The second panel of the day was about Internationalizing Electronic Literature. The participants were Sandy Baldwin, Laura Castanyer, Bertrand Gervais, Juan B. Gutierrez, Mark Marino, and Jill Walker. The coolest part of the day by far: this panel had their own wiki.

Here are my notes from each speaker:

 

Sandy Baldwin

  • How much of the definition of what electronic literature is comes from western Europe and the USA?

  • Process is something we value

  • C.T. Funkhouser has a book coming out about digital poetry (I think this is the book he was referring to?)

  • The EPoetry conference is going to be in Paris this year. In 2009 it will be in Germany.

  • Baldwin continued by discussing the role of semiotics in electronic literature

  • Baldwin then gave a list of international electronic literature authors (see the wiki).

Laura Castanyer

  • She talked about a variety of Catalan authors. See the wiki for the complete list

Bertrand Gervais

  • Gervais discussed NT2.

  • Web 2.0 gives us the opportunity for decentralized fiction.

Juan B. Gutierrez

  • Opened by mentioning links in wiki

  • Wonders if there is electronic literature in Korea? What about China?

  • Calls for Electronic Literature Organization to be more open to non American E-Lit

Mark Marino

  • Began by plugging the excellent site Writer Response Theory. Writer Response Theory also has a comprehensive post up about the symposium.

  • A lot of inspiration comes from South American writers like Jorge Luis Borges. No argument there.

  • Mentions Gabriella Infinita.

  • Has a “novel” version, hypertext version, etc

  • Like Michael Joyce, his work “craved” hypertext

  • Discusses wiki novels that predate the current one being published by Penguin.

  • Wants us to think about how white, male, and English (as in language spoken) we are.

  • Just how inclusive is the ELO?

Jill Walker

  • Opened by plugging the Elinor Project.

  • Discusses Norwegian E-LIT

  • Did you know that Norway buys one thousand copies of your book and gives them to libraries?

  • However, Norway is not as supportive of E-Lit

  • Visual Arts get a lot more support

  • Americans don’t know much in general about Norwegian writing besides that one Ibsen play

  • Norway does not know American literature either

  • Definite language barrier

  • Translations will break down barriers

  • Prime Directive is published in both English & Swedish

Here are some notes from the discussion that followed:

  • A few people on the panel went around asking what exactly do we call literature? How about E-Lit?

  • Should YouTube videos and critical code be considered canonical?

  • Some video games have narrative components

  • Juan B. Gutierrez defined literature as a “linguistic activity”

  • Scott Rettberg asked the panelists how NT2 & ELO can work together?

  • After some discussion Dr. Rettberg remarked positively “this is the beginning of the narrative, not the end.”

  • Jill Walker asked the panel and crowd if all international E-Lit has to be translated?

  • Norway is protective of their culture

  • Personally I agree with Dr. Walker. Not all E-Lit has to be “cross cultural”

I will have my own thoughts up in a few days.

 

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