麻豆区

Mark Twain famously prepared the manuscript for Life on the聽Mississippi (1883) with his new Remington typewriter, the first聽literary text ever submitted to a publisher in typewritten form. Today聽we recognize that the typewriter changed the history and material聽culture of authorship. But when did writers begin using word processors? Who were the early adopters? How did the technology change their relationship to their craft? Was the computer just a better聽typewriter鈥攆aster, easier to use鈥攐r was it something more? And what聽will be the fate of today鈥檚 鈥渕anuscripts,鈥� which take the form of聽electronic files in folders on hard drives, instead of papers in hard聽copy? This talk, drawn from the speaker's forthcoming book on the聽subject, will provide some answers, and also address questions related聽to the challenges of conducting research at the intersection of literary and technological history.

Matt Kirschenbaum will give the 2nd Annual 麻豆区 Lecture in Digital Humanities. Dr.聽Kirschenbaum is Associate Professor in the聽聽at the聽聽and Associate Director of the聽聽(MITH, an applied thinktank for the digital humanities). He is also an affiliated faculty member with the聽at Maryland, and a member of the teaching faculty at the University of Virginia鈥檚聽. 聽Kirschenbaum served as the first director of the new聽聽living/learning program in the Honors College at Maryland.

础听, Kirschenbaum specializes in digital humanities, electronic literature and creative new media (including games), textual studies, and postmodern/experimental literature. He has a Ph.D. in English from the聽, and was trained in humanities computing at Virginia鈥檚聽听补苍诲听聽(where he was the Project Manager of the聽). His聽聽was the first electronic dissertation in the English department at Virginia and one of the very first in the nation.

The lecture will be preceded by a reception in conjunction with 麻豆区's Interacting with Print project from 5pm onwards.聽