Digital culture is entering a moment where everyday creativity and automation are deeply entangled. As recommender systems, machine learning models, and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) shape how users create, circulate, and reinterpret stories, a new vernacular repertoire is emerging: algorithmic folklore. From folk theories about the internal workings of algorithms to AI-generated myths and monsters, from video game lore to transmedia narratives and memes, these forms of storytelling reveal how humans and automated systems now co‑create folklore at unprecedented speed and scale.
To deepen and broaden this conversation, the electronic book review invites contributions to a forthcoming special Gathering on algorithmic folklore as transcultural storytelling. This issue is part of a collaboration between the Trond Mohn Foundation-funded ALGOFOLK project at the University of Bergen (see the ALGOFOLK project website here) and the StoryMachine project, both of which investigate the cultural practices that are produced by the multi-layered human interactions with automated actors, albeit through distinct yet complementary lenses.
Please find the full Call for Papers here: The electronic book review’s Call for Papers for the “Algorithmic Folklore as Transcultural Storytelling” Gathering
We are calling for:
- Scholarly essays on algorithmic folklore, digital myth-making, and folklore in virtual networked environments (of 6.000-8.000 words).
- Short contributions and philosophical provocations on the aesthetics, ethics, politics, economics and/or epistemologies of algorithmic storytelling (max. 3.000 words).
- Experimental, multimodal and meta-cognitive creative works including images, remixes, code-poems, and experimental media including scholarly commentary (max. 3.000 words). Selected works will be considered for publication in issue 06 of the digital review.
- Short project reports documenting new collections, tools and/or methodologies or pedagogical innovations (3.000-5.000 words).
Please send your abstracts to Sabine.Slowik@ur.de and find the Author Guidelines here: The electronic book review’s Submission Requirements.
For creative works and images, include a brief abstract describing the work, a link to the work itself, and any other supporting materials as one PDF file.
Deadline for abstract submissions: March 31st, 2026