December 2022 was William Gaddis’s centenary year, marked that October by an archival exhibition and academic conference at Washington University St Louis, whose Olin Library special collections hold his archive. December 2023 then marked 25 years since Gaddis’s death. Over the past decade, he has been published, reprinted, translated, namechecked, served by globally public discussion forums, at a greater rate than ever during his lifetime. This special issue of electronic book review brings together work on Gaddis at this distinctive time in his reception. This gathering focuses particularly… continue

This special gathering collects reflections of the Critical Code Studies Working Group 2020 (CCSWG ‘20), a biannual meeting to explore the intersections of humanistic inquiry and computer code studies. Coordinated by Mark Marino (USC), Jeremy Douglass (UCSB), and Zach Mann (USC), the 2020 Working Group was held online from January 20 to February 3. It brought together more than 150 participants from around the world to share ideas, populating dozens of discussion threads with hundreds of comments, critiques, and critical readings. The need to attend to code could not be more urgent. Code exert… continue

In May 2021, ELO 2021 Conference and Festival: Platform [Post?]Pandemic took place online, co-organized by the Digital Aesthetics Research Center (University of Aarhus, Denmark) and the Bergen Electronic Literature Research Group (University of Bergen, Norway) in collaboration with dra.ft (India) and the Electronic Literature Lab (Washington State University Vancouver, USA). With over a year of experience with digital meetings, it was clear that the typical 20-minute conference presentations for a full week would simply be a battle of endurance rather than the generative space similar to the h… continue

The journals electronic book review (digital literary studies, est. 1995) and The Digital Review (born-digital arts and writing, est. 2020) are proud to announce their first collaboration: a special double issue on “Critical Making, Critical Design” that pairs digital works of making or design with critical and scholarly mediation. See the Table of Contents of The Digital Review issue as well. From prose and art installations to craftwork and video games, creative works are often released without giving artists the opportunity to explain their processes, contexts, and motivations. Else, creati… continue

The title of this special gathering describes a digital poetics of the nation state that is currently known as Canada; however, the Editors and authors of this issue wish to acknowledge that this land is made up of over 630 First Nation communities, representing more than 50 nations and 50 Indigenous languages. This special gathering’s description of a “Canadian digital poetics” is for the purpose of consistency and not the homogeneity of these diverse communities, nations, and languages, which we do not take for granted. The Editors, Dani Spinosa and Lai-Tze Fan, additionally acknowledge that… continue

“Electronic Literature [Frame]works for the Creative Digital Humanities,” edited by Scott Rettberg and Alex Saum-Pascual, gathers a selection of articles exploring the evolving relationship between electronic literature and the digital humanities in Europe, North and South America. Looking at the combination of practices and methodologies that come about through e-lit’s production, study, and dissemination, these articles explore the disruptive potential of electronic literature to decenter and complement the DH field. Creativity is central and found at all levels and spheres of e-lit, but as… continue

It seems strange during pandemic-induced isolation to reflect on last summer’s ELO2019 gathering, the first time the Electronic Literature Organization’s annual conference and media arts festival was hosted in Ireland. It was a privilege for all at University College Cork to welcome so many scholars, practitioners and colleagues to our campus and city, a privilege that is only magnified now that same cohort is unable to convene in Orlando, Florida for ELO2020. The editors of this special issue would like it dedicated to ELO2020 organisers, whose labour is seen and valued. This collection of es… continue

“Natural media” re-valuates the communicative potential of natural spaces, especially in instances where symbolic import collides with raw matter in a manner that hides from, disguises, or elides stark reality. It considers intersections, collisions, tensions, opportunities, and affordances that arise in the discussion of “Natural Media,” both broadly conceived and in its contributors’ particular areas of research. This collection emerges from a panel hosted by the Modern Language Association’s MS Forum on Visual Media in 2017. The co-editors, Lisa Swanstrom and Eric Dean Rasmussen, first met… continue

This gathering is unique. What differentiates it from other gatherings on the electronic book review is that rather than being compiled and united via subject matter, what unites these papers is that they were all first delivered at the Arabic E-lit Conference in Dubai which took place in February 2018. The publication of conference proceedings may not be particularly innovative. In this way, the gathering works to “Mind the Gap” in the scholarship surrounding electronic literature, providing open access to conference papers that the scheduling and finances of travelling may have made inaccess… continue

Toward the end of William Gaddis’s novel of American capitalism, J R (1975), a truck passes by on a Manhattan Street displaying five dwarves who are house painters and the words, “None of Us Grew but the Business.” At the time of publication, readers might have taken this phrase and Gaddis’s novel itself, as a corporate satire: one that traces (in grueling detail), the construction of a multi-billion-dollar empire by a solitary pre-adolescent, J R van Sant, who owns and operates a conglomerate from his grade school payphone. A handkerchief that he’d put over the mouthpiece makes him sound ‘big… continue