POST: Electronic Literature as Cultural Heritage (Confessions of an Incunk)

Matt Kirschenbaum (Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities) shares the text from his talk at the Library of Congress’s Electronic Literature Showcase. In the talk, Kirschenbaum self-identifies as an Incunk, or “one who has assumed archival and curatorial stewardship over… electronic literature collections.” He discusses the issues at stake when “electronic literature passes from outsider practice to cultural heritage as sanctioned by its passage from private hands to an increasing number of major collecting institutions,” where the processing of digital materials both raises important theoretical questions and constitutes “what is increasingly normalized professional practice.”