Keynote and Featured Speakers at C&W 2003

In addition to over 250 presenters, Computers and Writing 2003, the program includes following luminaries. For a full description of each speaker, follow the link. The speakers are presented here in the order in which they appear on the conference program.

Bob Stein
Night Kitchen / The Voyager Company
Topic: Reading and Writing in the Digital Era
When: Friday, May 23, 12:30 - 1:45 p.m.
Where: Purdue Memorial Union, North Ballroom

In 1996, Wired magazine described Bob Stein as “either the most far-out digital publishing visionary in the new world or the least effective businessman alive -- or both.” A year earlier, the UTNE Reader dubbed him the “Friedrich Engels of interactive media -- a capitalist entrepreneur with leftist convictions.” E-zine The Edge included Stein on its March 2003 roster of digerati ("the radical" digeratum), a list of cyber-elite doers, thinkers and writers who are shaping the emerging communication revolution.  >> more

Victor J. Vitanza
Professor of English, University of Texas at Arlington
Professor of Rhetoric and Philosophy, European Graduate School

Topic: "Year Zero: Faciality" Redux
When: Friday, May 23, 3:30 - 4:45 p.m.
Where Fowler Hall (First Floor, Stewart Center)

Victor J. Vitanza's record of achievement in our field is remarkable for many reasons, and his involvement with Computers and Writing conferences is deep and enduring. . . . In all of his work, he invites people to pause and reflect deeply on the nature of our discourse with each other.  His work is provocative. It is sometimes intentionally elusive and experimental. It always gives pause. He has also been a compassionate mentor to many people in our field for many years. They include his many terrific students at the University of Texas at Arlington (where he has taught since 1982) and people who have appreciated his work from an Internet distance. >> more

Victoria Vesna
Professor and Chair, Department of Design/Media Arts
University of California, Los Angeles, http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/index.html

Topic: TBA
When Saturday, May 24, 12:30 - 1:45 p.m.
Where: East-West Faculty Lounge (PMU)

Pioneering new media artist Victoria Vesna traverses the route from bodies to networks to nanosystems and back. Vesna’s experimental research creatively connects networked environments to physical public spaces. She explores how communication technologies affect collective behavior, and shift perceptions of identity in relation to scientific innovation. Internationally exhibited, Vesna's work has received notice in such prominent publications as Art in America, Artweek, Newsweek, and the Los Angeles Times. >> more.

Mark C. Taylor
Cluett Professor of Humanities, Williams College
Co-founder with Herbert Allen, Global Education Network

Topic: After the Fall: Post-Bubble Reflections on Education
When: Saturday, May 24, 2003, 3:30 -4:45 p.m.
Where: Fowler Hall (First Floor, Stewart Center)

Mark C. Taylor’s groundbreaking The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture (2001, University of Chicago Press; read about it) has quickly become a must-read for those working in computers and writing, critical theoryTaylor’s cultural analysis blends elements of information theory, evolutionary biology with art, architecture, philosophy, religion and education. >> more