We’re delighted to announce that the registration for the Autumn 2023 series of Friday Frontiers is now open, with the first session taking place in just over two weeks on Friday 6th October.
The details of the upcoming talks, along with their registration links are below:
Friday 6th October, 10.30 BST / 11.30 CEST / 12.30 EEST
Speaker: Stella Wisdom, Digital Curator, British Library, UK
Title: Curating the Digital Storytelling exhibition at the British Library
Registration Link: https://dariah.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYkdeysqzovH9XpsqtlDUZuBbcNj6zXIIdE
Description:
Evolving technologies have changed how writers write, and readers read. Join curator Stella Wisdom for a talk about the British Library’s current Digital Storytelling exhibition. From thought provoking autobiographical hypertexts to data journalism, uncanny ghost stories to weather poetry, steampunk literary adaptation to Elizabethan medical comedy. Stella will discuss a range of born digital works, including interactive narratives that respond to user input, reading experiences personalised by data feeds, and immersive multimedia story worlds developed through audience participation.
About the Speaker:
Stella Wisdom is Digital Curator for Contemporary British Collections at the British Library. Their research interests are in digital storytelling, including the collection and curation of digital comics and interactive narratives. Stella’s collaborations include projects and events with AdventureX, the New Media Writing Prize, University College London’s Institute of Education and Lancaster University’s Litcraft initiative, which builds literary worlds in Minecraft.
Friday 10th November, 10.30 (GMT) / 11.30 (CET) / 12.30 (EET)
Speaker: Maria Goicoechea De Jorge, Associate Professor, University of Madrid, Spain
Title: New Readers for Old Texts: Sharing the Workflow of a Digitally Enriched Children Literature Edition
Registration Link: https://dariah.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckc-yopzwrHdC_5DDNQU–w7j72Fo4hZFa
Description:
Libraries worldwide are investing a significant portion of their resources in digitising their collections. Digitised formats are immensely valuable for researchers but may seem dry and unappealing to broader audiences, particularly when the original content was intended for children. This talk will present the preliminary research conducted on digitised formats of popular children’s literature found in specialised libraries, focussing on the models provided by two institutions: the British Library’s “Turning the Pages” software and the National Library of Spain’s “Madgazine,” used in the interactive editions of Don Quixote and Leonardo da Vinci’s Madrid Codex. The discussion will revolve around the specific workflow we tested for creating a digitally enhanced edition of a collection of stories entitled “Plage of Dragons,” published in 1923 and based on the Spanish adaptations of Edith Nesbit’s tales.
About the Speaker:
María Goicoechea is Associate Professor of the English Department at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and coordinator of the Master’s Degree in Digital Letters. Her research interests focus on literary and artistic reception in the field of cyberculture. She has published extensively on cyberculture from the double perspective of science-fiction and electronic literature, paying particular attention to changes in reading rituals, transliteracy, and the evolution of literary publishing formats. Prof. Goicoechea is a member of LEETHI Research Group (UCM), and of HERMENEIA (Universitat de Barcelona), two interdisciplinary research groups dedicated to the study of literature and computers. She has been the Principal Investigator of the project eLITE-CM in Electronic Literary Edition (50% co-financed by the European Social Fund). She has co-curated several electronic literature exhibitions and, together with Laura Sánchez, is the co-founder of Ciberia Project, a web dedicated to the promotion of electronic literature. She is the author of Mi robot lunático (2019), an interactive story for children, and editor of the Interactive Calleja Project (2021), a collection of digitally enriched short stories based on Edith Nesbit’s tales.
Friday 1st December, 10.30 GMT / 11.30 CET / 12.30 EET
Speaker: Nasrine Olson, Associate Professor, University of Borås, Sweden
Title: Bridging Sensory Gaps: Innovations for Inclusivity
Registration Link: https://dariah.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYpde-urTkvE9TT68rF0Kf_Vxsqa8YapLhl
Description:
With around 15% of the global population experiencing some form of disability, have we truly considered what ‘inclusion’ and ‘equal opportunity’ means for all? This talk confronts the reality that most spaces, technologies, and innovations are predominantly designed for individuals with all senses and functionalities intact. How would you as a person with deafblindness navigate the world – a world filled with navigation and mobility challenges, inaccessible information, and technologies that rely on the senses of sight and hearing? In this talk, Nasrine Olson (PhD, Associate Professor) will introduce the idea behind the formation of the Centre for Inclusive Studies at University of Borås and will present a few projects that have explored ways in which technology can be leveraged to level the playing field.
About the Speaker:
Nasrine Olson is an Associate Professor in the field of Library and Information Science at SSLIS, University of Borås, Sweden. Core research interests relate to issues of power and the relationships in day-to-day action, and broader societal structures. In more recent years her focus has been on the societal implication of ICTs and information practices that enable or hinder the potential for equal opportunity for all. She has also been instrumental in creating research environments that promote, and lead to, improved inclusive technologies and environments by coordinating projects such as EU-funded projects MuseIT (2022-2025) and SUITCEYES (2018-2021). Nasrine is also the director of an interdisciplinary research centre called INCLUDE – Centre for Inclusive Studies, where through critical examination the ideology of normal, the unequal treatments of societal members is explored.
