The Buffalo Marriott
1340 Millersport Highway
Amherst, NY 14221
This conference is sponsored by the Conversations in the Disciplines Program of the State University of New York with support from the University Libraries and Computing and Information Technology, Academic Services, of the State University of New York at Buffalo.
For information about registering for the conference, call the UB Office of Conferences and Special Events, 716-645-2018. Registration fee: $30/$15 students.
About the Program:
The Internet's impact on scholarly research and communication is the subject of this Conversations in the Disciplines Program, which brings together a group of people involved in applying Internet technologies and resources to studies in the humanities, social sciences, arts and letters, and the sciences. The conference will include a demonstration of Mosaic, Internet radio, and the UB Electronic Poetry Center, as well as an RIF/T poetry reading.
Program Schedule:
8:30 - 9:00 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 9:30 a.m. "'Our Words Were the Form We Entered': Towards a Theory of the Net," Loss Glazier, University at Buffalo
9:30 - 10:00 a.m. Paper: "Electronic Scholarship," John Merritt Unsworth, University of Virginia
10:00 - 10:30 a.m. Coffee Break
10:30 - 11:00 a.m. Demonstration: MOSAIC, Jim Gerland, University at Buffalo
11:00 - 11:30 a.m. Paper: "Gender and Democracy in Computer-Mediated Communication," Susan Herring, University of Texas-Arlington
11:30 - 11:45 a.m. Event: "Internet/Radio/Communites: Social Relations and the New New Media" Martin Spinelli, Independent Radio Producer
11:45 - 1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 - 1:30 p.m. Paper: "I Don't Take Voice Mail" Charles Bernstein, University at Buffalo
1:30 - 1:45 p.m. Demonstration: Electronic Poetry Center and "Textual Spaces: The Formal Structure of Published On-line Writing" Kenneth Sherwood, University at Buffalo
1:45 - 2:15 p.m. Event: Poetry Reading with Charles Bernstein, Loss Glazier, Kenneth Sherwood, and Katie Yates
2:15 - 3:00 p.m. Afternoon Coffee and Poster Sessions: "An Integrated Multimedia Network for Scholarly Discovery, Pedagogical Authoring, and Professional Presentation in the Field of Music," Nancy Nuzzo and Michael Long, University at Buffalo and "Creativity & the Computer," Katie Yates
3:00 - 3:30 p.m. Paper: "E-Journals and Preprint Servers In Mathematics and Science," Neil Calkin, Georgia Institute of Technology
3:30 - 4:15 p.m. Issues: Continuing the Conversation... Internet Issues and Concerns with Stuart Shapiro, Valerie Shalin, and the Audience. Remarks: "Graphical User Interfaces: A Critique," Stuart Shapiro and "The Perceptual Foundations of Scholarship and Its Implications for Information Retrieval," Valerie Shalin
4:15 - 4:30 p.m. Closing Remarks
About the Main Speakers:
Charles Bernstein is David Gray Chair in Poetry and the Humanities at the State University of New York at Buffalo and co- editor of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, a literary magazine often credited with founding a well-known and highly visible school of contemporary poetry. He has recently been influential in founding the Poetics Program in English at the University at Buffalo. He is the author of twenty books, including A Poetics, published by Harvard University Press, and has given papers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. He is editor of the Poetics listserv on the Internet, one of the most vital electronic discussion groups in contemporary literary theory.
Neil Calkin, Professor of Mathematics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, grew up in England, where he studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, before earning a Ph.D. in Combinatorics and Optimization from the University of Waterloo, Canada, in 1988. He was Zeev Nehari Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon from 1988 to 1991. Since 1991 he has been a member of the mathematics faculty at Georgia Tech. He is co-founder and managing editor of the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, one of the first WWW journals in mathematics. He was recently featured in "The Speed of Write: Trends in Scientific Communication" in the December 1994 issue of
Susan Herring is Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from UC-Berkeley in 1991. Since 1991 she has been investigating the language of discussion groups on the Internet. She is the author of eight papers on the subject, the best known of which is "Gender and Democracy in Computer-Mediated Communication," and has given talks on gender differences in on-line communications in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She is editor of an interdisciplinary collection entitled Computer Mediated Communication, to be published by John Benjamins of Amsterdam, and guest editor of a forthcoming special issue of the Electronic Journal of Communication devoted to linguistic approaches to CMC. She is currently investigating the discursive practices of male and female "hackers" on Usenet and the Internet.
