Exploring Digital Writing in Portugal (Faculty-Led Program)

Examine different forms of digital media against the backdrop of the medieval cities of Lisbon, Porto, and Coimbra.

• Participate in interactive workshops with accomplished Portuguese digital artists and scholars.
•  An excellent hands-on, creative opportunity for students with an interest in interactive media, digital poetics, game design, film/animation, photography, media studies or creating interactive narratives.
• Spend three weeks in Portugal and earn six credits which can count towards an immersion or minor in creative writing, digital literature & comparative media, or English.

Learn about 21st-century digital storytelling as you explore the cultural, historical, and architectural cityscapes of Portugal. This three-week program visits Lisbon, Porto, and Coimbra, Portugal's three largest cities. In Lisbon, you'll learn about history of Portugal from the Roman era, Middle Ages and the colonial period of the Age of Discovery to the nation's steady decline in the Modern period, and then consider Portugal's 20th-century fascist past and it's progressive forward-looking 21st-century future. In Coimbra, you will spend a week in digital writing workshops at the University of Coimbra, one of the world's oldest continually operating universities. The program concludes in Porto, where you'll develop a final project. Past projects included poetry generators, sound poetry, interactive fiction, radio performance pieces, and other genre-bending experimental forms. 

The application deadline for summer 2024 has passed. To inquire about next year's program, contact the faculty directors (Robert Glick (rdggla@rit.edu), Anne Royston (amrgsl@rit.edu)).

Term: Summer
Program Dates: Early June to Late June
Credits: 6

Courses:

• ENGL 215 - Text & Code

Where do the definitions of text and code begin, and where do they break down? This course considers "text and code" by beginning with the specific contexts in which we encounter them, giving definition to text and code as the variable products of inscription technologies. We will study these inscription technologies and their histories, looking at work that conceptualizes early computing and archives, utilizes the contemporary smartphone, and considers the current state of publishing, to name a few examples. We will pay particular attention to blurring the lines between "old" and "new" media and looking for ways in which old informs new. As we consider each technology, we will also investigate the particular kinds of reading each technology affords, spending time with a wide range of genres and media. De-naturalizing what we think of as reading, we inquire: what are the abilities and possibilities of these inscription technologies? What kinds of readings do they require or make possible? You will emerge with a heightened awareness and understanding of how we communicate, and a deeper understanding of how communication is produced.

• ENGL 389 - Digital Creative Writing Workshop

Since the initial development of the computer, writers have collaborated with programmers, illustrators, and soundscapists to create digital literatures. Following from radical techniques in print literatures such as concrete poetry, Choose Your Own Adventure novels, and reorderable/unbound fictions, digital literatures exploit the potential of digital formats to explore questions of interactivity, readership, authorship, embodiment, and power. In this class, students will learn to analyze and appreciate digital literatures through their content and the relation of content form media, programming platforms, and distribution formats.

Open to all undergraduate majors. Pre-req: First-year Writing. No Portugese language needed.

To Apply

Applications are closed