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Announcement: Paradigm Lecture Series

“Paradigms” is a focused lecture series that showcases important research approaches with the potential to influence the direction of the UC Transliteracies Project on online reading. (Lectures, which may occur at various campuses, will be videotaped and made available to Transliteracies project members at other campuses.)

McKenzie Wark, CommentPress Interview, “GAM3R 7H3ORY” and “totality.tv”


Co-sponsored by the UCI Software Culture Speaker Series and by the Transliteracies Paradigms Speaker Series – Thursday, April 10, UC Irvine

On Thursday, April 10, 2008, McKenzie Wark visited UC Irvine for a series of talks and interviews that was co-sponsored by Transliteracies. While there, he gave lectures on his projects GAM3R 7H3ORY and “totality.tv” and was interviewed about his experiences publishing GAM3R 7H3ORY online with CommentPress.

McKenzie Wark is an Australian-born writer on media theory, critical theory and new media. Among his best known work is a project with the Institute for the Future of the Book, a specially designed site that combined Wark’s interest in experimental writing techniques in networked media with his exploration of “Gamer Theory”. Wark is the author of seven books, among them A Hacker Manifesto (Harvard University Press, 2004), Celebrities, Culture and Cyberspace (Pluto Press, Sydney, 1998), The Virtual Republic (Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1997), and Virtual Geography (Indiana University Press, 1994). He is Associate Professor of Culture and Media at Eugene Lang College,
New School, New York.

On CommentPress: Interview with McKenzie Wark: Kim Knight had an opportunity to sit down and talk with Wark during his UC Irvine visit. The interview is available for public download.

Full Video: .mov | .wmv

GAM3R 7H3ORY Talk:

Abstract: If game theory was objective, rational, abstract, then gamer theory is subjective, intuitive, particular. If game theory started with the self contained agent, like a prisoner in a cell, looking out at the world, then gamer theory wonders how the agency of the gamer comes into being as something distinct in the first place. The rise of the computer game as an emergent cultural form calls for an approach to cultural theory that might emerge organically out of the experience of game play. In an era in which many aspects of everyday life seem increasingly game-like, one might well ask what relation computer games have to this agon of the everyday. Perhaps computer games present ethos of the digital world in its pure form, as place where the ‘playing field’ really is level, where the rules really seem to be fair. Perhaps the computer game is the almost-utopian double to a world made over as a gamespace.

(Available via password to Transliteracies members only.)

Full Video: .mov | .wmv

Part 1: .mov | .wmv
Part 2: .mov | .wmv

totality.tv Talk:

Abstract: The Situationist International (1957-1972) was arguably the last of the historic avantgarde movements. While their work has been recuperated variously as art history, cinema, architecture or political theory, their avowed goal of superseding all of these separate forms escapes the academic division of labor. In this presentation I want to discuss both some neglected aspects of the Situationist legacy that might be relevant to today and also to present the website I have created (together with Chris France and Kevin C. Pyle) for work on the Situationist International at http://www.totality.tv

(Available via password to Transliteracies members only.)

Full Video: .mov | .wmv

Part 1: .mov | .wmv
Part 2: .mov | .wmv

Raymond Siemens, “Converging Knowledge Domains and the Study of the Electronic Book”


Paradigms Lecture 3 -Friday, February 8, 11 am – 12:30 pm, UCSB, South Hall 2635

On February 8, 2008, Raymond Siemens presented the third lecture in the Tranliteracies Project’s Paradigms Lecture series: “Converging Knowledge Domains and the Study of the Electronic Book.”

HCI-Book Report: The Study of Professional Reading Tools for Computing Humanists.

Full Video: .mov | .wmv

Video by Sections:

  • Section 1: Introductory remarks by Alan Liu. .mov | .wmv
  • Section 2: Overview; Research Team; Initial Consultation; Research Questions .mov | .wmv
  • Section 3: Research Objectives; Reading Devices Considered .mov | .wmv
  • Section 4: Closing Thoughts; Q&A (partial) .mov | .wmv

Ray Siemens is the Canada Research Chair in Humanities Computing and Professor of English at University of Victoria (and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King’s College London), President (English) of the Society for Digital Humanities, and a leader of several major humanities computing and literary/textual initiatives. (more…)

Andrew Elfenbein, “The Humanities and the Science of Comprehension”

Paradigms Lecture 2—Thursday, May 3rd, 4:00-5:30, South Hall 2635, UCSB

On May 3, 2007, Andrew Elfenbein presented the second lecture in the Transliteracies Project’s Paradigms’ Lecture Series: “The Humanities and the Science of Comprehension.”

PowerPoint Presentation

Full Video: (.mov) | (.wmv)

Video by Sections:

Section 1: Introductory Remarks by Alan Liu
(.mov) | (.wmv)

Section 2: Overview; Traditional Criticism; Enter Cognitive Psychology; Some Possible Caveats
(.mov) | (.wmv)

Section 3: Source Monitoring; Failures of Monitoring; Correlation to Literature?; Result?; Medium Blindness; How Can Medium Not Matter?; Implications
(.mov) | (.wmv)

Section 4: Reader Memory; Causal Density; Implications?; “Past the Middle Effect”; Online Effects; Example; Event Indexing Model; Effects; Relevance?
(.mov) | (.wmv)

Section 5: Reading and Social Psychology; Implications; Trait vs. Situational Models; Reading and Belief; Disarticulation of Levels of Processing; Overvalorization of the Situation Model; Overvalorization of Textbase; On Improving Online Reading; Transliteracies Framework; What Determines Cognitive Interest; Hypermedia Reading; Search the Reader; Defaulting; On-Line Monitoring of Hypermedia; Off-line Effects;
(.mov) | (.wmv)

Section 6: Discussion
(.mov) | (.wmv)

  • Andrew Elfenbein, Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, has been a leader in introducing the perspectives and methods of recent cognitive science to the study of literary texts. His important article on this topic, “Cognitive Science and the History of Reading,” appeared in PMLA 121.2 (2006) 484-500. (Read the Transliteracies Research Report about this article.) Elfenbein is an affiliate member of the U. Minnesota Center for Cognitive Sciences

Rama Hoetzlein, “Quanta: Knowledge Organization for Interdisciplinary Research”

Paradigms Lecture 1—Tuesday, December 5th, 1:00-2:30, South Hall 2635, UCSB

On December 5, 2006, Rama Hoetzlein presented the first lecture in the Transliteracies Project’s Paradigms’ Lecture Series: “Quanta: Knowledge Organization for Interdisciplinary Research.” The following are links to video footage of the event for Transliteracies participants (requires project login). Because of the length of the talk (1.5 hours) and the size of the full file (72 megs), we are streaming the video both in full and in smaller sections.

Full Video: (pc) | (mac)

Video by Sections:


  • Section 1: Introductory remarks; project overview
    (pc) | (mac)

  • Section 2: Categorization, Classification, and Organization
    (pc) | (mac)

  • Section 3: Alternative methods of classification and knowledge organization (e.g., network)
    (pc) | (mac)

  • Section 4: Semantic Networks
    (pc) | (mac)

  • Section 5: Outline of the Quanta System
    (pc) | (mac)

  • Section 6: Demonstration of Quanta
    (pc) | (mac)

  • Accompanying Images for the Demo (Copyright© 2007 Rama C. Hoetzlein):
    1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

  • Section 7: Question and Answer Session
    (pc) | (mac)


  • Rama Hoetzlein is a Ph.D. student in the UCSB Media Arts & Technology Program whose theoretical and technological working on knowledge organization and intelligent systems. He presented his completed Quanta project and thesis on April 13, 2007 at UCSB. (bio)