Greetings. We are conducting a preliminary online survey aimed at assessing the role of open source software in the scholarly and pedagogical practices of the Rhetoric & Composition and English Studies community. As a scholar and teacher of Rhetoric & Composition and/or of English Studies, you are being invited to participate in this survey. Please take a few moments to respond to this very brief ten-question survey on the subject at the link provided below.

Newly co-published by Furtherfield and The Hyperliterature Exchange: an appreciation of David Daniels, the great shape-poet, who died in May 2008.

"Daniels is one of those figures who straddles the divide between digital and pre-digital art and literature... His art is about liberation, uninhibited outpouring, spontaneity and fun."

To read the whole article, go to http://www.hyperex.co.uk/reviewdaniels.php .

I just found a link to Between, an interesting-sounding game published by Esquire. Here's the snip:

Rich Beckman, the new Knight Chair of Visual Journalism at the School of Communication at the University of Miami, started a series of multimedia workshops at his former institution, University of North Carolina. He's relaunching them at UM. While the main focus is on journalism, these intensive courses also look interesting for computers & writing folk, so here's the link for the website describing them and giving registration information. Also, what could be better than Miami in January?

English:

Seton Hill University seeks published novelist of popular fiction (preferably mystery/suspense), to teach and to mentor novel-length theses in the graduate low-residency Writing Popular Fiction program (half-load), and to teach undergraduate courses in creative writing and first-year composition.

Candidates should hold a Ph.D. in English, MFA considered. Background in journalism, publishing, and/or editing a plus. Teaching experience/potential at undergraduate level desirable.

Composition:

Reminder -- Proposals Due November 30th
http://digitalcelt.com/CFP_Metamorphosis.pdf

Call for Essays on Graduate Student Professional Development

"Urizen is trapped by his own laws. He no longer truly believes in anything outside himself. His only way of relating to the outside world is either to fear it or to steal something from it. He has turned the infinite possibilities of the human heart into a little machine of self-interest. And because of that, his life is a life without hope.”

In search of Dora's box, the children find their way right to the heart of Urizen's headquarters, and discover something entirely different from what they were expecting.

My friend Bill sent me a link this morning to Writeroom:

WriteRoom is designed for distraction free writing. If you are looking for a programmer's text editor or tool to help you manage large writing projects then there are better choices. If you need syntax highlighting and command line integration try TextMate. If you need to manage large writing projects try Scrivener. If you just need to block out distractions and write then I think WriteRoom is a great choice.

Just a reminder that proposals for the Kairos special issue on rhetoric and the military are due November 1, 2008.

With the holiday break coming up, I thought ya'll might appreciate some tips on some fun, non-violent adventure games to wile away those lonely wintry hours.