Bibliography   » Scholarly Writings

Scholarly writings that discuss Agrippa or its creators, together with selected works addressing the larger contexts in which Agrippa is significant—for example, the transition from the codex book to new media, the nature of digital literature, cyberpunk literature, and so on. (To let The Agrippa Files know about other scholarly writings that touch upon Agrippa, please contact the editors.)

Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. “Ashbaugh and Gibson’s Agrippa: A Description of the Book Based Upon My Examination of the NYPL Copy.”

MGK (Matthew G. Kirschenbaum’s blog). 4 June 2004. Retrieved 26 Sept. 2005. http://www.otal.umd.edu/~mgk/blog/archives/000804.html

Kirschenbaum, whose introduction to his Mechanisms: New Media and the New Textuality (under contract to MIT Press, scheduled publication Fall 2006) discusses Agrippa and its early reception, provides a bibliographical description of the the copy held by the New York Public Library. (more…)

Center for Book Arts. Physical Description of Agrippa (a book of the dead).

Center for Book Arts. 1993. Retrieved 26 Sept. 2005. http://www.centerforbookarts.org/archive/workdetail.asp?workID=747

Brief bibliographical description of Agrippa concentrating on the physical artifact; created for the Center for Book Arts’s exhibition of Agrippa, NYC, 24 April-19 June, 1993. (more…)

Aarseth, Espen. “Nonlinearity and Literary Theory.”

Hyper/Text/Theory. Ed. George Landow. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

This article considers the influence that nonlinear texts might exert over more traditional literary analysis. (more…)

Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature.

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

This book explores the concept of interactive and dynamic texts as it manifests in a variety of digital works. (more…)

Dery, Mark (Ed.). “Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture.”

South Atlantic Quarterly Fall 1993.
Flame Wars: the Discourse of Cyberculture. Ed. Mark Dery. Durham: Duke UP, 1994

This special issue of the SAQ features fourteen different articles on the subject of cybertexts and cybercultures. Later published in book form by Duke University Press.
(more…)

Wright, E.M and Hardy, G.H. An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938.

Chapter five, “Congruences and Residues,” provides an explanation and summary of Euler’s fuction, the mathematical basis for programming the code of Agrippa. (more…)

Princenthal, Nancy. “Artist’s Book Beat.”

The Print Collector’s Newsletter 23, no. 2 (May-June 1992).

Article offers a thorough description of Agrippa and locates the object in the context of other experimental, electronic texts. (more…)

Walther, Bo Kampmann. “Digital Aesthetics: A Systematic Approach.”

Keynote address. Digital Aesthetics Conference: Theoretical and Empirical Challenges. Nyborg Strand, Denmark. 29 April-2 May 2003. Retrieved 4 Dec. 2005. http://www.sdu.dk/Hum/bkw/Digital%20Aesthetics.Nyborg_
Strand_05-03-BKW.pdf

Keynote address at the conference of Digital Aesthetics, 2003, featuring commentary on Agrippa. (more…)

Sponsler, Claire. “William Gibson and the Death of Cyberpunk.”

Modes of the Fantastic : Selected Essays from the Twelfth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Ed. Robert A. Latham and Robert A. Collins. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995.

This essay considers William Gibson’s sprawl trilogy in the context of postmodern discourse. (more…)

Schwenger, Peter. “Agrippa, or, The Apocalyptic Book.”

South Atlantic Quarterly Fall 1993: 617-626.

This issue of South Atlantic Quarterly is devoted to discussions of cyberculture, and features a literary analysis of Agrippa. (more…)

Roberts, Adam. Science Fiction.

London: Routledge, 2000.

Book features a chapter entitled “Technology and Metaphor,” and including a chapter section about Gibson: “Case study: William Gibson, Neuromancer.” (more…)

Rapatzikou, Tatiani G. Gothic Motifs in the Fiction of William Gibson.

Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004.

McEneaney, John E. “Toward a Post-Critical Theory of Hypertext.”

Working Paper, 17 Dec. 1997. Retrieved 31 Aug. 2005. http://personalwebs.oakland.edu/~mceneane/nrc/conf97/nrc97ht5.pdf

This article discusses Agrippa in terms of an unconventional theory of hypertext that regards traditional print as more “hypertextual” than electronic text formats. (more…)

Lunenfeld, Peter. Snap to Grid. A User’s Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures.

Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.

A broad look at New Media in both its esoteric and more commericial manifestations. (more…)

Leary, Timothy Francis. Chaos & Cyber Culture.

Ed. Michael Horowitz, Vicki Marshall, with guest appearances by William Gibson …et al. Berkeley: Ronin Pub., 1994.

Book includes a conversation with Gibson about Neuromancer, as well as a chapter section entitled “William Gibson: Quark of the Decade.” (more…)

Kneale, James. “Thinking and Writing the Virtual: the Virtual Realities of Technology and Fiction: Reading William Gibson’s Cyberspace.”

Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space, and Relations. Ed. Mike Crang, Phil Crang, and Jon May. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Article discusses Gibson’s work in the context of the technology of virtual reality.

Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. “Materiality and Matter and Stuff: What Virtual Texts are Made Of.”

EBR 12 (2002). Retrieved 31 Aug. 2005. http://www.altx.com/ebr/riposte/rip12/rip12kir.htm

This article discusses the role of materiality in electronic/digital texts. (more…)

Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. “Lines for a Virtual
T[y/o]pography: Electronic Essays on Artifice and Information.”

Diss. University of Virginia. Retrieved 31 Aug. 2005. http://www.iath.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/dissertation/main.html

Kirschenbaum’s dissertation about the nature of on-line texts and virtual reading practice; references to Agrippa in Works Cited.

Jirgens, Karl E. “A Quick Note on Swift Current: the World’s First E-Journal.”

OL3: open letter on lines online 2000. Retrieved 31 Aug. 2005. http://www.ubu.com/papers/ol/jirgens.html

Article references Agrippa in the context of digital publishing. (more…)

Cavallaro, Dani. Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson.

London: Athlone Press, 2000.

This book considers the expression and ramifications of cyberpunk, with special emphasis on William Gibson’s work, including Agrippa. (more…)

Bukatman, Scott. “Gibson’s Typewriter.”

South Atlantic Quarterly Fall (1993): 627-645.

Article considers Gibson’s use of the typewriter in the process of writing Neuromancer, paying particular attention to the ways in which representations of earlier machine culture anticipated representations of cyberculture. (more…)

Brummett, Barry. The World and How We Describe It: Rhetorics of Reality, Representation, Simulation.

Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.

Includes a chapter on “A Rhetoric of Reality in the Novels of William Gibson.” (more…)

Brande, David. “The Business of Cyberpunk: Symbolic Economy and Ideology in William Gibson.”

Configurations 2.3 (1994): 509-536. Retrieved 31 Aug. 2005. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/configurations/v002/2.3brande.html

Article considers the representation of commerce in William Gibson’s sprawl trilogy, with particular emphasis on Neuromancer. (more…)