Electronic Literature

Electronic literature (E-Lit) is born-digital, made on the computer and read on the computer so that its computational processes are part of its poetics. From Flash poetry to augmented reality, interactive fiction to hypertext, games to Netprov, electronic literature encompasses a wide variety of efforts to employ new media to create literary art. E-Lit is one of our central programming missions within DH@SDSU. We have a successful track record of impactful E-Lit programming at SDSU

Each year we run a student competition in electronic literature: student winners earn a cash prize and showcase their work at the annual DH Showcase in May.

To support student experimentation in digital poetics, DH@SDSU regularly offers tools workshops in free, accessible digital storytelling programs (including Twine and Scalar); these workshops are often taught by students and former students who have mastered the tools and produced E-lit within them, and often won the SDSU E-lit competition themselves. We further support the development of digital storytelling by regularly offering workshops specifically geared towards making E-Lit, often taught by Professor Mark Marino (USC), an award-winning writer and scholar of E-Lit. In the audio realm of digital storytelling, Dr. Pam Lach regularly provides lessons and support for podcasting. We are always experimenting with programming to support creative expression in new media because we understand E-Lit to be central to DH.

We also work with community partners to teach E-Lit and critical digital literacy. In 2018 we partnered with arc, a California-based organization that runs after school and experiential education programs, to create an after-school electronic literature program for local high school students, led by our own SDSU graduate students. Read about the program.

In Spring 2022, we are piloting a new program to strengthen experimentation in Electronic Literature on campus and within the larger local community led by Brent Ameneyro, current MFA student in Poetry, in the role of our first-ever DH E-lit Programs Assistant. Read more about the program.