Ed Dallis-Comentale proposes to address the critical history of automatic writing from the romantic poets to the modernist avant-garde to the current AI generation in a book-length project. As part of his study, Commentale extends his scope to include industry-driven technological changes reflected in automation in post-World War II literature. These investigations include the fictions of Thomas Pynchon, as well as systems theory on the technology-informed evolution of institutional administrations and the cultivation of bureaucrats and technocrats.

Ed Dallis-Comentale is professor of English and Strategic Advisor to the Vice President for Research for the Arts and Humanities at Indiana University. He is the Director of the IU Bloomington Arts and Humanities Council, which is charged by the provost to expand arts and humanities campus programming that links artists, scholars, students and the public. Dallis-Comentale earned a Ph.D. at the State University of New York in Buffalo and is author of several books on modernism and co-editor of “The Year’s Work at the Zombie Research Center” and “The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies.” His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and NBC’s Dateline.