Electronic Literature Showcase

April 3-5, 2013

Save the date! Please join the Digital Reference Section for an Electronic Literature Showcase to be held April 3-5, 2013 on site at the Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress.

Planned events include:

• Exhibition and Open House. Read and interact with more than a hundred works of electronic literature spanning the last thirty years of literary history, selected by guest curators Dene Grigar and Kathi Inman Berens. Chat with Library of Congress specialists and visiting experts, view vintage digital media and equipment, and join in a variety of hands-on activities.
• Keynote Address and Panel Discussion. On the afternoon of April 5, scholars discuss the pasts, futures, and present shape of electronic literature:
  • Keynote: Stuart Moulthrop (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee), noted hypertext author and literary scholar.
  • Panel: Kathi Inman Berens (University of Southern California), Dene Grigar (Washington State University Vancouver), Matthew Kirschenbaum (University of Maryland), and Nick Montfort (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
• Literary Readings. Electronic literature authors read and perform from their recent or significant works.
• Workshops. Hands-on sessions explore the software, hardware and cultural precedents that play into "born digital" literary creations.

What is Electronic Literature? It is more than a computer screen and different from an ebook or a digitized text. It is hypertext narrative, literary games, interactive fiction, kinetic poetry. Not just a new way to display the written word, electronic literature exploits the digital world's capacity for multiplicity and interactivity to create new forms of literary expression that can't be fully replicated in print. Like all literature, it explores the human condition—but as "born digital" content it is now mediated by underlying computer code, often combining the written word with sound, images, animation, and video.

Questions? Contact us via our Ask A Librarian page.