MITH is pleased to announce that we have begun regular Podcasting of our popular Digital Dialogues seminar series:

http://www.mith2.umd.edu/programs/digitaldialogue/podcasts.php

We have three Podcasts from recent Digital Dialogues already available, including talks by Rice University’s Chuck Henry on scholarly electronic publishing, Brown’s Vika Zafrin on collaboration in the digital humanities, and game studies from internationally renowned media theorist and author Stuart Moulthrop.

A “Podcast” is an MP3 audio recording. You can access and listen to them in a variety of ways. First, by going to the URL above and clicking on the session you want to hear, the MP3 audio file will open and play using your browser’s standard audio plugin. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed of the Digital Dialgoues Podcast right from MITH’s front page (http://www.mith2.umd.edu/). Simply click on the buttons for the RSS options as they appear at the bottom of the right-hand column. (Firefox users can also click the orange radio wave icon that appears in their address bar.) Subscribing to the RSS feed means you will automatically receive new Podcasts as they become available through your RSS reader, and you can also synch them to your portable music player to hear Digital Dialogues on the go.

We plan to make this a regular feature of Digital Dialogues, pending the approval of individual speakers. Of course you’ll still have to come to MITH Tuesday’s at 12:30 to see any visuals associated with a talk, participate in the conversation, and share some of our coffee and cookies. Enjoy!

A MITH Digital Dialogue
Tuesday, November 28, 12:30-1:45
MITH Conference Room, McKeldin Library B0135
Please join us to welcome the newest member of MITH’s full-time staff . . .

“Byte By Byte, Putting It Together: Electronic Editions of Musical Theatre Texts”
by DOUG RESIDE (MITH)

While many humanities scholars have explored how computers might assist them in their work, there have been very few attempts to use electronic tools to study the musical. Musical theatre seems particularly well-suited, though, to the multimedia capabilities of the modern PC. This presentation will explore the ways in which electronic editions of musicals would not only be of use to musical theatre scholars, but might also help to develop a wider audience for artistically-minded (as opposed to commercially-driven) musicals. This talk outlines the benefits offered by electronic editions and describes the steps taken by the author to develop an AJAX-based electronic edition of the 1998 musical Parade.

DOUG RESIDE earned his PhD from the University of Kentucky in 2006. His dissertation was a multimedia musical theatre edition; while at Kentucky he also worked on several other humanities computing projects, including Kevin Kiernan’s celebrated Electronic Boethius. He is now the Assistant Director of MITH.

Coming up @MITH, Dec. 5: Jimmy Lin (College of Information Studies), “Applying Automated Content Analysis Techniques to Legal Texts.” View the complete Fall 2006 schedule for Digital Dialogues here: http://www.mith2.umd.edu/programs/mith_speakers_fall_2006.pdf

Free and open to the public.

Contact: Neil Fraistat, Director, MITH (www.mith.umd.edu, mith@umd.edu, 5-5896).

A MITH Digital Dialogue
Tuesday, November 14, 12:30-1:45
MITH Conference Room, McKeldin Library B0135

Narrative, Fiction, and the Cultural Reception of Videogames”
by STUART MOULTHROP (University of Baltimore, School of Information
Arts and Technologies)

When even the most perceptive scholars based in traditional,
typographic forms of literacy turn their attention to videogames, the
results can be disconcerting. Two of the best in this line, Janet
Murray and James P. Gee, both falter notably when they ask when, if,
or how videogames can have cultural effects equivalent to literature.
These moments do not represent failure so much as catastrophe, a
collapse of interpretive method that may provide indications for more
viable approaches. I suggest the key to a new agenda lies in the
distinction of narrative, a main concern for my generation and our
elders, from the sort of fiction Jesper Juul embraces in his theory of
games: a form whose clearest illustration is not story or novel, but
rather tableau. As Murray herself says: “The more we see life in
terms of systems, the more we need a system-modeling medium to
represent it.” But systematic or procedural systems cannot simply be
interpreted or read as if they were conventionally inscribed texts.
As Espen Aarseth argues, they must be played; and I would argue
further that critics must also engage in the kind of fictive play from
which games emerge. I suggest it is no accident that many of the most
interesting new critics of the videogame, figures like Ian Bogost and
Mary Flanagan, are active game developers, and argue more generally
that videogames and other forms of cybertext require a more engaged,
creative commitment from their critics.

Internationally renowned as a media theorist and hypertext writer,
STUART MOULTHROP currently works on the design and application of
interactive software, including video games and simulations. He is the
author of numerous works of electronic literature, including such
landmark works as Victory Garden, Hegirascope, Reagan Library, and
Pax. He is Professor in the School of Information Arts and
Technologies at the University of Baltimore. Visit his homepage for
more information: http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/

Coming up @MITH Nov. 21: Brandon Morse (Department of Art). View the
complete Fall 2006 schedule for Digital Dialogues here:
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/programs/mith_speakers_fall_2006.pdf

Free and open to the public.

Contact: Neil Fraistat, Director, MITH (www.mith.umd.edu, mith@umd.edu, 5-5896).