2017 Symposium

The University of Alberta, in association with the Kule Institute for Advanced Studies (KIAS), would like to acknowledge and help further develop researchers’ interest in Digital Narratives Around the World by enabling researchers and students across campus and beyond to join forces and create a scholarly network dedicated to the support and the dissemination of cross-disciplinary research on digital narratives around the world.

A first step towards the implementation of this project was a one-day symposium aimed at bringing together researchers from the University of Alberta along with external collaborators, giving participants an opportunity to share their research and ideas through individual and team presentations. The objectives of this event were to identify the University of Alberta’s strengths in the field and possible synergies between research groups, to establish a roadmap for the planning of future events and projects, and to investigate the needs and provisions for current and future graduate students in this area.

Our discussions were enriched by advice and input from our distinguished keynote speaker and UofA alumna, Dr. Carolyn Guertin, Professor of Digital Technologies and Adult Education at the Ontario Institute of Technology. Delegates were invited to present on a wide range of possible topics and methodologies revolving around (de-)localized digital narratives and the cultural encounters of storytelling and computation around the world.

The symposium’s schedule, with links to the presenter’s abstracts, can be found below:

9.00-9.30h Registration & coffee
9.30-9.45h Welcome & introductions (AE)
9.45-11.15h Session 1: Dialogue – Dialectics – Activism (chair: Astrid Ensslin)

  • Natalie Kononenko et al. (MLCS), “Cultural Dialogues – Digital Means”
  • Luciana Molina (MLCS), “The Author as Producer by Walter Benjamin and Digital Narrative as Praxis”
  • Jaimie Baron (EFS), “The Ethics of Interruption: Refiguring Dominant Narratives through Digital Practice”
  • Andreas Stuhlmann (MLCS), “The Dialectics of the Mediascapes: their promises and perils for global art and activism”
  • Carrie Smith-Prei (MLCS), “Digital Storytelling of Black German Feminism”
11.15-11.30h Break
11.30-12.30h Keynote: Carolyn Guertin, “Transmedia Technoscapes and Imagined Worlds”
12.30-13.30h Lunch
13.30h-14.45h Session 2: Games – Codes – Artificial Intelligence (chair: Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon)

  • Jonathan Cohn (EFS), “The Folklore Mechanic: Toward a Third Gaming Culture”
  • Astrid Ensslin (MLCS/HUCO), “Linguicisms as Markers of Socio-cultural Inequality in Videogames”
  • Geoffrey Rockwell (Philosophy/HUCO), “Palantir – Telling Stories with Software”
  • Vadim Bulitko (CS), “AI-driven Experience Management for Fun and Training”
14.45-15.00h Break
15.00-16.30h Session 3: Frames – Spaces – Places (chair: Astrid Ensslin)

  • Margaret Mackey (SLIS), “Landscape, Memory, and Literary Lives”
  • Jason Purcell, Dylan Bateman & Jennifer Quist (Canadian Literature Centre), “Getting Inside the Bag: Building a Digital Research Archive”
  • C[h]ris Reyns-Chikuma (MLCS), “Are Digital Comics still Comics?/La BD digitale est-elle encore une BD?”
  • Matty Flores (FoE), “Superhero Stories and Why They Matter: The Origin of the Real-Life SpiderMable”
  • Kris Hodgson (FoE/Lethbridge College), “Virtual Reality/ 360 degree storytelling: the future of journalism”
16.30h-16.45h Final discussion: Digital Narratives Around the World – Moving Forward
16.45h Close