Brian Kim Stefans | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 28, 1969 Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Bard College (BA, 1992) CUNY Graduate Center (1995-97) Brown University (MFA, 2006) |
| Occupation(s) | Poet, literary critic, digital artist, professor |
| Employer | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Website | www |
Brian Kim Stefans (born February 28, 1969) is an American poet, literary critic, and digital artist known for his work in experimental poetry and electronic literature. He is Professor of English (poetry, new media and screenplay studies) at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has taught since 2008.
Stefans was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. [1] He attended St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City, New Jersey, graduating in 1987, and earned a bachelor's degree from Bard College in 1992. He pursued graduate studies in English Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center from 1995 to 1997 before earning his Master of Fine Arts degree in Electronic Writing from Brown University (2006). [2] [3]
Before joining UCLA in 2008 as Assistant Professor, Stefans taught at Brown University as Assistant Professor of Literary Arts (2005-2006) and at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey as Assistant Professor of English (2006-2008). At UCLA, he teaches courses on experimental fiction, electronic literature, Los Angeles art and poetry, screenwriting, songwriting, creative writing, visual literacy, and American drama. Notable courses include "Language as Gameplay," "The Speculative Turn in 20/21 Century Literature and Film," "The New York Underground in Film, Music and Literature 1955-1985," and "The Experiment of Asian American Poetry."
Stefans founded and directed the M/ELT (Modernist/Experimental Literature and Text-Art) program at UCLA from 2010 to 2016, which featured over 30 graduate student workshops and visiting lecturers. He currently serves as director of the Text/Tech Media Lab. [4]
Stefans' print books of poetry include:
His translations include Festivals of Patience: The Verse Poems of Rimbaud (Kenning Editions, 2021). [12]
A resident of New York from 1992 to 2005, Stefans was an active participant in the poetry culture of the city as an editor and organizer, publishing numerous reviews in outlets such as Publishers Weekly , The Boston Review , [13] St. Mark's Poetry Project newsletter, Shark, Rain Taxi, Verse, Tripwire and other small journals. He was an early contributor to UbuWeb, a digital journal for "avant-garde poetry and sound art" founded in 1996. [14]
He established his website arras.net [15] in 1998, a site devoted to new media poetry and poetics where his interactive art and digital poems can be found. Notable digital works include:
His work "The Vaneigem Series" (2002), consisting of five détourned stories from The New York Times , prompted a cease-and-desist letter from the newspaper. [23]
His critical books include:
Previous critical writings include "Conceptual Writing: The L.A. Brand," [27] the series "Third Hand Plays" [28] for the website of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art concerning electronic literature, and "Terrible Engines: A Speculative Turn in Recent Poetry and Fiction" [29] that inaugurates his recent interest in applying concepts from recent Continental philosophy to new forms of literature.
Writing on Asian American art and literature include "Remote Parsee: Asian American Poetry Since 1970" [30] and "Miscegenated Scripts: A Theory of Asian American New Media." [31]
Stefans co-edited the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 2 (2011) with Talan Memmott, Rita Raley, and Laura Borràs. [32] He founded and edited the /ubu ("slash ubu") PDF series (2003-2005), which published experimental poetry by both emerging and established writers. [14] He also edited Arras poetry journal (1994-1999) and organized "Circulars: Poets and Critics Respond to Global U.S. Policy" (2003), an anti-war poetry site.
Stefans has been active in documenting and promoting Los Angeles literary culture. He organized "Blacktop Ecologies: A Symposium of Los Angeles Poetry and Poetics" at UCLA in 2014, featuring poets including Maggie Nelson, Harryette Mullen, Will Alexander, and Paul Vangelisti. [33] He compiled Scavenged Luxury: L.A. Post-Punk, Art Rock and Power Pop (c. 1977-1987) (2012-13), consisting of 20 compilations of music with liner notes. [34] He is currently working on Extremes and Moderations: A Historical Anthology of Los Angeles Poetry: 1890-1955.
Stefans has created several dramatic works including "The American Objectivists" (co-written with Kevin Killian), which has been performed in San Francisco and elsewhere. His play "Where Stones Gather" premiered at St. Mark's Poetry Project in 2006, featuring actors Kate Valk, Pete Simpson, Jim Fletcher from the Wooster Group, Angelica Torn, Tony Torn, and poet Charles Bernstein.
His poem "They're Putting a New Door In" was selected for Best American Poetry 2004 (edited by Lyn Hejinian). His work appears in numerous anthologies including the Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry (2013) and Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton, 2007).
He has served as judge for the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards (2015-17).
Critics have described Stefans's work as formally inventive and media-attentive.
Discussing Word Toys: Poetry and Technics, John Nyman called it "immensely compelling, helping to lay the groundwork for a newly historicized understanding of poetic composition in the age of the internet." [35]
In a Boston Review microreview of Kluge: A Meditation, and other works, Noah Eli Gordon praised “the scope of his cultural references and the lightning speed with which they shift, dancing between seemingly incommensurate lexicons.” [36]
Reviewing Before Starting Over for the Electronic Book Review, Michael McDonough wrote that Stefans is “concerned with the redefinition of critical discourse in the face of the loss of the singularity of the work of art.” [37]
Writing on Stefans's celebrated digital poem The Dreamlife of Letters, critic Edward Picot argued that “what we are being asked to admire here is not newness but mastery within a given medium.” [38]
On What Is Said to the Poet Concerning Flowers, Publishers Weekly noted that the book “reads like a ‘real playstation/ or organic whist’” and highlighted its playful Frank O’Hara–like energies. [39]
On Fashionable Noise: On Digital Poetics, Publishers Weekly called it "closest to the online world's free-wheeling sense of formal inquiry." [40] John Cayley in Mute wrote that Stefans "mixes theory and poetry seamlessly and apparently effortlessly," calling one chapter "one of the most considered, wide-ranging, creative and critical treatments of writing in networked and programmable media." [41]
Stefans has worked extensively as a programmer and digital artist. From 1997 to 2005, he worked professionally in web development, including positions at NYU Stern School of Business, Fodor's Travel, and the CUNY Graduate Center. His digital works have been exhibited at venues including the Walker Art Center, Brown University, chashama ABC Gallery (New York), and various international electronic literature festivals.
{{cite web}}: External link in |title=