The University of Bergen is Norway's second largest university, with nearly 15,000 students and over 3000 employees. UiB was founded in 1946 and has six faculties: Humanities, Law, Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Medicine and Dentistry, Psychology, and Social Sciences. The main campus spreads from the centre of Bergen and up a hill called Nygårdshøyden, just a few minutes walk from the city. The Faculty of Humanities is the largest faculty at the University of Bergen with more than 3700 students. It offers a substantial number of programs leading to a wide range of academic and professional qualifications, within the areas of philosophy, language studies, history and cultural studies, aesthetic and literary studies, and music and artistic research. Bergen is Norway's second largest city, with a population of around 250,000 people. The city is situated on a fjord and between seven mountains, and is known for its beauty and being "The Gateway to the Fjords." The Bergen climate is similar to that of its sister city Seattle. Sunny days in Bergen are brilliant and green, though it often rains. In Viking times, Bergen was the capital of Norway; later it was an important Hanseatic port. Today it is a vibrant cultural hub, home of several of Norway's most important arts festivals, a city where you are equally close to pubs, fine dining establishments, art museums, live music venues, and mountain walks.

Digital Culture at the University of Bergen

Digital Culture is focused on humanities-driven investigations of the role that contemporary technologies have in shaping our relationship with each other and to the world. We offer courses on critical approaches to digital media artifacts, on the social ramifications of technology, on web design and development, and on cultural practices specific to the network. 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. In 2008 and 2009, Humanistic Informatics became part of the Department of Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic studies and was renamed Digital Culture, reflecting more accurately the focus of our curriculum.

We have an international faculty and offer the majority of our courses in English. We offer degrees at the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. levels. Our teaching is always research-based. Faculty teaching in the subject are also participants of the Digital Culture Research Group, and are actively publishing scholars in their research areas. We frequently host leading international guest researchers and topic-focused international conferences and seminars on topics within digital culture. 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, on using technology to analyze textual expression through computational means, and on social networks and identity. We also have close contact with research groups working on text technology and computational linguistics.

Course Information:

Updated information on our undergraduate and graduate courses is available on our website. Here are some capsule descriptions of courses in our program that might be of particular interest to exchange students:

DIKULT100: Networked Communication and Publication (5 ECTS, Autumn and Spring semesters)
A short course offering basic knowledge about the following areas: networking technology, different formats used in online publishing and the technologies used when handling these formats, and training in adaptation and the use of different mediums for network communication.

DIKULT104: Computing Technology: History, Theory and Practice (15 ECTS, Spring semester)
The course provides students with an overview of the historical development of computing technologies, from the early conceptualisation of principles for computation to contemporary ICT. Technological developments are studied in social and cultural context. Topics covered include algorithmic thinking, different kinds of programming languages, ways of structuring information, artificial intelligence, computer games, internet history and internet technologies.

DIKULT105: Web Design and Web Aesthetics (15 ECTS, Spring semester)
A practical course in web design, writing, and aesthetics focused on using the Web to explain and communicate cultural phenomena. Students will recieve training in interpreting textual and visual communication on the web, and will develop knowledge of Web development and aesthetics. In addition they will get an introduction to information architecture, and become familiar with relevant network technologies and theories of usability.

DIKULT106: Culture and Norms in an Information Society (15 ECTS, Autumn semester)
This course gives an introduction to and critical analysis of historical, cultural and normative sides of information technology. Central topics are: ICT as a social and cultural construction, cultural expressions connected to digital media, and historical perspectives on ICT.

DIKULT204: Digital Media and Digital Culture (15 ECTS, Autumn semester)
In this course, students learn to analyze 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.

Information for international students

The UiB website for prospective international students has information about admission, about available courses and programs across the university, about accommodation and expenses and about student life in Bergen.

When international students arrive in Bergen, you will be welcomed with a week of introductions and festivities specially for new international students. Here is full information about this orientation week.

Accommodation: Erasmus students who apply within the appropriate deadlines are guaranteed a single room at one of Bergen's student houses. Here is information about the available accomodations.

How to apply:

Here is information on how to apply for an ERASMUS exchange to the University of Bergen. Deadlines are 15 May/15 October.

Here is information on how to apply to enroll in our master's program in digital culture.

Faculty Biographies

Daniel Apollon, dr. philos, is an associate professor in digital culture. Daniel has broad interests covering cultural and social perspectives on information technology, electronic text and edition, semantic web and the philosophy of networked knowledge society. Until 2008 Daniel headed the Research Group on Text Technologies at UNIFOB AKSIS AS, Bergen. Daniel has been involved as European coordinator in many EU projects on digital culture and electronic literature. He has also a long track record as academic expert for the European Commission, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, NFR, Unesco and the former European Rectors' Conference. He is also active in COST Actions on electronic edition and eContent projects. Daniel is also a film-maker with deep interest in ethnographic film-making.

Rolf Beev (University lecturer) teaches technical courses including web design and programming for the Web. Beev has worked with network technology since 1992, and security in networks since 1996. I have taught networking technology until 2003, specializing in security issues in East Europe until 2007, when Romania and Bulgaria entered the European Union. Beev now focus on networking issues South America, with a special attention on Bolivia.

Hilde G. Corneliussen is an associate professor and has taught courses in programming, digital culture, and gender and technology. Corneliussen’s main research interests are in cultural construction of meaning related to ICTs, with a special focus on computer technology and gender, computer games, computer history, internet cultures, discourse theory and gender theory. Together with Dr. Jill Walker Rettberg she has edited the book Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader (MIT Press, May 2008).

Daniel Jung has taught technical courses and ICT in learning in the program in Digital Culture. Jung directed the Lingo online MOO project, and has research interest in online learning environments.

Jill Walker Rettberg is an associate professor who researches blogging, social media and how we tell stories online. She has written the book Blogging (Polity Press, 2008) and co-edited an anthology of scholarly articles on World of Warcraft with colleague Hilde Corneliussen. She blogs at jill/txt (http://jilltxt.net), is on Twitter as @jilltxt, and you'll find most of her publications on her blog.

Scott Rettberg is an associate professor of digital culture. Rettberg's research focus is electronic literature and other forms of digital cultural artifacts. Rettberg is the author or coauthor of novel-length works of electronic literature including The Unknown, Kind of Blue, and Implementation. His work has been exhibited both online and at art venues. Rettberg is the cofounder and served as the first executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Literature Organization, where he directed major projects funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is currently working on a book about contemporary electronic literature in the context of 20th Century avant-garde art and literary movements, and leading an initiative to develop a European electronic literature network.

Photo of Bryggen by ezioman, photo of Scott Rettberg by Elin Sjursen. Other photos by Scott Rettberg or contributed by the subjects.