The Anatomy of a Digital Object

Matthew Kirschenbaum (English, University of Maryland)

Matthew Kirschenbaum will discuss a range of theoretical issues related to the preservation, archiving, and dissemination of electronic literature, with particular attention to precedents in the fields of textual criticism and bibliography. Kirschenbaum will address the implications of our thinking about electronic literature from the material and historical standpoint that textual editing demands, and will also show examples of multiple versions and editions of the "same" work of electronic literature. Kirschenbaum will conclude with a preliminary taxonomy of terms for describing the textual condition of individual works of electronic literature: release, version, layer, object, state, instance, and copy.