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Postdigital entanglements and intermedial critique: US-American novels on the ‚digital banal‘
Get PDFAs the digital revolution has evolved into a postdigital media ecology, the digital is less and less seen as a disruptive force but has rather become invisible and co-existing with analog media. The normalization of digital technologies in all areas of our lives, including artistic and academic practices, poses pertinent aesthetic, cultural, political, and methodological questions that can be productively approached through an intermedial perspective. While digital media itself may be restricted to systemic blind spots in reflecting the cultural implications of the seemingly seamless integration of digital media into our everyday experiences, other media and theorizations thereof have an increasingly important function in de-naturalizing, making visible, and providing critical „counter-attentional forms“ (Stiegler) to what Zara Dinnen has called the affective structure of the „digital banal“.
In my talk I will look at a selection of US-American contemporary novels that emphasize the historical contingencies, material conditions, and cultural costs of digital infrastructures through explicit intermedial interventions into the postdigital condition. At the same time, these novels themselves partake in the blending of digital and analog, as they experiment with, and inevitably position themselves within a digital economy. Thus, while explicitly fashioning themselves as digital media‘s corrective ‚other‘, these novels simultaneously demonstrate the inescapability and reconfigurability of the network logic, dismantling what Ulf Stäheli has described as the myth of „de-networking“
Digitalising Ekphrasis: Can Virtual Reality Represent?
Get PDFWhat does digitalisation mean for ekphrasis, the representation of one medium (source medium) in another kind of medium (target medium)? The source media in ekphrasis have been digital for a long time by now: novels representing webpages, films capturing people’s relation to artificial intelligence, paintings depicting people staring at their smartphones’ screens. But ekphrasis’s target media seem to be ‘old’ media in their digital form, such as eBooks or films. Can ekphrasis engage with more digitally born media?
To answer this question, I take the example of Virtual Reality (VR), a digital technology which creates simulated experience, to, first, examine whether VR can be called a qualified medium with the ability to represent, i.e., produce meaning what is at the core of ekphrastic practice, or whether it is a purely technical medium, “a body that mediates” (Elleström 2010). Thus, I delve deeper into the theoretical questions of how we understand Virtual Reality as a medium basing my reasonings on Lars Elleström’s models of media modalities (2010) and media transformation (2014). Secondly, I present a comparative analysis of the simulated experience of a visit to Anne Frank’s house, The Secret Annex VR App (2024), and the immersive VR environment of Vincent Van Goth’s art, the VR App “The Night Café” (2016). By showing how VR represents Anne Frank’s written diary and Van Goth’s paintings, I draw a conclusion on not only whether VR can produce meaning of other media but also how the ‘digitalised’ ekphrasis can be a source of new insights into the evolution of the phenomenon
Mediations of Literary Reception and Theory/Critique in the Digital Space
Get PDFThe presentation discusses intermediality from the aspect of media convergence of print literature and reviews with new modern digital platforms such as popular book sites (Goodreads, Anobbi, Libib and Library Thing), book blogs and reading/literature podcasts which affect and shape the mediations/negotiations of literary reception. Media intermediality forms creative spaces in which reader reviews of literature can in themselves develop new intermedial genres for instance blog fiction or digi-fiction. Previously mainly driven and formed by the book reviews of major literary critics published in highbrow magazines and newspapers, the practice of choosing and evaluating a book has been overtaken by produsers of which a key element is communal evaluation in a heterarchy. As a result of intermediality, a heterarchy not only impacts negotiations of literary reception but also literature theory. In their own receptions of literature, lay readers discuss principles which can lead to the emergence of new literary theory, for instance metamodernism, transrealism or even the reinterpretation of lesser movements such as fluxus. Intermediality therefore emphasises a push-pull relationship between traditional literature and critique as the primary point of reader interaction and new media. As communication technologies continue to develop, online reader critique also develops in which the original literature or critique becomes a hyper literary form of itself. Thus, the question we address through the examination of these online interactivities is how this (new) media ecology shapes the consumption of literature, how it opens up the digital space for literary discussions and what kind of intermedial networks it creates
Panel proposal: Self-reflexivity and remediation of the digital in 21st-century poetry, plays and performance
Get PDFThe suggested panel adopts a transgeneric and transmedial approach to self-reflexivity and remediations of the digital in contemporary Anglophone and Dutch poetry, plays and performance. The three speakers bring together examples ranging from Instapoetry and VR poetry to Zoom theatre, each paper confronting the digital and the literary from an intermedial angle. As the three papers will show, the re-entry of the digital into the literary tends to result in self-reflexive forms which reflect and challenge medial boundaries in ways that foreground the medium-specific affordances of storytelling of each genre (poetry, drama, performance)
Ömsesidiga nyttor akademin och museerna
Get PDFGenom samverkan mellan museer och akademin identifierar vi gemensamt relevanta ämnen för forskning och förmedlingsmetoder. För att förstärka samarbetet föreslås ett forum där verksamheterna möts för kunskaps- och informationsutbyte
Implementing a multilingual language policy in pre-primary and primary education at an accredited European School in France
Get PDFThis paper will present an ethnographic study of how language policy (LP) is created, interpreted, and appropriated in the context of the first accredited European School in France. By examining the nursery and primary school cycles, I will address the multifaceted dimension of language policy by considering Spolsky’s tripartite framework (2009) and by examining the interactions of agents, goals, processes, and discourses (Johnson 2009) involved in this dynamic educational setting.
