Traversals : the use of preservation of early electronic writing / Stuard Moulthrop and Dene Grigar.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Moulthrop, Stuart, author.

Grigar, Dene, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Digital preservation--History.

Digital preservation.

Hypertext literature--Preservation--History.

Hypertext literature.

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, [2017]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Many pioneering works of electronic literature are now largely inaccessible because of changes in hardware, software, and platforms. The virtual disappearance of these works--created on floppy disks, in Apple's defunct HyperCard, and on other early systems and platforms--not only puts important electronic literary work out of reach but also signals the fragility of most works of culture in the digital age. In response, Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop have been working to document and preserve electronic literature, work that has culminated in the Pathfinders project and its series of "Traversals"--Video and audio recordings of demonstrations performed on historically appropriate platforms, with participation and commentary by the authors of the works. In Traversals, Moulthrop and Grigar mine this material to examine four influential early works: Judy Malloy's Uncle Roger (1986), John McDaid's Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse (1993), Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl (1995) and Bill Bly's We Descend (1997), offering "deep readings" that consider the works as both literary artifacts and computational constructs. For each work, Moulthrop and Grigar explore the interplay between the text's material circumstances and the patterns of meaning it engages and creates, paying attention both to specificities of media and purposes of expression.

Contents:

1 Entity and Event: Electronic Literature in Context / Stuart Moulthrop Moulthrop, Stuart 21

2 The Many Faces of Judy Ma Hoy's Uncle Roger / Dene Grigar Grigar, Dene 61

3 Coelacanth History: Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse and the Cybertext of Things / Stuart Moulthrop Moulthrop, Stuart 115

4 Monsters and Freaks: Patchwork Girl and the New Unreadable / Stuart Moulthrop Moulthrop, Stuart 167

5 The Archives Pertaining to Bill Bly, Curator and Translator / Dene Grigar Grigar, Dene 203.

Notes:

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

9780262339018

0262339013

OCLC:

981765187

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.