I’m going to Salzburg today, to the program committee meeting for ACM’s Hypertext ’05. Hypertext ’98 was the first conference I ever went to. It was my first time in the US and my first long journey absolutely all alone, knowing nobody. I was so scared I thought of just not going, but thank goodness my supervisor insisted that not only should I go, but I also had a task: I had to give his regards to Stuart Moulthrop. That involved talking with Stuart Moulthrop, terrifying thought, though of course, once I did I found he was human and actually really friendly and gave me some great advice on my MA thesis.
So I’ve been a reviewer for a few years, and this year they asked me to be on the program commitee as co-chair for the literary hypertext theme, and I get to go to Salzburg which my girlfriend tells me is the most beautiful town in Austria. The hypertext conferences are interesting, because there are always lots of computer scientists, but there are also always some literary types who are interested in using hypertext for writing. I also like the way in which the conference looks after its history by making an effort to cite previous works in the community. There’s an awareness that people have been working on this stuff for decades that I appreciate. Papers are also reviewed much more thoroughly and helpfully than I’ve seen at other conferences.
It’s the first time I’ve been on the kind of program commitee where you actually fly in and meet in person. They have this great system this year, with junior and senior theme chairs. So Jim Rosenberg, who’s knows the hypertext conferences in and out, is the senior chair for my theme and I get to ask him all the dumb questions. He’s not actually going to the meeting, though.
I was really pleased to see that there are steam baths at the hotel, and have packed my bathers!
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Toril
It all sounds very exiting and a lot of fun. Enjoy yourself, Jill, and make sure you
have at least one of those steam baths 🙂
Jose Angel
Yesterday in class we were discussing Moulthrop’s “You Say You Want a Revolution?” which made its way into the Norton Anthology of Criticism and Theory. By the way, do you know whether there is anything the matter with him? His website at Baltimore was last updated in 2002, øHas he moved elsewhere?
I hope you enjoy the conference and Salzburg, and that you will tell us here anything you underline twice.
nick
I’ve haven’t been in touch with Stuart very recently, but since 2002 he’s completed Pax, written an article about Varicella with me, and published a great piece in First Person – “From Work to Play: Molecular Culture in the Time of Deadly Games.” I imagine he’s still very busy getting his new School of Information Arts and Technologies established at the University of Batimore – a Herculean administrative task – but other than that I don’t know of anythnig the matter with him.
Scott
And I heard from Jill that he has a paper in the hopper for HT05. So there is little wrong with him other than the usual ailments that befall hypertext authors in the midst of their careers (sudden metalepsis, fragmented consciousness, well-justified paranoia, etc.).
torill
Add the same illness that bugs us all: the sudden lack of hours in a day. He was perfectly fine when I visited this fall, except he was struggling to expand on the 24 hours concept.
Jill
Aw, I wonder whether Stuart’ll read all this concern for him. Stuart, we *heart* you!
Matthew
I was in Salzburg last summer, I absolutely loved it! Vienna being Vienna, it just did not have the character of Salzburg. I hope that, besides the conference activities, you get to do some sightseeing, walk around and enjoy the city. Looking at your photos made me dig in the archives and post some of my own.
jill/txt »
[…] text, a paper that just got accepted for Hypertext ‘05 (they sent me out of the room when they discussed it) and that started from a stray sentence in the French peoples’ initial notes where they r […]