“An Afternoon with afternoon: A Live Group Traversal & Conversation Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Michael Joyce’s afternoon: a story”

This event is a live group Traversal celebrating the 30th anniversary of Michael Joyce’s hypertext novel, afternoon: a story. Demonstrated in 1987 at the ACM Hypertext conference and published by Eastgate Systems, Inc. in 1990, this seminal work is considered by critic Robert Coover to be the “granddaddy of full-length hypertext fictions” and, so, helped to lay the foundation of electronic literature for years to come. It has been published in five languages and is one of two original Eastgate works, along with Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl, made available for contemporary computers. It is also one of two works, along with J Yellowlees Douglas’ “I Have Said Nothing” (1994), that was published in a print literary anthology––W. W. Norton & Co.’s Postmodern American Fiction (1997). Archives of the work and Joyce’s papers have been collected by the Harry Ransom Center. Performing afternoon: a story will be scholars and artists who have impacted the work through reviews, translations, archival activities, and scholarly writing. They include: N. Katherine HaylesJane Yellowlees DouglasStuart MoulthropJohn McDaidWalter VanniniMariusz PisarskiArnaud RegnauldMaria EngbergMatt Kirschenbaum Heather Malin Dene Grigar will moderate and Astrid Ensslin will serve as Chat Archivist. The event will take place over Zoom and will be managed by researchers and technical specialists at the Electronic Literature Lab at Washington State University Vancouver. Following the performance, Joyce will participate in a conversation with Dene Grigar, Director of ELL, about the work, its development, and its place in literary history. An archive of the event will be made available to the public as both video documentation on Vimeo and a podcast on Soundcloud. We request that the event be scheduled on Wednesday, July 15, between the ELO and Hypertext conferences in order to reach audiences from both organizations. To register for and attend this event, go to: https://wsu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gl6ObUKfSBebqeyiFYewn