Chris Tanasescu, a Fulbright scholar back in 2010-2011 at San Diego State University, will teach a crash course on digital poetry this summer, at the invitation of the Department of English Language and Literature at Carleton University in Ottawa. As Chris says “the course is an introduction to the main concepts, moments, and developments in electronic digital and computational poetry. It tracks, analyzes, exemplifies and also encourages the students to explore on their own the connections between electronic poetry and major schools, movements and trends in 20th and 21st century poetry: Dadaism and the traditional avant-gardes—by looking into the permutational and combinatorial paradigms in digital poetry—, modernism (and postmodernism)—from modernist protohypertexts to digital experiments on language and form to computer-processed or computer-generated political, cultural, and ecological critique—, conceptual, concrete, and visual poetry—from traditional mathematical or generative formalisms (Oulipo et al.) and concretism to nowadays time-sensitive/interactive/multimedia/performative electronic poetry (…). Another major component of the course focuses on computer-assisted creative writing or computer-generated poetry.”

Chris has also let us know about the release of the Summer issue of Asymptote (with MARGENTO/Chris Tanasescu on board as Editor-at-Large), including a multilingual poem by Mircea Cartarescu and an essay by Ruxandra Cesereanu investigating possible similarities between Alexandru Musina's "Budila Express" and Allen Ginsberg's "Howl".  Beautifully illustrated by Cody Cobb, this issue is now available for free at http://asymptotejournal.com.

In other news, Chris Tanasescu has become the proud father of Maria Sophia, born on July 20th, a special day on which Orthodox Christians celebrate Saint Elias. No doubt this is Chris’s crowning achievement this full summer. Congratulations and the best of luck to Chris and his family!