FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

During August 2015, the Bergen Electronic Literature Research Group at the Dept of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies at the University of Bergen will host the Electronic Literature Organization's annual international conference, ELO 2015. This is the most important congress in the field. Electronic literature refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. The theme of the 2015 conference a nd festival will be "The End(s) of Electronic Literature." This theme plays on several different meanings of "ends." Topics the conference papers and works will explore include: * Is "electronic literature" a transitional term that will become obsolete as literary uses of computational media and devices become ubiquitous? If so, what comes after electronic literature? * We can also question in what sense electronic literature and digital writing practices are a means to an end. If so, what are the ends of electronic literature? What political, ideological, aesthetic, and commercial ends or purposes do works of electronic literature serve? * This conference will seek to shed further light on international communities and practices in electronic literature that have not been widely addressed in the critical literature of the field, those that are located at the "ends" or margins of critical discourse in the field. * Electronic literature is situated as an intermedial field of practice, between literature, c omputation, visual and performance art. The conference will seek to develop a better understanding of electronic literature's boundaries and relations with other academic disciplines and artistic practices. * As a laboratory for future literary forms, the field of electronic literature must count the youngest readers among its most significant group of end-users. One strand of this conference will focus specifically on digital reading experiences made for children.