[Air-L] Fulbright in Digital Culture in Norway

[Jill Walker Rettberg]

Dear American scholars,

Would you be interested in spending a year at the University of Bergen doing teaching and research with our Digital Culture group? The August 1 deadline for our 2019/20 Fulbright Scholarship is fast approaching, and we have less applications this year than we have had most years. I would love to see applications from AoIR people! Here is the ad:
https://awards.cies.org/content/digital-culture-0

This is a teaching Fulbright, where you would teach three courses over the two semesters (typically one one semester and two the other semester), in addition to having time for your own research. I think most AoIR people would be able to teach some of our courses. For instance, our Culture and Norms of the Information Society usually has three modules, one on Digital Media Ethics, using Charles Ess’s book by that name, one on Online Identity, using Nancy Baym’s Personal Connections, and one on Surveillance. A Fulbright might teach a seminar for the upper level undergrads where the teacher picks a topic within "Critical Perspectives on Technology and Society", which would culminate in the students writing their BA thesis (like a capstone paper). Our course “Computing Technology: History, Theory and Practice" doesn't teach students to be programmers, but gives them an overview of the development of computing technology, so it can be taught from an STS point of view. In addition to the historical overview, students learn a little bit about some programming languages, so they understand what an algorithm is, what a variable or a loop or an object is. Usually one of the courses the Fulbright teaches is a small MA level seminar course on a topic of their choice, within the bounds of "Digital Media Aesthetics" or "Critical Perspectives on Technology and Society". We have a strong focus on digital aesthetics, so some of our Fulbrights have taught into the first year course Digital Genres: Digital Art, Computer Games and Electronic Literature.

Fulbrights are of course included in our research activities as well. In addition to our tenured faculty, we have a vibrant group of postdocs, PhD fellows and usually several visiting international researchers a year. The largest project right now is my Machine Vision in Everyday Life (https://www.uib.no/en/machinevision), which in 2019/20 will be well underway with aesthetic and ethnographic researchers and multiple events with international participants. Electronic literature and digital aesthetics are another main focus area in our group, and we have weekly or bi-weekly research group meetings, where the Fulbright can choose whether to be more active in the Digital Culture Research Group (https://www.uib.no/en/rg/digitalculture) or the Electronic Literature Research Group (https://www.uib.no/en/rg/electronicliterature). 

Our previous Fulbrights have been at all stages of their careers, and we welcome applications from junior and senior scholars. Fulbright scholarships receive a monthly stipend from the Fulbright Foundation, with additional funds for dependents. There are also opportunities for travel funding.

If interested in applying, please email scott.rettberg at uib.no

All best,

Jill

Jill Walker Rettberg 
Professor of Digital Culture
University of Bergen