First, I will briefly discuss the European School system, emphasizing the top-down language policy explicitly stated in its policy documents. These documents underscore languages and language education that play a key role in this unique system and consider the reality of today’s classrooms, which are changing due to the high linguistic and cultural diversity of students (Hélot et al. 2018).
Next, I will present the context of the study, citing the school’s accreditation and personnel recruitment process and how it is unique in that it must adhere to French administrative procedures and how its educational system conforms to that of the European Schools. More importantly, I will highlight the multilingual dimension of the nursery and primary school cycles, emphasizing the super-diverse inguistic repertoires of the teachers, language assistants, parents, and pupils.
I will then present selected data collected over three academic years from 2019 to 2022 that accentuate language policy at several levels. These include interviews with teachers, research notes on institutional and classroom language practices and discourses, and analyses of 193 primary children’s language portraits and their written descriptions (Busch, 2018) that provide implications for language learning and teaching.
Finally, I will then propose an analysis of how agents interpret, implement, negotiate, and at times, intentionally or unintentionally ignore the explicit multilingual language policy. Findings indicate that even with clear language policy statements, there are inconsistencies at the level of beliefs and practices that sometimes undermine the principles on which the European Schools are founded. The research findings draw implications for rethinking the education of multilingual learners (Cummins, 2021) and the implementation of multilingual education (Soares, Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2021)
A nexus analytic study of teachers’ and students’ translanguaging as a complex of ideology, practice and experience of multilingualism in the context of Swedish for immigrants (SFI)
Get PDFThis presentation centers on a nexus analysis-based pilot study around teachers’ and students’ translanguaging conducted in a municipally organized adult migrant language education center called SFI. The aim of the study was to explore the suitability of nexus analysis as a theoretical framework to shed lights on the multidimensionality of translanguaging at the intersection of language in education policy, classroom language socialization practices and lived experiences. Specifically, I focused upon three different types of mutually intersecting discourses associated with multilingualism that emerged from different levels of contexts and mediated teachers’ and students’ translanguaging (Scollon & Scollon, 2004). Materials used to examine the circulating discourses around multilingualism were policy documents, observations, interviews and photos. They were analyzed through discourses in place, interaction order and historical body. Findings illuminated the complexity of multilingualism that entailed the tension of competing discourses around language in policy and practice. Furthermore, they pointed out that teachers and students strategically and symbolically drew upon the competing discourses around language, indicating how different historical bodies of individuals led to a further complexity of multilingualism. In sum, the pilot study demonstrated how nexus analysis and translanguaging may be theoretically mutually consistent in that dichotomies of micro/personal and macro/social are challenged (Li, 2011; Hult, 2016). In turn, the pilot study implicated the capacity of nexus analysis that enabled the researcher to challenge the dichotomized view of translanguaging as linguistically inclusive, socially just, transformative and therefore inherently superior to monolanguaging (Canagarajah, 2011)
Nexus-analytical perspectives on change
Get PDFThrough a literature review, we explore how the concept of change has been theorised over time in nexus-analytical language studies in order to re-examine the nature of change in our own research projects. The notion of change is essential in research drawing on nexus analysis. Indeed, Scollon and Scollon, who developed nexus analysis, see change as one of its “main tasks or activities” (2004, p.9). Expected findings include conceptualisations of change as (1) concrete actions that researchers undertake as nexus analysis often involves a conscious aim to change the nexus being studied. (2) Change can also be a permeating feature of social actions and practices as participants' positions and identities are in flux as people come together with their individual histories, creating their mutual interaction orders and discourses in place. (3) Moreover, nexus analysis aims to capture change across longer time spans and spaces, leaning on diverse research materials and ethnographic, participatory observation. (4) Change can also be conceptualised in terms of “itineraries of transformation” (Scollon, 2009, p.233) to examine the relationship between text, action and the material world. (5) Furthermore, the notion of change may shed light on the participatory, reflexive and critical dimensions of nexus analysis, as it encourages researchers to think about the impact and power that they have on a given nexus of practice by playing a role in it. With the growing number of studies using nexus analysis, this presentation provides an overview of current understandings of change and suggests directions for further research
