discipline

As the twenty-first century unfolds, computers challenge the way in which we think about culture, society and what it is to be human: areas traditionally explored by the humanities.

In a world of automation, Big Data, algorithms, Google searches, digital archives, real-time streams and social networks, our use of culture has been changing dramatically. The digital humanities give us powerful theories, methods and tools for exploring new ways of being in a digital age. Berry and Fagerjord provide a compelling guide,exploring the history, intellectual work, key arguments and ideas of this emerging discipline. They also offer an important critique, suggesting ways in which the humanities can be enriched through computing, but also how cultural critique cantransform the digital humanities.

Digital Humanities will be an essential book for students and researchers in this newfield but also related areas, such as media and communications, digital media, sociology, informatics, and the humanities more broadly.

(Source: Polity catalog copy)

An important aspect of the European research project on electronic literature, creativity and innovation, the ELMCIP project, is the issue of pedagogical endeavors in the field of digital literary arts. As the Principal Investigator of the Swedish partner in ELMCIP, I researched some pedagogical models in Europe and co-edited an anthology of European electronic literature, which included pedagogical resources. Based in my own experience from curricular development at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden and the research in the ELMCIP project, I will discuss the issue of disciplinary contexts in teaching digital literary arts. In what schools, departments and programs is digital literature taught, and how does it affect the models of teaching? How does the model of digital literature challenge the university structures, and how disciplines are defined? What are some of the lessons learned from the ELMCIP project that can be brought to bear on how humanistic and arts programs are developed in the future? I hope to open up discussion about these questions based in observations of recent trends within the community to consolidate and solidify institutional structures (ELMCIP is one such example; the Electronic Literature Directory another, as is the electronic book review and the Electronic Literature Organization). At the same time, the humanities and the arts are under economic and organizational pressures in Europe and North America, presenting another important context for the discussion. Is the interdisciplinary and international community forming around the nebulous practice of digital literary arts a viable response to disciplinary questions, changes, and fears?