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Netprov is "networked, improvised literature" or collaborative literary improvisations performed on the internet. The word netprov is a portmanteau of "networked" and "improv" as in improvisational theatre. Netprov is considered a genre of electronic literature.

Background

Netprov is explicitly related to improvisational theatre, and also has a lot in common with live action role-playing games. Rob Wittig, one of netprov's originators, was also involved in Invisible Seattle, a novel created in the early 1980s by a group of "literary workers" who gathered stories from Seattle residents, in part using an early online bulletin board system.

An early example of netprov was Rob Wittig's Grace, Wit, and Charm (2011), which centred around a fictional company that offered services to people who wanted help making their online avatars more successful. Participants took the roles of workers in the company and clients writing in to request services, and the netprov was performed in online writing, in weekly theatre performances and streaming.

While many netprovs are mostly playful, like #1WkNoTech, some offer powerful political critique, such as Occupy MLA, a netprov held during the Modern Language Association conference in 2011. I Work for the Web is another example that critiques the exploitation of online gig workers.

Scholarship

Netprov is included in many discussions of electronic literature. Lyle Skains describes netprov as "online, collaborative, real-time, carnivalesque performances". Scott Rettberg notes that netprov is told in real-time, using social media, and are collaborative and interactive in the sense that readers can join in as participants.

Wittig and Marino have also contributed chapters about netprov to a number of scholarly anthologies on electronic literature.

Netprovs have also been taught at universities, both as a literary genre and as a classroom activity.

References

1. ^ Wittig, Rob (2021). Netprov : networked improvised literature for the classroom and beyond. Amherst College. Press, Michigan Publishing. Amherst, Massachusetts. pp. 9–10. ISBN 978-1-943208-29-6. OCLC 1289259024.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
2. Rettberg, Scott (2021). "Digital Fiction". The Cambridge companion to twenty-first century American fiction. Joshua L. Miller. Cambridge. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-108-83827-6. OCLC 1240305993.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
3. Wittig, Rob (1994). Invisible rendezvous : connection and collaboration in the new landscape of electronic writing. IN.S.OMNIA. : Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-5275-5. OCLC 29185107.
4. Berens, Kathi Inman (2015). "Live/Archive: Occupy MLA". Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures (11): 1. doi:10.20415/hyp/011.e03.
5. Rettberg, Scott; Coover, Roderick (2020-08-01). "Addressing Significant Societal Challenges Through Critical Digital Media". Electronic Book Review. doi:10.7273/1ma1-pk87. Retrieved 2023-04-29.
6. Skains, R. Lyle (2023). Neverending stories : the popular emergence of digital fiction. New York. ISBN 978-1-5013-6491-4. OCLC 1341268134.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
7. Rettberg, Scott (2019). Electronic literature. Cambridge, UK. ISBN 978-1-5095-1681-0. OCLC 1038024013.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
8. The community and the algorithm : a digital interactive poetics. Andrew Klobucar. Wilmington, Delaware, United States. 2021. ISBN 978-1-64889-311-7. OCLC 1261364273.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
9. The Bloomsbury handbook of electronic literature. Joseph Tabbi. London. 2017. ISBN 978-1-4742-3026-1. OCLC 1007134750.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
10. Creative writing in the digital age : theory, practice, and pedagogy. Michael Dean Clark, Trent Hergenrader, Joseph Rein. London. 2015. ISBN 978-1-4725-7410-7. OCLC 895161884.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
11. O’Sullivan, James (2021). Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities: Contexts, Forms, & Practices. Bloomsbury Academic. doi:10.5040/9781501363474.ch-027. ISBN 978-1-5013-6350-4. S2CID 230536619.
12. "Syllabus". Digital Media Aesthetics. Retrieved 2023-04-29.

• Genres of electronic literature
• Improvisation
• Internet culture
• Netprov