forming
under those circumstances, even though the list started online. Another
point was that one of the list-owners (I'm the other) was Michael Current,
who died a couple of months after the list started, and this brought up
issues of grief and community online in a traumatic and transfiguring way
(Marshall writes about this - there were also some articles at the time).
All this stuff which is in a way 'extra-list,' in the sense of 'extra-
curricular,' affected the coherency of the list - I think the same thing
happens with nettime, which at one point was also publishing, holding
meetings, and so forth. (I coined a term, 'list aura,' to refer to every-
thing from back-channel to meetings, etc. etc., and it's taken hold in
some places. It's about situating the list in daily lives, beyond the list
and archives themselves; I think most of what holds or doesn't hold a list
together goes on there.)
One, and I think unsolvable, problem, is that lists are essentially
textual in nature, and a lot of people aren't used to this at this point -
they're like reading Derrida, as opposed to, say Zizek. I'm not sure what
could be done about this; I think nothing, since attachments remain just
that. The advantage of blogs of course is they're multi-streaming capa-
bilities, like the social sites, but they're web-based, under the aegis of
one or another corporation and owner who's very evident. It's a different
structure. Again, here, face-to-face helps a lot...
- Alan, sorry for rambling -
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka maria x] wrote:
> I agree with you Alan, this is certainly a concern.
>
> Any suggestions as to what we can actually do about this?
>
> I also wanted to ask the list, especially people working in academia, whether
> you use open platforms for publishing i.e. print on demand (for example
> OpenMute). These, unlike conventional publishing houses, allow for
> contributors to use alternative copyright licenses and for materials to be
> published online /made downloadable for free if contributors are happy with
> it. Nonetheless, I have encountered a resistance amongst academic colleagues,
> especially from disciplines such as drama where there possibly is less
> discussion about /awareness of copyright issues (due to the nature of the
> discipline). Up to now the main reason (in the UK) seems to have been RAE and
> a confusion as to whether print on demand publications could be submitted, or
> how they would be assessed compared to conventional publishing projects. Any
> ideas?
>
> Thanks
> Maria X
>
> Alan Sondheim wrote:
>> I wonder about lists petering out in general; at one point they were
>> replete with discussion. Cybermind years and years ago became an online
>> community (a book-length study by Jon Marshall has been published), but
>> the surface discussion disappeared. Cyberculture was created in relation
>> to that but discussion petered out there as well. In my area of new media
>> / cultural politics, o-o is gone, nettime-l is there but the discussion
>> seems low (it's still the best of these lists), 7-11 is a shell. nn - also
>> known as Integer or antiorp - used to be a regular denizen of these and
>> she's disappeared as well. Poetics used to have a lot of wild poetry and
>> discussion; it's now more academic discussion and the poetry's gone for
>> the most part.
>>
>> In the meantime social networking sites and blogs have obviously increased
>> but I think the idea of a commons forum has been lost. I've been increas-
>> ingly frustrated by JSTOR and the like - most of which operate on the
>> presumption that intellectual thought is exclusive, should be paid for
>> with a fairly hefty price, and should be difficult if not impossible to
>> access by the general non-affiliated public. Academia is more and more
>> exclusionary in this regard, I think. Twice recently I had university
>> affiliations and the difference was night and day...
>>
>> - Alan
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, Sue Thomas wrote:
>>
>>> List members might be interested to know a little more about WDL. The full
>>> description is as follows:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The impact of digital technologies on writing and lived experience
>>>
>>> WRITING AND THE DIGITAL LIFE explores the impact of digital technologies
>>> upon writing and lived experience within an interdisciplinary context. We
>>> talk about the relationship of writing and reading in the context of many
>>> subjects including 'new and old' media; craft, art, process and practice;
>>> social networks; cooperation and collaboration; narrative and memory;
>>> human
>>> computer interaction; imagination; nature; mind; body, and spirit.
>>> Contributions related to research, writing and teaching in the arts,
>>> sciences, and humanities are all welcome.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You can read the archives here
>>> <http://jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/writing-and-the-digital-life.html>
>>> http://jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/writing-and-the-digital-life.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I started WDL in February 2005. I had just moved from the trAce Online
>>> Writing Centre <http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk>
>>> http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk to De Montfort University and everyone was
>>> asking what I would be doing post-trAce. I wasn't sure myself, so I set up
>>> WDL to keep the conversation going and find out what people wanted. We
>>> then
>>> set up a collaborative blog which ran until 2007
>>> <http://www.hum.dmu.ac.uk/blogs/wdl/> http://www.hum.dmu.ac.uk/blogs/wdl/
>>> Since the WDL blog closed to new entries, the list has continued but has
>>> been very quiet. Meanwhile, my attention has moved towards research into
>>> transliteracy, a bold Theory of Everything http://www.transliteracy.com
>>> and
>>> to developing the Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media with Kate
>>> Pullinger http://www.creativewritingandnewmedia.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I've just checked and the list has 250 subscribers in 18 countries:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> * Country Subscribers
>>> * ------- -----------
>>> * Argentina 1
>>> * Australia 8
>>> * Brazil 4
>>> * Canada 9
>>> * Croatia 1
>>> * Czech Republic 1
>>> * France 1
>>> * Greece 1
>>> * Ireland 1
>>> * Italy 2
>>> * Japan 1
>>> * Netherlands 2
>>> * New Zealand 2
>>> * Niue 1
>>> * Spain 1
>>> * United Kingdom 54
>>> * United States 143
>>> * Zimbabwe 1
>>> *
>>> * Total number of "concealed" subscribers: 16
>>> * Total number of users subscribed to the list: 234 (non-"concealed"
>>> only)
>>> * Total number of countries represented: 18 (non-"concealed"
>>> only)
>>> * Total number of local host users on the list: 0 (non-"concealed"
>>> only)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It's interesting to see WDL come back to life, especially since many
>>> members
>>> have been on the new media writing scene a long time. I look forward to
>>> seeing what develops!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> Sue
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> __________
>>>
>>> Sue Thomas
>>> Professor of New Media, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
>>>
>>> Currently Visiting Scholar, English Dept, University of California Santa
>>> Barbara
>>> <http://www.suethomas.net/> http://www.suethomas.net
>>>
>>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> **********
>>> * To alter your subscription settings on this list, log on to Subscriber's
>>> Corner at
>>> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/writing-and-the-digital-life.html
>>> * To unsubscribe from the list, email [log in to unmask] with a blank
>>> subject line and the following text in the body of the message: SIGNOFF
>>> WRITING-AND-THE-DIGITAL-LIFE
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> | Alan Sondheim Mail archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
>> | To access the Odyssey exhibition The Accidental Artist:
>> | http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/48/12/22
>> | Webpage (directory) at http://www.alansondheim.org
>> | [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], tel US 718-813-3285
>>
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>> subject line and the following text in the body of the message: SIGNOFF
>> WRITING-AND-THE-DIGITAL-LIFE
>>
>
> --
> Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka maria x] PhD Art and Computational
> Technologies Goldsmiths Digital Studios skype: mariax_gr
> www.cybertheater.org
> **********
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> WRITING-AND-THE-DIGITAL-LIFE
>
>
| Alan Sondheim Mail archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
| To access the Odyssey exhibition The Accidental Artist:
| http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/48/12/22
| Webpage (directory) at http://www.alansondheim.org
| [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], tel US 718-813-3285
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|