With the following we kindly invite you to take part in the International Conference on Reading in the Age of Computers, Media and Internet. The Conference is organised in honour of professor Wolfgang Iser's Work. It will be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, 26-28 February, 2000. 25 February is the day for arrival, and 29 February is the day for departure. We can undertake only the accommodation expenses in Sofia and - to our regret - no travel expenses. The sessions will have the format of round-tables and panel discussions based on the participants' papers. Therefore we would ask you to confirm your participation and send your full paper not later than January 15, 2000. The official languages of the conference are English, German and Bulgarian (a simultaneous translation will be provided). The papers will be published in a collection volume.

Possible paper and/or session topics may include:

Communication

The End of the Gutenberg-Galaxy? Alterations of Reading in the Context of the Communication Revolution
Reading vs. Saying/Listening: The Ability to Read in the Framework of the Audio-visual Exchange and the Immediate Perception
Globalization/Tribalization Processes in the Conditions of the Old and the New Communication Media. Globalization and Post-Colonialism

Education

The New Illiteracy
The Crisis of Reading: The Crisis of Education Revisited

Reading, Literature, New Media

The Internet Lyrics: More than a Generic Problem?
Literature and the Virtual Community. What's up with the Author?
Internet, Classics, Canon, Weltliteratur
The Problems of Reader Response in the Light of the New Media. Is a Multifarious Reader's Activity Indispensable?

Phenomenology of Reading

The Traditional Theories of Reading and the Provocation of the New Technologies
Reading and Interface
Page up/Page down, Home, End. Beginning/Bottom - Alterations on the Microphenomenological Level
The New Structure of the Text. Beyond Linearity and Writing. Sign, Picture, Tone, Rhythm
What Happened with the "Implied Reader"?

Chances and Possibilities

How to Read and Write in Virtual Space? Internet Rhetoric, Chat-rooms and Reading, New Strategies of Writing, New Ways of Reading
Is the Book Vanishing? Is a Virtual Library Possible?
The E-mail: a New Letter Writing Culture?
Is an Internet Poetics Possible?
Reading, Writing, Internet - New Positions of the Subject - New Ethics?

Expecting Your proposals: