The Transcriptions Studio, sponsored by the UCSB Department of English, organizes
many events throughout the year in conjunction with its Literature & Culture of Information (LCI) curricular specialization.
The Film.Literature.Software series, launched in 2005, brings together undergrads, graduate students and faculty to discuss film, fiction, poetry, games, software, and other works related to new media and new technology. Past events include a yearly colloquium
series and other special
events.
As of the Fall, Transcriptions has begun the lengthy process of updating and redesigning the entire structure of its current website. As a part of this gradual transition, upcoming Transcriptions events for the 2006-2007 year will no longer be posted on this page, but, for the time being, on the Transcriptions wordpress blog.
Please visit this blog at the address listed above, or link to it here.
Discussion Mon. May 22, 2006, 4:30-6:30 pm, SH 2509
Moderator: Robin Chin
In "Life Line" (1939), Heinlein's first short story, man invents a
machine that can tell when a person is going to die. At the opposite end of his career, in 1959, Heinlein wrote "All You Zombies" in which a man is his own father, mother, and mysterious recruiter. Join us for a discussion of the relationship between the body, time, and technology in these works.
The stories will be available at the English Department Front Desk one week in advance.
Discussion Thu. May 11, 2006,
4:30-6:30
pm,
SH
2509
Moderator: Kim Knight
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by nearly 100,000 people from around the globe.
To prepare for the discussion, visit http://secondlife.com. Register for a free account and explore the world. Please note: you are not required to provide a credit card for verification purposes; you may supply a cell phone number instead.
Supplemental articles will be available for photocopying one week in advance at the English Department front desk.
Screening
and Discussion Mon. Feb 13, 2006,
6:30-8:30
pm,
SH
1415
Moderator: James Hodge
Attend the screening of bodysong (2003, dir. Simon Pummell, 78 minutes), named Best Documentary Feature for 2004 by the British Independent Film Awards. A paradigmatic example of the archival film genre, bodysong weaves together images from over 100 years of history into an epic story of love, sex, violence, death, and dreams. Incorporating digital media, black and white and color photography, the film is accompanied by a remarkable score by Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood.
Screening
and Discussion Tue.
Nov
22,
2005,
5:30-7:30
pm,
SH
2509
Moderators:
Yanoula Athanassakis & Kim Knight
Vincent is one of the last "natural" babies born into a sterile, genetically-enhanced world, where life expectancy and disease likelihood are ascertained at birth. Myopic and due to die at 30, he is automatically denied the opportunity to pursue a career as an astronaut. When he assumes the identity of Jerome, a man who is genetically perfect yet crippled, things begin to look up. Vincent is close to his dream of space flight and the beautiful Irene has entered his life, adding some much needed variety. However, things start to fall apart when the mission director at Gattaca Corp is murdered. Not knowing whom he can trust, Vincent’s life is thrown into chaos as he tries to avoid suspicion and maintain his identity.
How are people today “reading” in
digital, networked environments? For example,
what is the relation between reading and
browsing, or searching? Or between reading
and multimedia? Can innovations in technologies
or interfaces increase the productivity,
variety, and pleasure of these new kinds
of reading? How can the historical diversity
of human reading practices help us gauge
the robustness of the new digital practices;
and, inversely, how can contemporary practices
provide new ways to understand the technical,
social, and cultural dimensions of historical
reading?
This conference marks the start of the
University of California Transliteracies
research initiative. Transliteracies
brings together teams of researchers from
the humanities and arts, the social sciences,
and computer science to study the practices
of online reading in both historical
and contemporary contexts. (See the conference
site for more information).
Screening
and Discussion Thur.
May
26,
2005,
5:30-7:30
pm,
SH
1415
Moderator:
Mike Frangos
Lain is an ordinary school girl. She
doesn't question her surroundings, yet
she picks up things others don't. She
accepts them as they are. That is, until
her classmate throws herself off a building,
and everybody around school starts receiving
emails from her.
LCI
Film.Literature.Software Series
The Thirteenth
Floor
Screening
of the Thirteenth
Floor Thur.
Feb. 24, 7-9 pm, SH 1415 Discussion
of the Thirteenth Floor Tue.
March 1, 5-6:15 pm, SH 1415
Moderator:
Melissa Stevenson
"Computer scientist Hannon
Fuller has discovered something extremely
important. He's about to tell the discovery
to his colleague, Douglas Hall, but knowing
someone is after him, the old man leaves
a letter in his computer generated parallel
world that's just like the 30's with
seemingly real people with real emotions.
Fuller is murdered in our "real" world
the same night, and his colleague is
suspected. Douglas discovers a bloody
shirt in his bathroom and he cannot
recall what he was doing the night
Fuller was murdered. He logs into the
system in order to find the letter,
but has to confront the unexpected.
The truth is harsher than he could
ever imagine . . ."
-(Plot summary from Internet Movie Database)
Tuesday,
February 1st , 3:00PM-4:30
South Hall 2617
"No
Woman Born" by C.L.
Moore
"The Girl Who Was
Plugged In" by James
Tiptree, Jr.
Moderator:
Mike Frangos
This event
focuses on the work of two foundational
feminist science fiction writers: C.L.
Moore and James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice
Sheldon). Recent critical work has
analyzed the image of the female cyborg
in primarily male-written cyberpunk
work such as by William Gibson, yet
the indebtedness of cyberpunk writers
to earlier feminist science fiction
has gone largely unnoticed. This event
re-considers the figure of the female
cyborg from the point of view of feminist
science fiction. C.L. Moore's "No Woman Born" (1944)
describes a singer who is placed in an
artificial body by her managers after
a devastating fire. In Tiptree's "The
Girl Who Was Plugged In" (1973), a
suicidal seventeen year old girl has
a chance at a new, perfect body. In
these stories, the stakes of gender
as performance, spectacle and artifice
emerge against the potential of the
post-human, cyborg body to transform
the conditions that enable and constrain
it.
The two short stories are
available for reading in the English
department reading room.
