Comments for Matthew G. Kirschenbaum

Comment on Electronic Literature as Cultural Heritage (Confessions of an Incunk) by wirelineblogger

wirelineblogger — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:00:23 +0000

I got stuck with your question, should you archive or exhibit. And I hope to be forgiven to do a bit of advocacy here. I realize that hybrid hard/softcopy archives are difficult to handle, as the hardcopy bits are are artefacts in itself. For a nice approach to that, you can have a look at The Book of Lost Tales, Christopher Tolkien’s epic struggle to make sense of all the notes that his famous father had left behind (incl. note facsimiles etc.)
For purely electronic writings, I think (and that is a big innovation) the alternative is not dualistic. You can archive the writings WHILE exhibiting them. A good example is the exhibiting work of the British Library (http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/index.html). An electronic document can easily be merged into a website context, highlighting, explaining, connecting and celebrating the work and the author.
About the benefits of publishing works online to start with, I came across the thoughts of SF authors Cory Doctorow (http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/cory-doctorow-copyright-tech-media_cz_cd_books06_1201doctorow.html or http://craphound.com) and Charles Stross (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/). From them, and I guess this is where the advocacy bit starts, I understand (not writing much myself) that open publishing is actually good for everybody. So here is my appeal, archive and exhibit as much as you can as publicly as you can, so that the knowledge contained in the published and unpublished works of people is preserved and accessible and can thrive.

Comment on Track Changes by Dr. James R. Pannozzi DOM

Dr. James R. Pannozzi DOM — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 20:41:13 +0000

My goodness what wonderful memories those old computers bring. The desktop micros made my entire career! I was a has- been mainframe programmer from the early 70s but saw the potential of the micros by about 1977-78 while developing Trident Sub software on minis. Got in micro development in 1979 and started programming IBM Personal computers to develop communications software in 1984. We used Wordstar to write the programs in and I still remember the CTRL-K combinations to get things done.

I hope you will also include what Word processing was available on the hard to find Xerox Alto computer (an early micro computer from the mid 70s, a legend), and the Symbolics and Lisp machine workstations (a small group of hobbyists still have these in working condition). These were the machines we regular software engineers dreamed of using.

Comment on On Tradecraft and Track Changes (An Update) by Prof. Matthew G. Kirschenbaum on writing a book « FreeMan's Blog

Prof. Matthew G. Kirschenbaum on writing a book « FreeMan's Blog — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:35:06 +0000

[...] Reblogged from Matthew G. Kirschenbaum: [...]

Comment on What is Digital Humanities? by 18 April 2012 « virtualfictional

18 April 2012 « virtualfictional — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:13:46 +0000

[...] fiction, which is only tangentially related to my project. -notes from Kirschenbaum’s article “What is the Digital Humanities and What’s it doing in English Departments?,” which is a good (and short) summary of the development of the term “digital humanities” and [...]

Comment on What is Digital Humanities? by Explaining DH in Promotion Documents « triproftri

Explaining DH in Promotion Documents « triproftri — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 18:15:54 +0000

[...] field. It’s as comprehensive as possible. See also Matthew Kirschenbaum’s article, “What is Digital Humanities and What’s It Doing in English Departments?” (ADE Bulletin 20 [2010]). The article appears in the journal produced by literature [...]

Comment on My Literary History of Word Processing: Your Assistance Needed by Claudius Reich

Claudius Reich — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 22:52:25 +0000

For a humor piece from 1985, check out John Varley’s epistolary short story “The Unprocessed Word” (there’s a poorly formatted version available via Google search).

Comment on On Tradecraft and Track Changes (An Update) by Kirschenbaum talks process and tools - TECHStyle

Kirschenbaum talks process and tools - TECHStyle — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:17:04 +0000

[...] as changed, from his dissertation to his first book to his current work. Interesting reflections! On Tradecraft and Track Changes (An Update). Tweet This [...]

Comment on What is Digital Humanities? by Navigating DH for Cultural Heritage Professionals, 2012 edition | Lot 49

Navigating DH for Cultural Heritage Professionals, 2012 edition | Lot 49 — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:33:06 +0000

[...] “What is Digital Humanities, and What’s it Doing in English Departments?” http://mkirschenbaum.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/what-is-digital-humanities, [...]

Comment on What is Digital Humanities? by The Promise of Digital History and Pomplamoose | Brian Sarnacki

The Promise of Digital History and Pomplamoose | Brian Sarnacki — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:09:45 +0000

[...] but there are so many gooddefinitions for and introductions to digitial history and the digital humanities (even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_history) already online. So instead of rehashing their [...]

Comment on My Literary History of Word Processing: Your Assistance Needed by mkirschenbaum

mkirschenbaum — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:04:57 +0000

Thanks for that, just got a copy.