After a full generation of constructivist thought, after close to a decade of Internet construction and nearly as long a period of activity at ebr/altx, we're ready to put an end to the construction of periodical issues. Instead of working within an unconsidered paradigm inherited from print media, the ebr editors intend to construct our own ends, over time and on terms that we set for ourselves (within the constraints of the web environment).

Recollection in Process

There has never been a 'Best of the electronic book review' or a print collection. After ten full years of online publication, ebr has devised other ways of marking time, using techniques available in the same electronic media where the work first appeared. Here the editor presents an initial 'Gathering' of ebr essays, pulled from each of the journal's threads to date.

Already Too Many Stories in the World

Stephen-Paul Martin reviews Lance Olsen's novel 10:01.

And Furthermore...

R M Berry Replies to Joseph Tabbi

And Furthermore...

Joseph Tabbi Responds to R. M. Berry

Blank Frank

This review of Ralph Berry's novel Frank and the subsequent exchange between the authors, appeared in the March/April 2006 and July/August 2006 issues of The American Book Review.

Peter Hare's response to Lori Emerson

Peter Hare responds to Lori Emerson's review of Walter Benn Michaels.

'Is it possible not to love Žižek?' on Slavoj Žižek's missed encounter with deleuze

Hanjo Berressem provides both fast-forward and slow-motion readings of Slavoj Žižek's Organs without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences.

Introduction: Putting the Brakes on the Žižek Machine

Eric Dean Rasmussen traces the contours of Hanjo Berressem's rigorous, bi-tempo reading of Organs without Bodies, which finds Žižek's philosophical buggering of Deleuze to be wanting.

What Would Žižek Do? Redeeming Christianity's Perverse Core

Jokes play a fundamental role in Slavoj Žižek's philosophizing. Is Žižek joking when he extols the virtues of Christianity to the Left? Eric Dean Rasmussen analyzes Žižek's pro-Christian proselytizing as attacks on modes of PC-ness - political correctness and perverse Christianity - that sustain an undesirable neoliberalism.

Writing Futures: Hardt and Negri's Notation Politics

Aron Pease introduces this collection of essays by Linda Brigham, Caren Irr, William Wilson and Nick Spencer with a look at the multitude's programmability.

Networking the Multitude

Linda C Brigham complicates Hardt and Negri's case for network resistance.

Empire and the Commons

Caren Irr reframes the question of private property through fantastic narratives of the commons.

The Machinic Multitude

Nick Spencer argues that the multitude is machinic, even without machines.

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri: Irreducible Innovation

William Smith Wilson injects the transcendentals of aesthetic illusions into Hardt and Negri's immanent materialism.

The Exemptions of Beauty

William Smith Wilson builds on his earlier ebr essay, "The End of Exemptions of Beauty," with this companion piece.

Sandy Baldwin's response to Lori Emerson

Sandy Baldwin responds to Lori Emerson

Chris Stroffolino's response to Lori Emerson

Chris Stroffolino responds to Lori Emerson

On Materialities, Meanings, and The Shape of Things

Lori Emerson reviews The Shape of the Signifier by Walter Benn Michaels.

Past Futures, Future's Past

The second in a series of two essays developing the parallels between Iraq and the Peloponnesian Wars, between classical Empire and postmodern Imperialism.

Satisfying Ambiguity

From the Oracle of Delphi to the Wizard of Oz, it is clear that "if we attack we will destroy a great empire." The only question that remains, is which one?

Is There a Language Problem?

R.M. Berry on the recuperation of politicized language, in (and through) the fiction of Marianne Hauser and Lidia Yuknavitch.

God Help Us

A Review of Malise Ruthven's A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America, from Tim Keane, with links to a growing body of writing on terror in ebr.

Weight Inward into Lightness: A Reading of Canoe Repair

"The plot offers not so much progress as recurrence, duplication, and reiteration." Flore Chevaillier offers one way to fill in the gaps of Joseph McElroy "Canoe Repair."

Liberation Hurts: An Interview with Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek addresses the situation of post-9/11 global politics - and his own, controversial, theories of the political - in this interview with Eric Dean Rasmussen.

Burroughs Lives

Davis Schneiderman reviews two works on Burroughs - a writer who is both there and not there, who exemplifies and escapes post-structuralist readings and postmodernist celebrations.

The Electronic Swarm of City and Self

Jenny Weight reviews William Mitchell's third book, Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City.

Bataille’s Project: Atheology, Non-Knowledge

Marc LaFountain reviews a new collection of Bataille's writings and considers the philosopher's thoughts on prayer in a system and practice of atheology.

What Remains in Liam's Going

Pattern, absence, routine, return - Dave Ciccoricco mulls the shape(s) in Michael Joyce's new paper novel, Liam's Going

Stream of Thought

On the occasion of a new novel by Joseph McElroy and the Overlook Press reissue of McElroy's earlier work, Andrew Walser initiates a revaluation.

"History is not what happened but what we think about it"

Further on McElroy and a novel that reflects the mind's helter-skelter workings while (for the protagonist) creating many occasions for avoidance.

McElroy's Metropolitan Constructions

Shells, Tents, Slaps, Shocks: Steffen Hantke works slowly, from within, to get at McElroy's nonlinear narrative.

The Avant-Garde and the Question of Literature

Ralph Berry on Avant-Garde fiction and the future of the page.

