Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T14:11:01.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pre-web Digital Publishing and the Lore of Electronic Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2022

Astrid Ensslin
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Bergen, Norway

Summary

This Element examines a watershed moment in the recent history of digital publishing through a case study of the pre-web, serious hypertext periodical, the Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext (1994-1995). Early hypertext writing relied on standalone, mainframe computers and specialized authoring software. With the Web launching as a mass distribution platform, EQRH faced a fast-evolving technological landscape, paired with an emergent gift and open access economy. Its non-linear writing experiments afford key insights into historical, medium-specific authoring practices. Access constraints have left EQRH under-researched and threatened by obsolescence. To address this challenge, this study offers platform-specific analyses of all the EQRH's cross-media materials, including works that have hitherto escaped scholarly attention. It deploys a form of conceptually oral ethno-historiography: the lore of electronic literature. The Element deepens our understanding of the North American publishing industry's history and contributes to the overdue preservation of early digital writing.
Get access
Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781108903165
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 31 March 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Primary Sources

Carpenter, J. R. (2014) “Etheric Ocean,” www.luckysoap.com/ethericocean/index.html.Google Scholar
Cayley, John (2007) “riverIsland,” www.shadoof.net/in/riverisland.html.Google Scholar
Cramer, Kathryn (2012) “Am I Free to Go?,” www.tor.com/2012/12/12/am-i-free-to-go.Google Scholar
Cramer, Kathryn (2020) “Lizard Dreams,” www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/collage.Google Scholar
Falco, Edward (1997) A Dream with Demons. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems.Google Scholar
Jackson, Shelley (1995) Patchwork Girl, Or A Modern Monster. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems.Google Scholar
Joyce, Michael (1987) afternoon, a story. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems.Google Scholar
Larsen, Deena (2000) Disappearing Rain. www.deenalarsen.net/rainGoogle Scholar
Larsen, Deena (2012) Marble Springs 3.0. http://marblesprings.wikidot.comGoogle Scholar
Malin, Heather (1999) “contour and consciousness,” unpublished Storyspace hypertext.Google Scholar
McDaid, John (1992) Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems.Google Scholar
Mencía, María (2001) “Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs,” in N. Katherine Hayles, Nick Montfort, Scott Rettberg, and Stephanie Strickland (eds.), Electronic Literature Collection Vol. 1. https://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/mencia__birds_singing_other_birds_songs.htmlGoogle Scholar
Moran, Monika (1993) Ambulance: An Electronic Novel. New York: Electronic Hollywood.Google Scholar
Moulthrop, Stuart (1991) Victory Garden. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems.Google Scholar
Strickland, Stephanie (1997) True North. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Secondary Sources

