Studies in Computing to enable research and teaching on Electronic Literature and Digital Culture

该项目的目的是将计算的视角引入现代语言和文化的研究中，反之亦然，以提高两个领域对当今技术，语言和文化交织的理解，并引起学科文化的变化，以促进持续的合作。我们生活在一个每个人都使用电脑和智能手机的时代，但大多数人都不知道它们是如何工作的。然而，这些联网设备不仅塑造了我们的通信模式，而且从根本上塑造了我们的思维和做事模式。如果我们要成为一个相互联系的国家的负责任和自我意识的公民，了解他们的逻辑，潜力，偏见和风险至关重要。英国新的国家课程（2014年）通过将计算作为所有四个关键阶段的必修课，向传播数字素养迈出了一大步。然而，目前活跃在其他领域的教师和研究人员，特别是艺术和人文领域的教师和研究人员，通常没有超出最终用户的计算技能。在社交媒体、人工智能和数字监控的影响下，民主国家已经处于危险之中，我们不能等到下一代成长为工作岗位，也需要在教育系统的高端采取行动。现代语言作为一门学科有着悠久的传统，在观察复杂的文化，社会和政治进程，突出偏见，并帮助学生成为文化自我意识的社会多语言成员的重要作用。然而，我们的文化方法仍然几乎只关注印刷文学，很少关注数字通信和文化的影响。与此同时，计算在很大程度上被认为是一个中立的STEM学科，与社会和文化进程分离，尽管它在促进社会和文化进程方面发挥了作用。我们需要将这些领域连接起来。本项目提出通过使用电子文献的新方法来实现这一点，该方法利用可编程媒体的独特功能来创建动态，交互，生成等文本，主要由作者自己编码。自20世纪70年代以来，电子文学作品探索了计算机和网络的潜力和风险，突出了它们如何使我们能够操纵语言以及文化和社会进程。这类作品涉及代码、硬件和网络的启示，它们都用于创建可执行程序，并在内容和功能中体现主题。因此，它们为现代语言和计算机之间提供了一个理想的聚会场所，可供学生和专家访问。该学科将包括一个密集的学习和研究计划，使PI，一个专门从事法国研究的多语言文学学者，能够获得必要的知识和编程实践经验，这将使她能够承担和领导真正的跨学科研究和教学。除了采取由Paragraphe，法国研究实验室提供的相关硕士课程模块的选择，该实验室具有使用计算用于文学和艺术目的的长期传统，她将翻译，策划和与同事和学生合作共同创建电子文学计算。这些合作将作为未来更大的国际项目的试点，以及由兰开斯特社会未来研究所和新的数字中心支持的本地跨学科研究和教学。

The aim of this project is to introduce the perspective of Computing into the study of Modern Languages and cultures and vice versa, in order to enhance both fields' understanding of the intertwining of technology, language, and culture today and induce a change in the disciplinary cultures to facilitate continued collaboration. We live in an age where everybody uses computers and smartphones, but mostly without understanding how they work. These networked devices have, however, come to shape not only our modes of communication, but more fundamentally our modes of thinking and doing things. If we are to become responsible and self-aware citizens of a connected nation, it is crucial to understand their logic, potentials, biases, and risks. The UK's new national curriculum (2014) has made a big step towards spreading digital literacy by making Computing compulsory for all four key stages. The currently active generations of teachers and researchers in other fields, and especially in the arts and humanities, however, typically have no computing skills beyond that of an end user. With democracies already at risk under the impact of social media, AI, and digital surveillance, we cannot just wait until the next generation grows into jobs and need to act at the higher end of the education system as well. Modern Languages as a discipline has a long tradition and an important role in observing complex cultural, social, and political processes, highlighting biases, and helping students to become culturally self-aware multilingual members of society. Yet our approach to culture still has an almost exclusive focus on print literature, with little attention to the implications of digital communication and culture. Meanwhile, Computing is largely perceived as a neutral STEM subject divorced from social and cultural processes, despite its role in facilitating them. We need to connect these fields.This project proposes to do this through a novel approach using electronic literature, which exploits the distinctive features of the programmable medium in creating dynamic, interactive, generated, etc. texts, mostly coded by the authors themselves. Electronic literary works have explored the potentials and risks of computers and networks since the 1970s, highlighting how they allow us to manipulate language and cultural and social processes. Such works engage with the affordances of code, hardware, and networks, which they both use in creating executable programs and thematise in their content and functioning. As such, they offer an ideal meeting ground between Modern Languages and Computing, accessible and relevant to students and specialists of both. This Discipline Hop will consist in an intensive programme of study and research enabling the PI, a multilingual literary scholar specialised in French Studies, to acquire the necessary knowledge and hands-on experience with programming, which will allow her to undertake and lead truly cross-disciplinary research and teaching. In addition to taking a selection of relevant masters' modules offered by Paragraphe, a French research laboratory with a long-standing tradition of using computing for literary and artistic purposes, she will translate, curate, and co-create electronic literature in collaboration with colleagues and students in Computing. These collaborations will serve as pilots for larger future international projects as well as for local cross-disciplinary research and teaching supported by Lancaster's Institute for Social Futures and new Digital Hub.