Beyond English E-lit: International Electronic Literature

[from WRT – Writer Response Theory]

At the ELO’s “Future of Electronic Literature” conference at the University of Maryland a panel was held on international (non-English) works. To facilitate that discussion, the members of that panel developed a wiki, which is now available at WRT:

Wiki of International Electronic Literature

The wiki features scholars, works, and organizations from around the globe that focus on electronic literature. With your help, we plan to develop that list as a resource for other scholars and teachers of electronic literature.

The primary motivation of the panel was to examine the field of electronic literature beyond the English-language realms that so often dominate discussion (and origin-narratives) and to promote (and connect to) international scholarship across language lines to foster a more global network of electronic literary scholarship. Here, I reference pervasive narratives of the origins of electronic literature (from hypertext to IF to chatbots) in English in the United States, even though works from beyond English (from I-Ching to Rayuela) are often cited as inspirations.