Word definition skills: Underlying processes and background factors
Get PDFAim and research questions: The aim of this recently started project is to contribute to our understanding of the role of executive functions (EF), Theory of mind (ToM) and language skills in supporting word definition (WD) skills in children, as well as the role of background factors. We want to answer the following question:
How do EF skills, ToM, lexical and grammatical skills and background factors contribute to WD skills in childrenrepresenting a variation of EF and language skills, language background and exposure, and socio-economic conditions?
Area of investigation: WD skills open a window to the mental lexicon and are predictive of school success and literacy. At the same time, schooling plays a crucial role for the development of WD skills. WD tasks have a potential as an instrument in assessing children’s lexical skills and teachers need to work with word definitions as an integrated part of different school subjects. We therefore need more knowledge on how cognitive and language skills support WD skills and how background factors are associated with WD skills in order to be able to give children optimal support.
Methodological design: We will collect data related to EF, ToM and language skills and collect information related to socio-economic status and language background and exposure from children aged 8-10 with Swedish as first or second language, children with and without developmental language disorder and children with hearing loss. The test results and background information will be related to the children’s performance on WD tasks.
Conclusions: We will present and motivate the chosen tests. Most importantly we will discuss the WD tasks: what considerations were made in the selection of target words (e.g., with respect to grammatical category, frequency and semantic characteristics) and how the children’s responses will be analysed, quantitatively and qualitatively.
Based on the data collected we expect to be able to understand more about the interaction between linguistic, cognitive and social variables that shape language variability. The project is part of a larger transdisciplinary research program concerning language learning and multilingualism
Year-9 students writing in English: The affordances of translanguaging and writing tools on students’ ability to cope with a high-stakes task
Get PDFMultilingual students' communicative practices and use of translanguaging has kept researchers' interest for years (see Leung & Valdés 2019 for overview). However, most of this research stems from English-speaking countries where target language and societal language is the same and students frequently share language backgrounds (Leung & Valdés 2019). In Sweden, the heterogeneity of the student population, and a traditional support for an English only policy, has made it difficult for teachers to know when and how to implement other named languages (Hult, 2017). Although the Swedish National Board of Education endorses translanguaging, research focusing on student interactions in our classrooms is scarce. The aim is to address this gap by looking at multilingual students' use of translanguaging space, the mediation of writing tools and how this mediation shapes the writing process in English. Using Derewianka’s (1991) curriculum cycle as the basis, a design intervention spanning six lessons was completed focusing on different tools to use in the writing process of English. The writing tools included both physical tools, such as mind maps, and psychological tools, such as previously learnt languages. Following a sociocultural approach, the present study set out to answer: a) What are the affordances of allowing translanguaging space in two English classrooms?, b) What do the different writing tools introduced in the lessons prior to the writing task mediate? and c) How does the mediation of writing tools shape the writing process? A sociocultural discourse analysis showed students naturally translanguaging in classroom interactions, using several named languages to engage in exploratory talk, the type of talk conducive to learning (Mercer & Littleton, 2007). The mediation of writing tools was analyzed in two steps, using a latent content analysis and a thematic analysis on students' interview responses resulting in six mediational themes: idea generation, memory, lexical access, affirmation and organization. Tentative results suggest that the mediation of different tools shaped the writing process by providing content, lexical variation, problem solving, structure and a sense of security