FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES
ON
WEB FICTION
2004

ON-GOING BIBLIOGRAPHY

:: Items added frequently :: refresh your browser ::

This is a suggestive rather than a comprehensive bibliography (see Guidelines). Browse the web sites and the shelf of books in the CWS common room.

availability of paper texts:
JBM - Main Library; CWS - Common Room.

The hot linked external web sites listed on this page open in a new browser.

playing with words

the visual thesaurus: worth the wait for the site to load.

mostly fiction/art

Carolyn Guertin, web.arts A wonderful, inspiring collection of works by a feminist artist who also curates other women's works and critiques the medium. Browse, and linger.

Jacqueline Gross, Modern Keller

Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl (Watertown, MA : Eastgate Systems, 1995) CDROM; JBM

Amy Thompson, Virtual Girl (Ace Books, 1993) A fabulous tale of cyborgs, transgender, sentience and power. This is currently out of print, but I have a few personal copies I will leave in the Centre for you to borrow.

Kate Bornstein and Caitlin Sullivan, Nearly Roadkill (High Risk Books/ Serpent's Tail, 1996). An 'erotic adventure' on and off line that mixes the politics of power with sexualised and multi-gendered communication. Web site offers a downloadable first chapter CWS

Sue Thomas, Correspondence (Women's Press, 1991) Novel about machine-human merging (in common room). Essay and Extract CWS

mostly theory

Janet H Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The future of narrative in cyberspace (MIT Press, 1998) Good and accessible introduction to new media literary criticism. JBM

Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein, eds. Cyberfeminism: Connectivity, Creativity and Critique (Spinifex Press, 2000). An introductory volume that offers sociological and poetic analysis of cyberfeminism. The web site is useful, and see especially Sunita Namjoshi's 'A hypertext fable and some explanation'. JBM & CWS

N Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines (MIT Press, 2002). A new book which expands theoretical understandings of literature by one of the foremost thinkers in the field of new media writing. Hayles uses pseudo-autobiography to take the reader through some of the problematics of reading new media texts, and advocates a 'material' literary theory. Marries design and text to offer a "zine for grownups". See also the very useful and imaginative web supplement on http://mitpress.mit.edu/mediawork. Ask me for this book.

Carolyn Guertin, Queen Bees and the Hum of the Hive: An Overview of Feminist Hypertext's Subversive Honeycombings In Beehive 1:2, July 1998

Anne Balsamo, Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women (Duke UP, 1996). Sample pages available on Amazon.com. Book highly recommended. JBM

George P Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology (Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).

Diane Greco, Cyborg : Engineering the Body Electric (Watertown, MA : Eastgate Systems, 1995) disk and manual. JBM

Espen Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). Influential and original piece of work that links cyberwriting to many other forms of narrative. Also check out his web site which includes an online version of the Introduction to Cybertext.JBM & CWS

Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (Simon and Schuster: 1995) Seminal and very readable analyis of subjectivity and bodies online. JBM & CWS

David Gauntlett, ed. Web.studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age (Oxford UP, 2000). Useful introduction to cultural aspects. Also check out his web site Theory.Org.Uk for Judith Butler as a lego figure, Michel Foucualt on a trading card and much, much more.

Roland Barthes 'From Work to Text' in The Rustle of Language Trans. Richard Howard. New York, Hill and Wang:1986. 56-64. Written before hypertext, but worth thinking about the concepts raised in the light of the palpable hyperlinking that is now becoming part of contemporary literary endeavors.

CTheory Journal

hybrid texts

Mary Flanagan and Austin Booth, eds Reload: Rethinking women and cyberculture (MIT Press, 2002). Wonderful combination of fiction and theory. JBM & CWS

Christy Sheffield Sanford, The Roots of Nonlinearity: Toward a Theory of Web-Specific Art-Writing Beehive 3:1, February 2000

Web site of VNS Matrix, an influential and much-quoted Australian cyberfeminist group.

Mark Amerika, Grammatron (1997) on www.grammatron.com A classic and difficult piece that links narrative and theory. "A story about cyberspace, Cabala mysticism, digicash paracurrencies and the evolution of virtual sex ... GRAMMATRON depicts a near-future world where stories are no longer conceived for book production but are instead created for a more immersive networked-narrative environment that, taking place on the Net, calls into question how a narrative is composed, published and distributed in the age of digital dissemination." See what you make of it.

Sites offering links to useful material.

Use carefully - browse gently until you find a piece that interests you, then stay with it.

Voice of The Shuttle. A fantastic resource that aims to "provide a structured and briefly annotated guide to online resources that at once respects the established humanities disciplines in their professional organization and points toward the transformation of those disciplines as they interact with the sciences and social sciences and with new digital media."

Cyberspace, Hypertext and Critical Theory, on www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/theory/theoryov.html

Social Science Hub: Cyberspace. Mostly sociological, as the name suggests, but very useful. Offers many pertinent links including work on MOOs and communities.

Electronic Literature Organization. This US organisation aims "to facilitate and promote the writing, publishing, and reading of literature in electronic media". Defintely worth a visit.

Trace. Based at Nottingham Trent University. Hard to know where to place this web site. In many ways it is the UK equivalent to the ELO (above) but last year changed from a kind of 'online art centre' into more of an 'art journal', with the consequent gains and losses of this more dedicated site. Lots of resources, though many are currently hard to find behind the journal format. Good articles, and you might like to follow Kate Pullinger's journey from print to web writer.

Online New Media Journals.

Frame: Journal of Culture and Technology published by the Trace online writing centre (see above).

Beehive : http://beehive.temporalimage.com/

Rhizomes : Cyberfeminism

Journal of Digital Information: see especially special issues on hypertext and hyperfiction.

Electronic Writing Research Ensemble: a treasure trove.

GeekGirl A pleasure.

Riding the Meridian www.heelstone.com/meridian Not exactly a journal, more an art centre, and showcases some lovely online women's work as well as offering very thoughtful perpsectives on the medium. Browse - but don't miss 'Diner' and the rest of issue one, volume two 'Women and Technology' and the items on hypertext (follow 'archives' link)

Other Stuff

The English Server Fiction Collection An eclectic site offering traditional fiction online, both on the site and via links to other sites. Edited by Martha Cheng and Geoff Sauer.

Tecriture :: Writing and Technology "Tecriture is a web site devoted to writing and technology. Whilst at present its main attraction is the free ebook service allowing users to search and convert etexts from the Gutenberg Archive, I hope that over time it becomes more of an online community for those of us who are passionate about the possibilities of text and the internet." (description from the web site)

CLEAN A community (?) site devised by the Women's Library in London.