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The question of whether or not computers can write autonomously is at this point moot (hello, AI and generative text!), but perhaps where the field of digital writing needs further exploration is in the re-examination of writing practices, as well as how they can be taught. In their essay “Digital Writing: Philosophical and Pedagogical Issues,” Serge Bouchardon and Victor Petit argue that the technical (material) and symbolic (cultural) dimensions of digital writing must be explored as a Janus faced issue. Building upon established theories of writing from Derrida and Barthes, the essay explor… continue

For many of us, September is the time to return to campuses, the time for seasonal change. This year, Fall comes early (or Summer lingers too long) all over the globe and weather patterns continue to be abnormal. We all hear about climate change, we discuss strange weather patterns, and we analyze the Anthropocene in classrooms; it has never been a more important topic. This month, ebr re-prints an essay that applies a poet’s eye, ear, and spirit to this term “Anthropocene” to encapsulate the implications that humans have had on Earth. Joan Retallack’s essay “Hard Days Nights in the Anthropoce… continue

This month, we have an essay from Bruce Clarke entitled “Margulis, Autopoiesis, Gaia,” in which Clarke recounts his own process of critically and pedagogically working with the concept of “gaia” (the relations of things, as they exist on our planet, in relation the sun) through scientific discourse. In Lynn Margulis’s work What is Life? and Symbiotic Planet, Clarke comes to the realization that “if Gaia is a system, then Gaia theory is a form of systems theory” that can also articulate autopoietic or self-producing systems. Embracing approaches to autopoiesis, Clarke describes the expansi… continue

As you may notice, we have a new design for the ebr newsletter! I’d like to extend special thanks to our Managing Editor Will Luers for all the hard work that he put into developing this new template, which will offer our readers a more concise and visually organized update of our monthly issues. (If you are subscribed and have not received the June newsletter, it may have been blocked due to our recent changes. Please subscribe again with your preferred email.) Editors at ebr are currently developing a new biannual theme-based journal based on the born-digital essay. Please contact Will Luers… continue

​Over​ the past two months, ebr has had the pleasure to publish two of the keynotes, an essay, and a response that emerged from the 2018 meeting of the ELO in Montréal, “Mind the Gap!” These efforts represent discussions that have continued around platforms and non-platforms for publishing, engaging in, and thinking through e-lit—discussions that ebr is happy to foster and share. In this spirit, we actively encourage our readers to write their own riPOSTes (thoughtful responses) to any or all of the issues raised in the essays; if you have an idea, write to us and let’… continue

If you attended ELO 2018 in Montréal, then you may have heard of Leo Flores’s notion of “third generation e-lit,” the subject of his paper that year and the talk of the conference. ebr is delighted to publish this work that imagines a new way of understanding the history of electronic literature. And if you attended ELO 2017 in Porto, then you may remember Matthew Kirschenbaum’s keynote “ELO and the Electric Light Orchestra: Lessons for Electronic Literature from Prog Rock,” in which Kirschenbaum proposed the notion of e-literature’s “#1 hit.” This month, we publish Kathi Inman Beren… continue

ELO is currently expanding its scholarly activity with the appointment of five graduate and early career Research Fellows, offering a $500 USD stipend and a one year membership to ELO. Please apply by April 1, 2019. More information can be found here. This month in our publications, Manuel Portela reviews Johanna Drucker’s The General Theory of Social Relativity (2018, The Elephants), praising its negotiation of social theory, artistic practice, and critical thought as a collective “manifesto for a new poetics of the social.” Continuing from ebr’s “Arabic e-lit” series… continue

Interested in offering your two cents on an ebr essay, riPOSTe, review? We have added a new “gloss” feature at the bottom of every page, allowing readers to submit a short gloss to the sidebar of our publications and to invite new riPOSTes. We’d love to hear what you have to say! This month, ebr has the honour of re-releasing “An Mosaic for Convergence” (first published in ebr in 1997-1998), a hypertext essay by renowned American poet Charles Bernstein. Bernstein has written a new introduction to the hypertext for its re-release. We would like to additio… continue

Happy new year! This month, we publish our final instalment of the 4-part series on the metainterface—“a reconsideration of interface studies.” Scott Rettberg and Shelley Jackson’s “Room for So Much World,” is a special conversation with celebrated writer Jackson, detailing her experiments with writing mediums (including fresh snow and skin) and with materiality/language in more classic forms (see her newest novel Riddance). “Room for So Much World” anticipates themes in a forthcoming ebr gathering, Natural Media, edited by Editors Eric Dean Rasmussen and Lisa Swanstrom. Please look forward to… continue

This December, ebr has eight publications to share! We have the pleasure of publishing select essays from the Arabic E-lit Conference in Dubai (February 2018), starting with N. Katherine Hayles’ “Literary Texts as Cognitive Assemblages: The Case of Electronic Literature” (published in ebr in August 2018). As the editor of this gathering, Dani Spinosa introduces these texts in her note “Essays from the Arabic E-lit Conference.” I encourage reading Spinosa’s thoughtful introduction. Including Hayles’ work, the five essays of the gathering are Reham Hosny’s “Mapping Electronic Literature in the A… continue