A Presentation of Humanistic Informatics

The Faculty of Humanities, University of Bergen
Humanistic Informatics is the study of the relationship between human culture and technology. Our focus at the University of Bergen is digital arts and culture, as well as a belief that theoretical, historical and analytical approaches to understanding digital culture must be accompagnied by a practical understanding of the technology.

The Department of Humanistic Informatics was established in 1995, when it became obvious that digital technology was becoming more than a simple tool that humanists might want to master, but that it was a research area in its own right. The name “humanistic informatics” is common on the continent and in Scandinavia, but in the US and Britain equivalent programs are usually either framed as “Digital Humanities” or as “New Media”.

Teaching is always research based. Currently research at the department includes work on electronic literature and new forms of art and narrative that are developing in digital media, on gender and technology, on blogging as a learning and communication tool and as a form of narrative, on online games (MMOGs) as a cultural arena (this semester we’re hosting a research workshop on cultural approaches to World of Warcraft, and in parallel, students in HUIN106 play World of Warcraft and analyse interactions and cultural constructions in the gameworld) and on using technology to analyse textual expression through computational means. We also have close contact with research groups working on text technology and computational linguistics.

Undergraduate Courses

We offer a three year bachelor’s degree (Bachelor i historie og kultur med spesialisering i humanistic informatikk) which has 90 ECTS in humanistic informatics. Normally, students doing the whole degree would choose between the following courses in humanistic informatics, choosing 60 ECTS at the 100-level and 30 at the 200-level. Introduction to Programming and Specialisation in Humanistic Informatics (the bachelor thesis) are compulsory.

HUIN100	Networked Communication and Publication	English	5 ECTS	Spring and autumn
HUIN102	Information and Communication Technology in the Humanities	Norwegian	15 ECTS	Autumn
INFO133	Introduction to Programming	Norwegian	10 ECTS	Spring
HUIN105	Web Design and Web Aesthetics	Norwegian	15 ECTS	Spring
HUIN106	Culture and Norms in an Information Society	Norwegian	15 ECTS	Autumn
HUIN202	Specialisation in Humanistic Informatics	Individual supervision, English or Norwegian	15 ECTS	Spring
HUIN204	Digital Media and Digital Culture	English	15 ECTS	Autumn
HUIN205	Web Programming	Norwegian	15 ECTS	Autumn
HUIN206	Critical Approaches to Technology and Society I	English	15 ECTS	Spring

As you can see from the table above, some of these courses are taught in English, and usually about half the students in these courses are exchange students. These courses usually have between 15 and 25 students, and are run as seminars where students write one or more papers during the semester, and a selection of this work is assessed for the final grade.
Students are encouraged to spend a semester on exchange in another country, and so we are very interested in establishing relationships with universities offering similar or complementary courses.

To take the full degree with us, students would need to learn Norwegian.

Here are more detailed descriptions of the English-langauge courses:

HUIN100: Networked Communication and Publication
This course is a short (5 ECTS) course giving a basic introduction to publishing online. Students learn to use simple technology such as wikis or blogs and begin to learn basic HTML and XML.

HUIN204: Digital Media and Digital Culture
In this course, students learn to analyse digital media texts – the course is similar to cinema studies or literary studies but the texts we read and discuss are digital. The emphasis of this seminar-based course varies from year to year, but examples of areas covered include video games, online video, Massively Multi-User Games (MMOGs), electronic literature, kinetic poetry, collaborative narratives, hypertext and digital art. Theoretical approaches might include semiotics, narratology, close reading and cultural theories.

HUIN206: Critical Approaches to Technology and Culture I
This course provides an in depth examination of a topic related to society, culture and technology. The topic will vary from semester to semester, and the approach may draw from theoretical traditions such as history, gender studies, ethnography, media criticism and philosophy. Students will develop their skills in critical reflection around the ways in which technology influences and is influenced by society. They will become familiar with and be able to use relevant theoretical terms and perspectives.

Note that most courses are only taught in either the spring or the autumn semester.

Master’s Degree in Humanistic Informatics

We offer a two-year MA in Humanistic Informatics. During the first year, students take 60 ECTS in humanistic informatics (by agreement, some of this year may be spent on exchange). The second year is devoted to writing the MA thesis.

HUIN301	Methods and Project Development in Humanistic Informatics	Norwegian	15 ECTS	Autumn
HUIN303	Digital Media Aesthetics	English	15 ECTS	Autumn
HUIN305	Practical Project in Humanistic Informatics	Language according to student needs (English or Norwegian)	15 ECTS	Spring
HUIN307	Critical Approaches to Technology and Society II	English	15 ECTS	Spring
HUIN350	MA Thesis in Humanistic Informatics	Individual supervision, English or Norwegian	60 ECTS	Full year.

HUIN303: Digital Media Aesthetics is co-taught with HUIN204, with more demanding assignments and assessment for post-graduate students than for students taking the course at the 200-level. The assigned texts vary from semester to semester, so students can take both HUIN204 and HUIN303 in consecutive years and receive full credit, but they cannot take both courses in the same semester.

Likewise, HUIN307 is co-taught with HUIN206.

More information

The department website is http://huminf.uib.no - we are working on providing more information there in English. Please don’t hesitate to contact our staff for more information:

Coordinator of Teaching:
Rolf Beev: rolf.beev@uib.no

Student Advisor:
Marit Henriksen: marit.henriksen@lle.uib.no