John Unsworth is Director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities and Associate Professor of English at the University of Virginia. He is co-founder and co-editor of Postmodern Culture: An Electronic Journal of Interdisciplinary Criticism (published by Oxford University Press) and editor of the highly acclaimed Research Reports of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. He has taught "Theory and Practice of Hypertext," "the Information Superhighway: An Interdisciplinary Introduction to the Internet," as well as courses in contemporary literature and theory. He is currently working on "Postmodernism and Information Theory," a book-length study of information theory within the context of postmodern literature, literary theory, and social history. His paper, "Electronic Scholarship," will appear in the forthcoming collection, The Literary Text in the Digital Age, edited by Richard Finneran (University of Michigan Press).
About the Program Planners and Participants:
Jim Gerland is Associate Director, Academic Services, Computing & Information Technology, and Manager, Network Information Resources, at the University at Buffalo. His responsibilities include coordinating WINGS, UB's campus wide information service. He is one of the founders of the Buffalo Free-Net and serves as a member of its Executive Committee. Currently he is teaching a course on the Internet at UB's Millard Fillmore College.
Librarian and poet, Loss Pequeño Glazier is English & American Literature Subject Specialist at Lockwood Library, SUNY Buffalo. He assists in the maintenance of Internet resources for the Libraries, co-administers the Electronic Poetry Center, and co-edits the electronic journal RIF/T. His most recent book is Small Press: An Annotated Guide (Greenwood Press, 1992).
Associate Professor of Music and Coordinator of Musicology Programs at the University at Buffalo Michael Long's published work considers Medieval and Renaissance music from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. He has worked closely with Nancy Nuzzo and the other principal investigators on the design and content of the demonstration which will be shown at the conference. The demonstration simulates one model for a Music Library Information Network that would encompass digital reserves, software applications, and access to Internet resources. Within the network simulation is a classroom presentation which utilizes hypertext links to digitized reserve materials, including visual materials, texts, and CD-quality audio.
Nancy Nuzzo is Associate Librarian in the Music Library at the University at Buffalo. Together with Peter Otto, Director of the Computer Music Studios, and James Coover, Professor of Music and Director of the Music Library, she was awarded a Multidisciplinary Research Pilot Project Grant from the UB Office of the Vice President for Research to study the feasibility of setting up a multimedia network to link resources in the Music Library and the Music Department for classroom instruction, reserve, and research.
Nancy Schiller is the Engineering Librarian at the University at Buffalo. Her research focuses on the impact of networked computer and communications technologies on academic libraries. She is co-author of "Creating the Virtual Library: Strategic Issues" in The Virtual Library: Visions and Realities (Meckler, 1993).
Stuart C. Shapiro is Professor of Computer Science and a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. His research has included work on intelligent multimedia interfaces.
Kenneth Sherwood, a doctoral student in English at UB, is co-editor of the electronic magazine RIF/T.
Martin Spinelli works with National Public Radio and Pacifica as an independent radio producer. He is a Ph.D. student in English at the University at Buffalo.
Poet Katie Yates presently lives in Colorado. Her most recent book, "So Difficulty," was issued by Rodent Press.
Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering at UB, Valerie Shalin's research is in the area of human-computer interaction, specifically human bahavior and information technology.
Acknowledgements
The program organizers wish to thank co-sponsors Barbara von Wahlde, Associate Vice President for University Libraries, and Rick Lesniak, Director of Academic Services, Computing & Information Technology, University at Buffalo, for their generous support of this conference.
We also wish to thank Nancy Stimson, Electronic Resources Librarian in the Science and Engineering Library at the University at Buffalo, for designing and producing the conference program schedule.