Reading Practices in Electronic Literature: A Dialogic Approach

Writers experimenting with electronic literature who remediate classic literary content provide a nexus for understanding rhetorical techniques evolving from print-based practices. Further, Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of dialogism provide a basis for the critical analysis of remediated texts. Therefore, this presentation advocates looking at the evolving rhetoric of electronic literature dialogically, in other words, analyzing works that remediate familiar themes and structures from print-based contexts into electronic mediums. Examples will be drawn from Shelley Jackson's "Patchwork Girl" George Hartley's "A Madlib Frost Poem," Peter Howard's "Peter's Haiku Generator," Edward Picot's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," and Helena Bulaja's "Croatian Tales of Long Ago."

(Source: Author's abstract, 2008 ELO Conference site)