Syllabus

A introductory level BA course taught in the Digital Culture program at the University of Bergen. For each genre section, the course provides three-week introductions to genres of cultural artifacts particular to the network and the computer, specifically computer and network art, electronic literature, and computer games. Students in the course will learn to analyze contemporary digital artifacts on a textual and structural basis, within the general framework of genre studies.

The course focuses on the development of both theoretical and practical skills in digital humanities. Students will learn how digital platforms can be used in research in the humanities. In the theoretical component of the course, students read academic texts on digital humanities research and do practical research on selected projects in the digital humanities. The course focuses on student active research. Students gain practical research experience as digital humanists by developing projects in ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. This knowledge base is a scientific, open access, relational database programmed in Drupal that documents creative work, research, events and actors in the field of electronic literature.

Students in the course will gain practical experience through working with one or more of the following areas:

• editing: researching, writing, and editing entries about electronic literature in the Knowledge Base
• web design and user interface development
• project planning and implementation; team-work and academic collaboration
• documentation
• visualization based research methods

This course provides a unique opportunity for students to get real-world experience working with scholars on an international research project in electronic literature and the digital humanities, and to contribute to the state of the art in these fields.

The ELMCIP Knowledge Base is based at the University of Bergen and can be accessed at http://elmcip.net/knowledgebase Contributions to the ELMCIP Knowledge Base are publicly accessible and licenced with a Creative Commons, non-commercial share-alike license (nc-sa).

Teaching Methods

There will be four hours of teaching each week for twelve weeks during the semester, split between one theoretical and one practical seminar each week. Student workload is estimated at 20 hours per week from the beginning of the semester until the exam, including during weeks without classes. This time should be spent attending classes, reading the assigned readings, completing assignments, contributing to the database projects, and gathering relevant material in the library and online (books, articles, videos, etc). If there are fewer than five students enrolled in the course, the institute can chose to reduce the hours of instruction, as per guidelines published on Mitt UiB. If this is the case, students will be able to find information about the revision of course hours at the start of the semester, before the deadline for semester registration (Sep. 1).

Assignments will be posted on Mitt UiB.

Electronic Literature is an emergent form of born-digital, experimental writing as well as an academic field with a global community of scholars and artists that support, promote, preserve and write critically about creative works. This course is a survey of the field’s evolution from floppy disks to VR and is broken into thematic modules – such as “hypertext”, “interactive games” and “recombinant poetics” – that frame certain practices of computer-writing. For each module, students will read relevant essays and creative works, as well as explore tools and practices for creative expression.

The course is designed for students to find thematic threads that excite them to creative scholarly responses. While this is not a “production” course, it is important for students to understand certain ideas through hands-on making. Students will receive training in the close-reading and analysis of works of electronic literature, as well as technical training in digital writing tools. Students will practice different forms of digital writing – blogging, experimental and collaborative fiction, multimodal and hypertext essays – that will develop critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. Shorts assignments will lead to a final digital writing project and oral presentation that explores works and/or themes in the course.

The course focuses on the development of both theoretical and practical skills in digital humanities. Students will learn how digital platforms can be used in research in the humanities. In the theoretical component of the course, students read academic texts on digital humanities research and do practical research on selected projects in the digital humanities. The course focuses on student active research. Students gain practical research experience as digital humanists by developing projects in ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. This knowledge base is a scientific, open access, relational database programmed in Drupal that documents creative work, research, events and actors in the field of electronic literature.

Students in the course will gain practical experience through working with one or more of the following areas:

• editing: researching, writing, and editing entries about electronic literature in the Knowledge Base
• web design and user interface development
• project planning and implementation; team-work and academic collaboration
• documentation
• visualization based research methods

This course provides a unique opportunity for students to get real-world experience working with scholars on an international research project in electronic literature and the digital humanities, and to contribute to the state of the art in these fields.

The ELMCIP Knowledge Base is based at the University of Bergen and can be accessed at http://elmcip.net/knowledgebase Contributions to the ELMCIP Knowledge Base are publicly accessible and licenced with a Creative Commons, non-commercial share-alike license (nc-sa).

Teaching Methods

There will be four hours of teaching each week for twelve weeks during the semester, split between one theoretical and one practical seminar each week. Student workload is estimated at 20 hours per week from the beginning of the semester until the exam, including during weeks without classes. This time should be spent attending classes, reading the assigned readings, completing assignments, contributing to the database projects, and gathering relevant material in the library and online (books, articles, videos, etc). If there are fewer than five students enrolled in the course, the institute can chose to reduce the hours of instruction, as per guidelines published on Mitt UiB. If this is the case, students will be able to find information about the revision of course hours at the start of the semester, before the deadline for semester registration (Sep. 1).

Assignments will be posted on Mitt UiB.

Electronic literature is described as born digital literary work––that is, literature produced with and only experienced on a computing device. Exhibits at the MLA, the Library of Congress, UC Berkeley, and Rutgers-Camden, as well as MOOCs (“Electronic Literature”) that drew thousands of participants and courses (“Digital Humanities Electronic Literature,” Winona State U), and symposia (“Digital Cultures in the Age of Big Data,” Bowling Green State University) show a growing interest by digital humanists in Electronic Literature. This course, led by leading scholars and artists of the Electronic Literature Organization, offers DH scholars a formal, in-depth study that provides a good understanding of electronic literature’s antecedents and traditions, authors and works, theories and methodologies, scholarly approaches, and artistic practices. It combines seminar and workshop methodologies so that participants gain the background needed to critique and interpret and teach electronic literature with knowledge of its production. This offering is co-sponsored by the Electronic Literature Organization. This course combines lecture, seminar, and hands-on activities. Consider this offering to build on: Scholarscapes, Augmented Dissemination via Digital Methods. Consider this offering in complement with and / or to be built on by: Advanced Criticism and Authoring of Electronic Literature; Pragmatic Publishing Workflows; Text Mapping as Modelling; and more.

