We hear you loud and clear

Hi Everyone,

Here's the image I took with my computer during our second (my first) session. I thought the Aarhus assembly might like to see what it looked like from the UCL side.

David

UCL checks into our virtual classroom

A few days ago we had our first local meeting here at UCL, and we are all looking forward to meeting the Danish participants the coming week. Three out of the seven students met in the Access Grid studio (Diana, Natasha and Elena), and I think we all agreed that this is going to be quite an unusual and fascinating learning experience for all of us - we have been hit by some sort of malignant virus here in London, and we hope to have a full team ready to meet, virtually, the three Danish students (Lene, Christian and Jacob) and Svend Erik on Monday in our first video conference. You will soon be able to "meet" all the participants on the Moodle site.

As a way of introducing the course, I talked a bit about the rationality behind it; and we discussed what it might ad to the course that we conduct it across national borders, why are we using Moodle, hypertext and other WEB2.0 technologies as central tools in the course? One of the more complex and experimental issues is, of course, how the format and technologies of the course will feed-back onto the theme, Memory and Literature in a Globalised Culture. Will we, for instance, at the end of the course, be able to determine whether or not the transnational and hypertextual format of the course and its products will influence the way we think about memory?

We wont have time, I am afraid, to continue the discussion we had on some of the "memory images" we have collected in the Moodle database: the Lukasa, Luba Memory board, and Saxgren's photograph of a native-american Dane, wearing traditional costume in the midst of his Danish domestic setting, but we already took some steps towards exploring the mediated, encoded, nature of cultural memories, and the fact that heritage and cultural memory translate, in interesting ways, into other cultural settings - I am sure this discussion will continue with other materials in the weeks to come.

I am looking forward to meeting the rest om my UCL students and, not least, our Danish collaborators - I am certain we will have many transnational memories to share as the course unfolds.

Moodle site under construction

The Moodle site to be used throughout the seminars is being constructed these days. Material, links, instructions, requirements and the weekly program will be availabe shortly. But some of the links are active now. As soon as the Danish students have received a UCL-mail address they will be visible as active participants.

Students are now invited to participate

The UCL Centre for Intercultural Studies and Comparative Literature MA is launching a new module in the Spring term of 2009 entitled "Memory and Literature in a Globalised Culture." Interested MA and PhD students in London and Aarhus are invited to participate in the module, for or without credits.

This is an innovative course in many respects. Firstly, the course will investigate the role of memory in an age of globalisation with examples drawn from a range of literatures, media and cultural artifacts. Secondly, the course will, in its delivery, be of a transnational nature: most sessions will be conducted in video-conference with a parallel course running at the University of Aarhus. And lastly, students will be given the opportunity to work with materials of their own finding, to discuss and present individual projects in local and transnational groups. "Memory and Literature in a Globalised Culture" is, then, an excellent opportunity for MA and research students from a variety of disciplines and programmes who want to explore the ways in which globalisation has challenged the content and function of collective memory, how national cultures and literary canons have circumscribed collective memory and how new media co-operate with literature in shaping memories and identities. The group will meet once a week for a two-hour session in the Spring term of 2009, and there will be arranged online-study-groups on a biweekly basis. The seminars will introduce students to current theories and discussions of memory, literature and globalisation, and three common primary texts will be discussed in that context: Jorge Semprúns novel The Long Voyage (1963), Gonzáles Iñárritu’s film Babel (2006) and the commemoration of the discovery of America in the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893). Additional primary texts will be drawn from students' individual research interests.If you would like to know more, to express your interest in or secure a place on the course, please contact the module tutor, Dr. Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (j.stougaard-nielsen@ucl.ac.uk)

What will the module be about?

Memory is increasingly being recognized as fundamental to the formation of individual and collective identities. This module aims to investigate the role of memory in an age of globalisation powered by new communication technologies, with examples drawn from literature, film and digital media. Central questions to be investigated are: in which ways does globalisation challenge the content and function of collective memory, and how do new media co-operate with literature in shaping memories and identities? Semprún’s novel The Long Voyage (1963), González Iñárritu’s film Babel (2006), the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893) or materials of a similar nature will be studied.

Welcome to our blog

This blog is created in connection with the 2009 MA module Memory and Literature in a Globalised Culture at UCL and AU. We (Svend Erik Larsen, AU, and Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen, UCL) will be blogging about our thoughts for the module and other related issues in the time leading up to its commencement. We invite everybody interested to contribute with observations, insights and ideas. Visit and get to learn our partner departments by following the links in the left phrame of the this blog.