Offshore of Writing: E-literature and the Island

Fletcher, Jerome and Somma, Lisa (2012) Offshore of Writing: E-literature and the Island. Dichtung Digital, 42. ISSN 1617-6901

Abstract / Summary

In January 2011 Fletcher was invited by the Italian electronic literature organisation to give a paper and to display a digital text entitled Trac|tExt|ract at the Palazzo delle Arti di Napoli. This conference was co-organised by the University of Naples, and as a consequence of the paper etc. Fletcher was invited by Dr Lisa Somma, university researcher in digital culture, to join the development team for the Procida project. This is an Italian government initiative to establish an academy of New Media and Digital Arts on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples. The aim is to consolidate the island’s literary identity through digital culture and technological innovation and to become a pilot centre of excellence for digital cultural studies, electronic literature and e-learning in the fields of e-content and e-publishing. If successful, there is the chance of rolling out the initiative to other islands along Italy's Meditarranean coast. The project has been approved at regional governmental level, although the a date for the granting of significant funds is still difficult to predict. This article takes the Procida project as the starting point for an conisder of the notion of the island (both geographical and fictional) in correlation to the practice and social performance of digital text. Dr Somma wrote the section entitled 'Island 1 - Procida' which was then edited by Fletcher. I wrote the remainder of the article with comments from Dr Somma. The article appeared in a peer-reviewed online journal in a special issue dedicated to E-literature and Community.

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