On Memory, the Muse, and Judy Malloy's its name was Penelope

Critical Writing
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2018
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Abstract (in English): 

This chapter is a contribution to the book, Rebooting Electronic Literature: Documenting Pre-Web Born Digital Media. It documents Judy Malloy's generative hypertext work, its name was Penelope, a remediation of Homer's Odyssey, which has so far appeared in four editions: (1) the original 1989 version ("exhibition version"), created with Malloy's own generative hypertext authoring system, Narrabase II, in BASIC on a 3.5-inch floppy disk; (2) a substantially revised Narrabase version, published in 1990; (3) the "Eastgate version" published on floppy disk and CD-ROM in 1993 and 1998 respectively; and (4) the "Scholar's version," which is a DOSbox emulation created under the auspices of the Critical Code Studies Working Group in 2016.

Grigar's article is accompanied by a multi-clip Live Stream Traversal of the work by Grigar herself; a reading of individual lexias of INWP by Malloy herself, which conveys previously unknown autobiographical insights; a social media section documenting live Twitter and Facebook feeds during Grigar's traversal on April 27, 2018; photos and screenshots of the original text itself and its paratextual paraphernaila; and a critical essay authored by Grigar, situating the text in its socio-historical and medium-specific contexts; and a page containing additional resources, such as an image from the original 1989 installation and a link to the zip file and instructions for the DOSbox emulation.

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Critical writing referenced:

Titlesort descending Author Year
Fresh Code Mark Bernstein 2011

Publishers referenced:

Title Location
Eastgate Systems, Inc.
Eastgate Systems, Inc.
134 Main Street
02472 Watertown , MA
United States
Massachusetts US

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Titlesort descending Date Location
Electronic Literature Organization 2015: The End(s) of Electronic Literature 04.08.2015
University of Bergen Bergen
Norway
NO
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Astrid Ensslin