Aarseth, Espen (1997) Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland (1970) S/Z. New York: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland (1977) Image – Music – Text, ed. and trans. Heath, Stephen. New York: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Bell, Alice, Ensslin, Astrid, Ciccoricco, Dave, Laccetti, Jess, Pressman, Jessica, and Rustad, Hans (2010) “A [S]creed for Digital Fiction,” electronic book review, March 7. www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/DFINativeGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Mark (2016) “Storyspace 3,” HT ’16: Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, July 2016, pp. 2012016. https://doi.org/10.1145/2914586.2914624Google Scholar
Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin (1997) Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bootz, P. (2005) “Transitoire Observable: A Laboratory for Emergent Programmed Art,” dichtung digital. www.dichtung-digital.de/2005/1/Bootz/index.htmGoogle Scholar
Brown University, CDS (1999) “futureTEXT: Jim Rosenberg on Hypertext Fiction,” Technology Platforms for 21st Century Literature Conference, April 7. https://vimeo.com/12771049Google Scholar
Chartier, Roger (1994) The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Conklin, Jeff (1987) “Hypertext: A Survey and Introduction,” IEEE Computer, 20 (9): 1741.Google Scholar
Coover, Robert (1992) “The End of Books,” New York Times, June 21. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-end.htmlGoogle Scholar
Coover, Robert (1993) “Hyperfiction: Novels for the Computer,” New York Times on the Web, August 29. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-hyperfiction.htmlGoogle Scholar
Davenport, Guy (1981) “Narrative Tone and Form,” in The Geography of the Imagination. San Francisco: North Point Press, pp. 308318.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gille, and Guattari, Félix (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. and foreword Massumi, B.. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.Google Scholar
di Rosario, Giovanna (2017) “Gender As Patterns: Unfixed Forms in Electronic Poetry,” in Mencía, María (ed.), #WomenTechLit, Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, pp. 4154.Google Scholar
Drouin, Jeffrey, and Huculak, Matthew J. (2016) “Little Magazines,” in Stephen Ross (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. doi:10.4324/9781135000356-REM979-1Google Scholar
Duguid, Paul (2006) “Material Matters: The Past and Futurology of the Book,” in Finkelstein, D. and McCleery, A. (eds.), The Book History Reader, 2nd ed., Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ensslin, Astrid (2007) Canonizing Hypertext: Explorations and Constructions. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Ensslin, Astrid (2014) Literary Gaming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ensslin, Astrid (2019) “Intergrams,” Electronic Literature Directory, https://directory.eliterature.org/individual-work/5038.Google Scholar
Ensslin, Astrid (2020a), “‘Completing the Circle’? The Curious Counter-canonical Case of the Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext (1994–1995)”, in Gervais, Bertrand and Marcotte, Sophie (eds.), Attention à la marche! Mind the Gap! Thinking Electronic Literature in a Digital Culture, Les Presses the l’Écureuil, pp. 511524.Google Scholar
Ensslin, Astrid (2020b) “Hypertext Theory,” in Frow, John, Byron, Mark, Goulimari, Pelagia, Pryor, Sean, and Rak, Julie (eds.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literature. https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-982Google Scholar
Ensslin, Astrid, and Bell, (2021) Digital Fiction and the Unnatural: Transmedial Narrative Theory, Method and Analysis. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Ensslin, Astrid, and Skains, Lyle (2017) “Hypertext: Storyspace to Twine,” in Tabbi, J. (ed.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature. New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 295310.Google Scholar
Feldman, Shoshana (1985) Writing and Madness: Literature/Philosophy/Psychoanalysis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Forster, E. M. (1927) Aspects of the Novel. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Funkhouser, Chris (2007) Prehistoric Digital Poetry. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Genette, Gérard. 1979. Introduction à l’architexte. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Gess, Richard (1993) “Mahasukha Halo.” Leonardo, 26(3), 257258.Google Scholar
Glazier, Loss P. (2001) Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetries. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Grigar, Dene (2018a) “Love and Loss in Kendall’s A Life Set for Two,” Electronic Literature Lab, April 5, 2018, https://dtc-wsuv.org/wp/ell/2018/04/05/metaphor-in-kendalls-a-life-set-for-twoGoogle Scholar
Grigar, Dene (2018b) “Repetition in Mary-Kim Arnold’s “Lust,” in Grigar et al. (eds.), Rebooting Electronic Literature 1: Documenting Born Digital Pre-Web Media, https://elmcip.net/critical-writing/rebooting-electronic-literature-documenting-pre-web-born-digital-media-volume-1Google Scholar
Grigar, Dene (2018c) “Critical Essay about J. Yellowlees Douglas’ I Have Said Nothing,” in Grigar et al. (eds.), Rebooting Electronic Literature 1: Documenting Born Digital Pre-Web Media, https://scalar.usc.edu/works/rebooting-electronic-literature/critical-essays-about-jane-yellowlees-douglas-i-have-said-nothing?path=jane-yellowlees-douglas-i-have-said-nothingGoogle Scholar
Grigar, Dene (2018d) “Traversal of Robert Kendall’s A Life Set for Two, Introduction.” https://vimeo.com/265834376Google Scholar
Grigar, Dene (2019) “A Conversation about Socrates in the Labyrinth, Hypertext, & the Lore of Electronic Literature.” https://vimeo.com/358533888Google Scholar
Grigar, Dene, Mac, Kathy, Ensslin, Astrid, Pisarski, Mariusz, and Barber, John (2021a) “Traversal of Kathy Mac’s ‘Unnatural Habitats’,” video, Electronic Literature Lab, Washington State University Vancouver, July 2nd. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq8o2eM7LkgGoogle Scholar
Grigar, Dene, and Moulthrop, Stuart (2017) Pathfinders. http://dtc-wsuv.org/wp/pathfinders/Google Scholar
Grigar, Dene, and Schiller, Nicholas (2018) “Traversal of Mary Kim Arnold’s ‘Lust,’” Electronic Literature Lab, WSUV, May 18. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVgVj4JjbUQGoogle Scholar
Grigar, Dene, Schiller, Nicholas, Rhodes, Vanessa, Whitney, Veronica, Gwin, Mariah, and Bowen, Katie (2018) Rebooting Electronic Literature: Documenting Pre-Web Born Digital Media, Volume 1. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/rebooting-electronic-literature/indexGoogle Scholar
