The Digital Genres conference is coming up at the University of Chicago on May 30-31. Looks fantastic!
The conference is based on the idea that digital and network technologies are creating new methods of communication that, like the popular genres of the 1920, allow novel forms of creativity and expression. After a half-century dominated by the mass-media, we argue that it is these new genres – the genres that will preoccupy us on this side of the millennium – that are the true successors to the lively arts of the 1920s. What can slash, blogs, massively multiplayer games, fan fiction, chat rooms, and other popular digital genres tell us about how humans communicate today? And how do they shed light on human meaning making more generally? Could it be that these genres are not just ways for people to communicate in the world, but in fact create whole worlds within which people communicate? The conference examines a wide variety of cultural production enabled by digital technology.
(Thanks, Biella!)