Course introduction

The course focuses on the development of both theoretical and practical skills in digital humanities. Students will learn how digital platforms can be used in research in the humanities. In the theoretical component of the course, students read academic texts on digital humanities research and do practical research on selected projects in the digital humanities. The course focuses on student active research. Students gain practical research experience as digital humanists by developing projects in ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. This knowledge base is a scientific, open access, relational database programmed in Drupal that documents creative work, research, events and actors in the field of electronic literature.

Students in the course will gain practical experience through working with one or more of the following areas:

• editing: researching, writing, and editing entries about electronic literature in the Knowledge Base
• web design and user interface development
• project planning and implementation; team-work and academic collaboration
• documentation
• visualization based research methods

This course provides a unique opportunity for students to get real-world experience working with scholars on an international research project in electronic literature and the digital humanities, and to contribute to the state of the art in these fields.

The ELMCIP Knowledge Base is based at the University of Bergen and can be accessed at http://elmcip.net/knowledgebase Contributions to the ELMCIP Knowledge Base are publicly accessible and licenced with a Creative Commons, non-commercial share-alike license (nc-sa).

Teaching Methods

There will be four hours of teaching each week for twelve weeks during the semester, split between one theoretical and one practical seminar each week. Student workload is estimated at 20 hours per week from the beginning of the semester until the exam, including during weeks without classes. This time should be spent attending classes, reading the assigned readings, completing assignments, contributing to the database projects, and gathering relevant material in the library and online (books, articles, videos, etc). If there are fewer than five students enrolled in the course, the institute can chose to reduce the hours of instruction, as per guidelines published on Mitt UiB. If this is the case, students will be able to find information about the revision of course hours at the start of the semester, before the deadline for semester registration (Sep. 1).

Assignments will be posted on Mitt UiB. UIB course page: http://www.uib.no/course/DIKULT207

Course introduction

The course focuses on the development of both theoretical and practical skills in digital humanities. Students will learn how digital platforms can be used in research in the humanities. In the theoretical component of the course, students read academic texts on digital humanities research and do practical research on selected projects in the digital humanities. The course focuses on student active research. Students gain practical research experience as digital humanists by developing projects in ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. This knowledge base is a scientific, open access, relational database programmed in Drupal that documents creative work, research, events and actors in the field of electronic literature.

Students in the course will gain practical experience through working with one or more of the following areas:

• editing: researching, writing, and editing entries about electronic literature in the Knowledge Base
• web design and user interface development
• project planning and implementation; team-work and academic collaboration
• documentation
• visualization based research methods

This course provides a unique opportunity for students to get real-world experience working with scholars on an international research project in electronic literature and the digital humanities, and to contribute to the state of the art in these fields.

The ELMCIP Knowledge Base is based at the University of Bergen and can be accessed at http://elmcip.net/knowledgebase Contributions to the ELMCIP Knowledge Base are publicly accessible and licenced with a Creative Commons, non-commercial share-alike license (nc-sa). Teaching Methods There will be four hours of teaching each week for twelve weeks during the semester, split between one theoretical and one practical seminar each week. Student workload is estimated at 20 hours per week from the beginning of the semester until the exam, including during weeks without classes. This time should be spent attending classes, reading the assigned readings, completing assignments, contributing to the database projects, and gathering relevant material in the library and online (books, articles, videos, etc). If there are fewer than five students enrolled in the course, the institute can chose to reduce the hours of instruction, as per guidelines published on Mitt UiB. If this is the case, students will be able to find information about the revision of course hours at the start of the semester, before the deadline for semester registration (Sep. 1). Class meetings are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 14.15-16:00 in Sydneshaugen skole, Datalab 124. Assignments will be posted on Mitt UiB. UIB course page: http://www.uib.no/course/DIKULT207

Anastasia Salter's publication in the journal Syllabus includes a preferatory essay and syllabus for her course in practice-based course interactive narrative.

From the preface to her essay:

Students in game design programs, such as the Simulation and Digital Entertainment program at the University of Baltimore, often aspire to become makers of digital works. In the service of those needs, the University of Baltimore’s game design program integrates courses on design, programming, and technical art. Courses that make games an object of study are essential to providing these students context and in introduction to the potential of the medium, but they are often viewed as secondary by students focused on immediately applicable skills towards employment in the industry. My approach to resolving this apparent disconnect was to propose a new course in Interactive Narrative grounded in the process of “critical making,” which Daniel Chamberlain defines as “making a way to better ask questions” (Chamberlain 2013). The guiding questions of both the course and the projects revolve around stories: What are the opportunities of interactive narratives, and how does storytelling in a space with player agency offer new potential for experience design? The content of the course encourages students to contextualize games among media more broadly with exposure to forms including interactive fiction, electronic literature, comics and hypertext, while the practice of the course requires the making of works in these genres alongside study. I taught the course in fall 2013 for the first time following its acceptance as part of the curriculum.