Despite the evident disproportion between the volume of research on electronic literature and that on teaching electronic literature, over the past quarter of century some important approaches to electronic literature teaching have emerged. Particularly in the field of digital humanities, but also in the introduction of electronic literature in formal education – from kindergarten and elementary school, to high school and university. Currently, research on the teaching of electronic literature is done by bringing electronic literature into the classroom and by introducing digital literary reading experiences to students. However these practices are very little across all teaching degrees, perhaps because the so-called digital immigrants, and not the natives, are the ones still currently in charge. The biggest educational changes have not yet reached schools in a meaningful way, with the exception of some universities. 

One of the evoked reasons that justify the current situation is the hybrid and transdisciplinary nature of electronic literature, and hence the need to bring together different realms and areas of expertise in order to understand its aesthetics.

By no means does the study of electronic literature aim to deny or replace traditional print literature. On the contrary, it intends to open up new literary horizons, by reading and using different forms of text, such as hypertext, multimodal, non‑linear, or generative text, that develop students’ literary competence and eventually also enhancing print literature reading. Electronic literature favours creative empowerment and develops aesthetic sensitivity in the digital environment, questioning the authorial figure and putting readers and users in a more dynamic, participatory, interactive, and immersive situation.  

But e-lit teaching should also take into account the potential consequences of having digital natives in class, for teaching and learning practices. In fact, research on electronic literature teaching has tended to be more analytical than practical or neurological, so it is important to share pedagogical and didactic experiments and show how these need to adapt to the subject of electronic literature or to digital skills. 

From the researchers’ perspective, a lot of efforts have been made in order to expand literary studies’ analysis and terminology to electronic literature studies and to create a special electracy, i.e. new lens to see electronic literature beyond the print literacy model. These efforts have answered some of the questions raised by the migration from print to digital. In particular, they address the lack of critical models to guide the interpretation of these works and of specific terminology to analyse and teach electronic literature. For instance, relevant work has been done on the way figuration and estrangement show themselves in electronic literature within the set of navigational, interactive, visual, sonic and performative elements that interact with text, in an ergodic process that requires a physical exploratory action of its addressee. Apart from demanding familiarity with these features, e-lit teaching also raises the question of whether teachers and students should have knowledge about coding, or whether it is possible to teach and to fully engage with digital works without that specific knowledge.

Finally, should the current educational context take advantage of the hidden curriculum of digital native students by critically exploring the creative, ludic and aesthetic possibilities offered by digital objects? Can teachers, librarians, reading mediators and other literary education agents ignore digital literature for children and young adults, given the fact that it invites the playful participation of young readers, expanding their creative, imaginative and critical skills? How relevant are those artefacts and their aesthetic and expressive dimensions for the development of a critical digital literacy?

The Teaching Digital Literature International Conference seeks contributions from pedagogical and didactic experiences at any educational level; reports about the integration of digital literature in national, local, or institutional curricula; design of syllabi for the teaching of e-lit; reading projects that include pieces of electronic literature; studies on the challenges and consequences of digital literature in learning, the sine qua non condition for learning digital literature. We are also interested in papers that look into how the study of digital literature may enhance print literature reading and may develop students’ creativity.

Submission Guidelines

We invite proposals for 20-minute presentations of a single paper by one or more authors.

Submissions should include a title, the name(s) and affiliation(s) of contributor(s), a 500-word abstract and at least three keywords. 

Proposals can use one of the following languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish and French.

List of Topics

• Educational and pedagogical concerns, and the impact of teaching digital literature in schools and universities, including teachers’ initial/lifelong training 
• Incorporating e-lit into existing curricula or creating new ones: experiences, concerns, challenges, paths
• Specific questions of digital technology and digital literacy
• Framework, methods and teaching/learning tools to approach digital literature in class
• Digital literature teaching practices and projects and their contribution to literary education
• Teachers’ and students’ code knowledge
• Reception of literary digital works 

Organization

• PhD Programme in Materialities of Literature (FCT PhD Programme)
• Centre for Portuguese Literature at the University of Coimbra
• Department for Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Coimbra

Committees

Organizing Committee

• Ana Albuquerque e Aguilar
• Ana Maria Machado
• Júlia Zuza
• Manuel Portela
• Thales Estefani

Scientific Committee

• Alexandra Saemmer
• Ana Maria Machado
• Ana Marques
• Daniela Côrtes Maduro
• Diogo Marques
• Luciana Gattass
• Manuel Portela
• Mireia Manresa i Potrony
• Paulo Silva Pereira
• Roberto Simanowski
• Rui Torres

Venue

The conference will be held in the School of Arts and Humanities, Universidade de Coimbra (https://www.uc.pt/fluc/).  

Registration

• Full registration (including conference dinner): 80 € 
• Full registration (without conference dinner): 60 € 
• Registration without presenting a paper: 30 €
• Students (including conference dinner): 40 € 
• Students (without conference dinner): 20 € 
• Students without presenting a paper (without conference dinner): 10 €

Procedures regarding registration will be released soon.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to digitalliteraryteaching@gmail.com.