Narratological Amphibiousness, or: Invitation to the Covert History of Possibility

Lance Olsen continues the FC/2 authors' discussion of Carole Maso's AVA and adds some bits on Laird Hunt, Mark Z Danielewski, Judd Morrissey and Lori Talley, and other recent U.S. avant-gardists.

Reverberation: Writing as a Visual Medium and the Sight of the Avant Garde

Further on Gertrude Stein, Carole Maso, and the avant garde in U.S. fiction from Lidia Yuknavitch.

Welcome to Baltimore

Picking up Lance Olsen's theme of thinking as digestion, Michael Martone chews on what's Avant Garde about Baltimore.

9/11 Emerging

A personal account by novelist Joseph McElroy of the WTC crash (that is: a structure of some outside and inside project encompassing one individual).

Capitalist Construction

Against the conflation of Islamic and economic fundamentalisms (William S. Wilson responds to Nick Spenser).

The Politics of Postmodern Architecture

To understand differences between Islamic and Western aesthetics, Nick Spencer argues, is not the way to understand the WTC attacks.

The End of Exemptions for Beauty

The WTC attack considered as a conflict between open and closed systems, a one-system people and a many-system people.

Learning to Wish for More

Lance Olsen tells the story of a creative writing professor who walked.

Jane's Soliloquy

Sukenick responds to Fleisher's feminist critique of "Narralogues" in the voice of his own fictional jeune-fille, Jane.

Reformation Under Way

Sandy Huss suggests that the reform envisioned by Amato and Fleisher is already underway.

Not Pessimistic Enough

Reflections on Creative Writing as potentially part of the tradition of the avant garde.

Amato/Fleisher Too Pessimistic

In the era of English Department Cultural Studies, does the study of literature belong to the poet-professors? Marjorie Perloff offers a view from the English Department of what CW can do.

CW and The Art of Living

David Radavich rethinks creative writing as an art of living - one of many.

Reforming Creative Writing Pedagogy

Joe Amato and Kass Fleisher suggest that creative writing pedagogy, particularly as found in the typical workshop, might benefit from a major, theoretically-informed, re-visioning. Introduced by ebr managing editor (1999-2002), Kirsten Young.

Cyberlaw and Its Discontents

Setting one scholar's legalistic solutions against texts by cyber-critics and posts by netizens and web artists, geniwate looks at the issue of copyright law online.

Return to Twilight

Dave Ciccoricco returns to Michael Joyce's 1997 novel so as to avoid bringing hypertext criticism to a premature closure.

Wireless Communities?

Matt Kirschenbaum, a longtime ebr contributor who actually does some programming and much reading in electronic environments, sought to ground the discussion.

The Real

Daniel Wenk was living in Paris on a Fellowship during the initial discussions. He would eventually give the discussions their name, End Construction!, after treating a street sign in Chicago. Using black electrical tape the same width as the sign lettering, he formed an exclamation mark and so turned the statement into a command.

Reading the Reader

Eugene Thacker, who went on to help design the Alt-X e-book series, suggested some models for ebr designers to consider.

The Interface As A Form Of Artificial Life

In response to Bill Wilson's provocation (about not "getting through" to a younger audience), Linda Brigham introduces a cognitive perspective and closes with a metaphor from music - eventually the design-governing metaphor for the site design.

A Nice Derangement of Epigraphs

William S. Wilson, author of the story collection, Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka, audited the discussions on the new ebr Interface and posted a series of letters (backchannel), under the header, Why I Don't End Construction. His reasons have to do with audience building.

Everyone An Artist?

Elisabeth Joyce, co-editor of ebr3, Writing (Post) Feminism, entered the discussion on the new interface after the initiating posts by ebr design editor Anne Burdick, publisher Mark Amerika, editor Joseph Tabbi, and barker Rob Wittig. Joyce's post drew our very first gloss - by ebr contributing editor Steve Tomasula.

How Are We Going To Kill Information?

Responding to the potential for having "all of ebr current" and even viewable on a single screen, Brigham wonders if it might not be better to kill off content. Brigham's model is the Blair Witch project.

scholarship with attitude

Steve Tomasula, who co-edited the two "image + narrative" issues of ebr in 1997, came in at the tailend of the discussions, when we stopped talking and began the three-year-long process of buiding the database/interface.

Against Autopoiesis

Brian Lennon, who at the time of the discussions was reviewing a book on experimental poetry and poetics, joined the END CONSTRUCTION discussion as its first phase was winding down.

A Place For Human Hands On the Keyboard

Rob Wittig, since composing this response, has been serving as the "street barker" who announces the appearance of new ebr content.

An Autopoietic Writing Machine?

Joseph Tabbi responds to posts from the journal design editor and publisher, using terms derived from an essay he was editing at the time. The audience database mentioned here was implemented for ebr11, wEBaRts, and further developed for the launch of End Construction! (Feb 2002)

New ebr Interface (2)

publisher Mark Amerika's reaction to Burdick's proposal for ebr3.0...

An Interface in Lieu of An Introduction

A note on the origins and development of ebr version 3.0, End Construction!

New ebr Interface

In the fall of 1997, with the launch of ebr version 2.0, ebr editors Anne Burdick and Joseph Tabbi introduced a weaving metaphor to describe the journal interface. Three years later, Burdick sent in the following proposal for ebr 3.0, an entirely new version that enacts the metaphor using database technology.

sokal text: another funny thing happened on the way to the forum

Joe Amato on the Social Text controversy.

The Maul of America

Liquid architect Marcos Novak on William Mitchell's City of Bits.