Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice: €1.000.000 Research Project Funded

Shortly before Christmas, we received some excellent news from the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) review panel. Our project “Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice” has been recommended for funding, pending final contract negotiations with the European Science Foundation to be completed in January 2010. Scott Rettberg, of the University of Bergen Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic department’s Digital Culture Group, will be the Project Leader. The total budget for the project as a whole will be just under 1.000.000 Euros.

“Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice” (ELMCIP) is a 3-year collaborative research project which will run from 2010-2013. The project will be funded under HERA joint research project theme: ’Humanities as a Source of Creativity and Innovation’.

ELMCIP involves seven European academic research partners and one non-academic partner who will investigate how creative communities of practitioners form within a transnational and transcultural context in a globalized and distributed communication environment. Focusing on the electronic literature community in Europe as a model of networked creativity and innovation in practice, ELMCIP is intended both to study the formation and interactions of that community and also to further electronic literature research and practice in Europe.

The partners include: The University of Bergen, Norway (PL Scott Rettberg, Co-I Jill Walker Rettberg), the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland (PI Simon Biggs, Co-I Penny Travlou), Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden (PI Maria Engberg, Co-I Talan Memmott), The University of Amsterdam, Netherlands (PI Yra Van Dijk), The University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (PI Janez Strechovec), The University of Jyväskylä, Finland (PI Raine Koskimaa), and Univerity College Falmouth at Dartington, England (PI Jerome Fletcher), and New Media Scotland.

The project will fund three post-docs and one PhD. The positions that will be advertised include: a 20-month post-doc in electronic literature bibliography at the University of Bergen, a 12-month post-doc focused on electronic literature publication and education at Blekinge Institute of Technology, and a three year PhD in electronic literature and design at the Edinburgh College of Art. The project also funds a three-year post-doc in ethnography of digital culture at the Edinburgh College of Art (Penny Travlou).

The research outcomes of the project will include: a series of case studies and research papers on electronic literature, a series of public seminars on electronic literature in different cultural contexts, the production of an extensive online knowledge including papers and presentations from the seminars, project information and bibliographic records of works of electronic literature, a workshop on electronic literature and education and a companion anthology of electronic literature including pedagogical materials, a major international conference, a public exhibition of electronic literature artworks and performances. All publications resulting from the project, including conference proceedings, exhibition catalog, project documentation and the DVD anthology, will be made available on an open access basis.

As the lead partner, the University of Bergen will be responsible for overall project administration, for research and a seminar on electronic literature communities to take place in 2010, for the production of the project’s online knowledge base, and for the production of the project’s final report. UiB’s share of the project budget, pending ESF approval, is 298.625 Euros.

More information, including a website for the project, details of planned public events, and calls for projects and positions associated with ELMCIP, will be forthcoming soon.