The End
Since GRACLS2013 is over, we are closing this tumblr for the year. Thanks everyone for participating, and we look forward to seeing you next year!
What We Read: In her keynote address at gracls last friday, nk hayles traced a movement in experimental literature from the formally liberated (composition 1) to the highly constrained (only revolutions: danielewski). In Only Revolutions, the endpapers (above) form clusters of words that Hayles describes as forbidden topics: themes from the more famous "House of Leaves" that have been intentionally excluded from its mirror-book, Only Revolutions. After digitizing the text of the novel, she ran it against the Brown corpus to determine which words were abnormally absent from the text. For example: the word "or" never appears in Only Revolutions at all. Concluding that this must be intentional, she remarks that "or" is the acronym of the book's title and that self-reflexivity is a forbidden theme.
It's a serious constraint, an odd conceit, and a playful puzzle for the digital humanist. Confession: It makes me want to read the book less.
What We Read: In her keynote speech at gracls, nk hayles described Mark Danielewski's The Fifty Year Sword as a book-as-fetish-object: highly expensive, customized, and exclusive.
She seems to have missed the fact - which I discovered when searching for the above photo - that you can get it as an illegal pdf via google.
What We Read: we featured “Tree of Codes” - Jonathan Safran Foer’s cut-out novel - earlier this summer. On Friday, NK Hayles spoke at gracls about how although the act of erasure simplifies and even disney-fies the original story (deviant sexualities and difficult relationships disappear), the form reflects an important aesthetic aspect of the original text: just as memories and events come into focus and fade away - like a young man having an orgasm - the words come into clarity only to disappear.
As does the book itself. The delicacy of the pages makes this a collector’s item, not a library book or a bathroom read.
And what would it look like in digital form?
What We Read: NK Hayles' keynote talk at gracls on saturday featured Robert Coover's heart suit, which can be purchased as a gentleman's carrying case including a comb, some light reading, and the story itself printed on the deck of cards. The first and last card stay the same; you are free to shuffle the rest of the deck. No matter how you read it, hayles tells us, the story is the same.
What We Read: NK Hayles' keynote address at gracls last night traced a trajectory of experimental literature from the loosely configured to the rigidly codified. Marc Saporta's composition 1, above, can be read in no particular order. It has seen new light as an ipad app.
Special guest at today's gracls panel!
What We Read - the gracls2013 conference - is tomorrow!
21st century china expresses its longing for the past in a study of Kung Fu Hustle (above) at gracls2013.
[gracls2013 @ UT Austin / October 11 / 10am - 7pm / CLA 1.302f]
The gracls2013 conference is tomorrow!
Check out the amazing cinematic trailer for the video game Assassin's Creed, above, and then check out the rhetorical and post-colonial analysis at tomorrow's conference.
[gracls2013 @ ut austin / October 11 / 10am - 7pm / CLA 1.302F]
- What We Read, the gracls2013 conference, is tomorrow! -
From the sixteenth century Journey To The West to Disney's Jungle Book, Sun Wukong has undergone multiple cultural and visual transformation in his movement from east to west and back again, described at tomorrow's gracls conference.
[gracls2013 @ ut austin / October 11 / 10am - 7pm / CLA 1.302F]
What We Read - the gracls2013 conference - is tomorrow!
Watch the uncanny transformation of Siliva OCampo's fantastic story Cornelia Frente al Espejo from fiction to film - trailer above - at gracls2013.
[gracls2013 @ UT Austin / October 11 / 10am - 7pm / CLA 1.302f]
The gracls2013 conference is just two days away!
Above, Francisco Goya's "The Third of May 1808." At gracls: reading goya alongside the Argentine writer Roberto Arlt.
[gracls2013 @ ut austin / October 11 / 10am - 5pm / CLA 1.302F]
Just two days until "What We Read" - the GRACLS2013 conference!
Above, the mosaic "minerva of peace" (Elihu Vedder, 1896). At gracls, Minerva's Sexual curiosity.
The GRACLS conference keynote is now officially scheduled. The conference will be held October 11 from 9:30 to 5 in CLA 1.302. The keynote will be held at 5:30 in CLA 0.126, with reception to follow. Hope to see you there!
What We [Watch]: Rise of the Guardians is pretty exciting already, but not as exciting as the fandom study, to be presented at gracls2013.
What We Read: The above image is a mask used to represent Josie Bliss, the burmese lover of Pablo Neruda. Her presence (or absence) will be traced through the archive during one of the gracls2013 panels.
photo credit: fundacion pablo neruda
Conference Logistics: Information about using technology to enhance your GRACLS presentation is now up on the "FAQ" page.
What We [Hear]: One of several gracls2013 talks on music features the postcolonial music of Medine, a Franco-Islamic rapper whose lyrics challenge traditional histories.
What We Read: At gracls2013, an innovative approach to literary analysis inspired by the pufferfish. Because, pufferfish.