Hermeneia research group was created in 1999. In 2001, Hermeneia received public recognition and its first funding from the Generalitat de Catalunya which in 2009 would recognize Hermeneia as a consolidated research group. It is composed of 24 researchers from European and American universities. One of the most outstanding qualities of this international research group is its ability to establish a rich dialogue with different perspectives on digital literature as a revolutionary and changing phenomenon. Since its inception, Hermeneia has embraced the participation of international researchers in a project that requires the exchange of ideas and dialogue among researchers from different academic fields and with an international perspective. As Hermeneia has advanced in its scholarly development, new renowned researchers key to the areas of research of this group have been incorporated. At the same time, Hermeneia has also expanded its cultural projects, initiatives, educational networks and collaborators, thus making possible a wide range of relationships that result in a polyhedric and multidisciplinary vision of the objects of research.
The Hermeneia Research Group has been one of the pioneers in the field in Spain and has been developing many different activities for the last ten years. Lately it has been:
- promoting a public debate in Literary Societies on Digital Literature
- establishing the international Ciutat de Vinaròs to accept creations in languages that already have a tradition of electronic or digital literature and stimulate creative work in other languages
- studying the aforementioned works in undergraduate and postgraduate courses
- promoting an interchange between the areas of creation, teaching, and research
Currently the Hermeneia research group is focusing on the Master en Literatura en l’era Digital (Master Programme on Digital Literature), which has been developing since 2007. This Master Programme and other projects have:
- constructed a community of young researchers who are developing the field by translating works of e-lit
- created a strong presence in conferences where digital literature appears as the main subject
- made Catalan translations of works by Rui Torres and Deena Larson
- translated (completed by Giovanna Di Rosario) Bouchardon’s texts “Déprise” and “Opacité” from French into Italian
In the future Hermeneia will:
- continue to study the interaction between literature and new media.
- co-organize in Italy an exhibition of Electronic Literature (Vuotociclo 2013) that will be held in Naples at Palazzo delle Arti (PAN Museum)
- co-edit the first Italian e-book on electronic literature where several Hermeneia members were invited to write their contributions, done by Giovanna Di Rosario
A section devoted to Italian language will soon be open (Hermeneia website is multilingual), our aim is to be able to create interest in electronic literature also in non-English-speaking countries.