Grigar, Dene, Schiller, Nicholas, Slocum, Holly, Gwin, Mariah, Nevue, Andrew, Zoller, Kathleen, and Roath, Moneca (2019) Rebooting Electronic Literature: Documenting Pre-web Born Digital Media, Volume 2. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/rebooting-electronic-literature-volume-2/indexGoogle Scholar
Grigar, Dene, Slocum, Holly, Zoller, Kathleen, Schiller, Nicholas, Roath, Moneca, and Gwin, Mariah (2020) Rebooting Electronic Literature: Dcoumenting Pre-web Born Digital Media, Volume 3. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/rebooting-electronic-literature-volume-3/indexGoogle Scholar
Grigar, Dene, Smyth, Richard, Ensslin, Astrid, Pisarski, Mariusz, and Barber, John (2021b) “Traversal of Richard Smyth’s ‘Genetis: A Rhizography,’” video, Electronic Literature Lab, Washington State University Vancouver, June 25. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiS0wmRDxTgGoogle Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine (1993) “Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers.October, 66, 6991.Google Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine (2002) Writing Machines. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine (2004) “Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis.” Poetics Today, 25:1.Google Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine (2008) Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary. South Bend, IN: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Higgason, Richard E. (2004) “The Mystery of ‘Lust,’” HYPERTEXT ’04: Proceedings of the Fifteenth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, August, pp. 2835. https://doi.org/10.1145/1012807.1012818Google Scholar
Joyce, Michael (2000) Othermindedness: The Emergence of Network Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Kittler, Friedrich (1992) Discourse Networks, 1800/1900. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques (1994) Le Séminaire: Livre IV. La relation d’objet, 1956–1957, ed. Miller, Jacques-Alain. Paris; Seuil.Google Scholar
Landow, George P. (1997) Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Landow, George P. (2006) Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
madeApple.com (2020) “Macintosh Performa 5215CD”, https://madeapple.com/macintosh-performa-5215cd/Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. (1991) The Textual Condition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Moulthrop, Stuart, and Grigar, Dene (2017) Traversals: The Use of Preservation for Early Electronic Writing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Murray, Mary (1994) The Law of the Father? Patriarchy in the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pressman, Jessica (2014) Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pressman, Jessica (2020) Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rettberg, Scott (2019) Electronic Literature. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Richards, I. A. (1924) Principles of Literary Criticism. Abingdon: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Jim (1994) “Navigating Nowhere / Hypertext Infrawhere.” ACM SIGlink Newsletter, 3:3, www.inframergence.org/jr/NNHI.htmlGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Jim (1996) “The Interactive Diagram Sentence: Hypertext As a Medium of Thought.” Visible Language, 30:2, 102117. www.inframergence.org/jr/VL.htmlGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Jim (2015) Jim Rosenberg, personal website, www.inframergence.org.Google Scholar
Ryan, Marie-Laure (2006) Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Ryan, Marie-Laure, and Thon, Jan-Noël (2014) Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Salter, Anastasia (2015) “Alice in Dataland,” Kairos, 20:1. http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/20.1/inventio/salter/index.htmlGoogle Scholar
Schweikle, Günther and Schweikle, Irmgard (1990) Metzler Literatur Lexikon. Stuttgart: Metzler.Google Scholar
Slocum, Holly (2019) “Samplers: Nine Vicious Little Hypertexts,” Electronic Literature Directory, November 9. https://directory.eliterature.org/individual-work/5051Google Scholar
Smyth, Richard (1994) “Renaissance Mnemonics, Poststructuralism, and the Rhetoric of Hypertext Composition,” PhD dissertation, University of Florida. https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/922731Google Scholar
Sullivan, Laura L. (1999) “Wired Women Writing: Towards a Feminist Theorization of Hypertext,” Computers and Composition, 16:1, 2554. https://doi.org/10.1016/S8755-4615(99)80004-8Google Scholar
Swigart, Rob (2020) “Other Media,” Rob Swigart: Words That Matter. www.robswigart.com/games-and-interactive-mediaGoogle Scholar
Tabbi, Joseph (2010) “Electronic Literature As World Literature; or, The Universality of Writing under Constraint,” Poetics Today, 31:1.Google Scholar
Thomas, Bronwen, Round, Julia, and Ensslin, Astrid (eds.) (forthcoming) The Routledge Handbook of Literary Media. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tomaszek, Patricia (2014) “In the Absence of the Publisher’s Peritext,” paper given at “Paratext in Digital Culture” workshop, University of Bergen, August 2014.Google Scholar
Ulmer, Gregory (2003) Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Waterman, Sue (2009) “Literary Journals,” in Block, Lisa de Behar, Paola Mildonian, Jean-Michel Dijan, Djelal Kadir, Knauth, Alfons, Romero Lopez, Dolores, and Seligmann Silva, Márcio (eds.), Comparative Literature: Sharing Knowledges for Preserving Cultural Diversity. Rio de Janeiro: Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C04/E6-87-04-03.pdfGoogle Scholar
Wollaeger, Mark, and Kevin, J. H. Dettmar, (2014) “Series Editors‘ Foreword,” in J. Pressman, Digital Modernism, pp. ix–xii.Google Scholar
Zimmer, Carl, “Floppy Fiction,” Discover Vol. 10, Issue 11, November 1989, pp. 3436.Google Scholar
Zipes, Jack (2006) Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the Process of Civilization. 2nd ed. New York: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Pre-web Digital Publishing and the Lore of Electronic Literature
  • Astrid Ensslin, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
  • Online ISBN: 9781108903165
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Pre-web Digital Publishing and the Lore of Electronic Literature
  • Astrid Ensslin, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
  • Online ISBN: 9781108903165
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Pre-web Digital Publishing and the Lore of Electronic Literature
  • Astrid Ensslin, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
  • Online ISBN: 9781108903165
Available formats
×