Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice (ELMCIP): A Report from the HERA Joint Research Project

Electronic Literature Pedagogies

71 CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION IN PRACTICE ELECTRONIC LITERATURE PEDAGOGIES MARIA ENGBERG E ducational models, institutional contexts, and policies in European higher education regarding electronic, or digital, literature were foregrounded in a series of activities centered at Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH, Sweden) during the ELMCIP project. The activities were focused on an initial mapping of pedagogical efforts throughout Europe concerning electronic literature , led by the Principal Investigator (and author of this chapter) in collaboration with the BTH-based ELMCIP postdoctoral researcher. In addition, the BTH team, consisting of the Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator, postdoctoral researcher, and assistants, organized a themed workshop in 2011 that centered around the question of electronic, or digital, literature and pedagogy. This chapter will focus on the best practices that emerged out of that workshop, the research into pedagogical activities, and relevant published reports. The aim is to provide a basis for policy decisions in the field of education, the arts, and culture in Europe as we face the profound changes that the digital has brought about in these sectors. DIGITAL LITERATURE AND PEDAGOGY WORKSHOP During a three-day workshop in Karlskrona, Sweden (June 2011), invited teachers , researchers, and artists presented their experiences from teaching digital literary practice and theory from Europe, North America, and Australia. Leading up to the workshop and beyond it, the team at Blekinge Institute of Technology researched various institutions in Europe that include electronic literature or related digital artistic practices in their curriculum. The goal was to familiarize ourselves with the current state of teaching electronic literature in Europe. Further, the aim within the ELMCIP project was to understand how education enhances the creation of creative communities where the practice of electronic literature is taught and how educational models can help to develop and support literary and artistic practice in local environments, as well as across Europe. The overall theme of the workshop was the examination of educational models of the study and practice of electronic literature, focused on the European context and drawing upon experience in the United States and Australia. 72 ELMCIP REPORT The invited pedagogues presented papers that ranged from addressing individual courses to presenting national concerns. There are still relatively few European examples of courses and programs that include electronic literature. Often, such courses exist in a diverse range of disciplinary contexts, and, thus, courses are informed by different theoretical and practical traditions. The presentations reflected upon the divergent landscape for teaching of electronic literature in Europe and elsewhere and, in so doing, presented some important lessons that can be taken from the level of the individual institutions into national and European guidelines for education. The workshop presenters included: María Mencía (Kingston University , UK); Søren Bro Pold (Aarhus University, DK); Renée Turner (Piet Zwart Institute , NL); Jörgen Schäfer (University of Siegen, DE); Kate Pullinger (novelist, UK); Erling Björgvinsson (Malmö University, SE); Carolyn Guertin (University of Texas at Arlington, US); Serge Bouchardon (Université de Technologie de Compiègne, FR); Philippe Bootz (Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis, FR), and Jay David Bolter (Georgia Institute of Technology, US). In addition, there were two roundtable discussions chaired by Principal Investigator Maria Engberg and Co-Investigator Talan Memmott (both Blekinge Institute of Technology ) that included, in addition to some of the aforementioned presenters, Jerome Fletcher (University College Falmouth, UK), Joseph Tabbi (University of Illinois at Chicago, US), and Lissa Holloway-Attaway (Blekinge Institute of Technology ). The presentations and the roundtable discussions touched upon a range of factors that determine the institutional, pedagogical, and creative dimensions of electronic literature in a learning context. While most examples were from tertiary education, examples from primary and secondary school education were presented as well. A basic concern for the workshop as well as for some of the presenters was the presence of digital literature in education and the issue of disciplinary homes for e-lit in teaching and research. In his presentation, “In Search of Sustainability: Institutional and Curricular Limitations of Teaching Electronic Literature,” Jörgen Schäfer (2011) posed the question of what is the state of teaching electronic literature in Germany, and, subsequently, what is its status as a subject within German literary studies? Schäfer presented a series of possible answers to those questions. The first was that electronic literature has become relatively invisible in recent years. The reason, Schäfer argued, is that German university structures 73 CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION IN PRACTICE...