Blekinge Institute of Technology (Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, or BTH in Swedish) is located on the Baltic coast in the southeast of Sweden. The school consists of three campuses -- in Karlskrona, Ronneby and Karlshamn, with the Literature Culture and Digital Media program situated at the Karlskrona campus (Campus Gräsvik). Karlskrona was once the second largest city in Sweden due to its shipyard and an important strategic naval defense, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. BTH is one of the most distinctly profiled institutes in Sweden, with a clear focus on Applied IT and Sustainable Development of Industry and Society and is comprised of five large sections -- the School of Computing, the School of Engineering, the School of Health Science, the School of Management, and the School of Planning & Media Design. The Literature Culture and Digital Media Program is in the Communication and Culture Group, of the School of Planning & Media Design. BTH is a broad-based and highly international institute of technology. BTH carries on research - often frontline research - in all its program areas, securing the vital link between education and research. The teaching and research groups represent fifteen nationalities and through the students many more cultures are represented. Business administration, social sciences, the humanities and health sciences are obviously influenced by the Applied IT profile, resulting in a fruitful meeting between the humanities and technology.

Literature, Culture, and Digital Media (LCDM) is a humanities-based interdisciplinary program that focuses on the intersections of literature, the arts, culture, and media in the context of technological change. Taught entirely in English, our undergraduate program offers a Bachelor's Degree in English with a minor in Digital Media and prepares students for a wide-range of professional and academic interests. Our communication-intensive curriculum engages students in creative and critical media practices. Through a combination of critical analysis and hands-on technical workshops, LCDM students develop a concrete understanding of the connections between various media forms: including novels, film and video, computer games, digital art, and electronic literature.

LCDM's Cultural Practice and Applied Technology Laboratory (CP@T-LAB) is dedicated to humanities-based research into cultural applications of contemporary and emergent digital media technologies. The laboratory supports critical and creative research/practice in the humanities developing creative cultural applications that explore expressive potentialities of interactive and programmable media technologies including electronic literature, digital art, humanistic uses of mobile technology, digital video production, and technology-based performance and installation works. In addition to producing creative media applications that explore humanistic uses of new media technologies, the lab produces and publish documentation and critical analysis of research.


The lab is closely tied to the LCDM program, offering a unique opportunity for undergraduate students to collaborate with faculty researchers on media projects. LCDM students involved in the CP@T Student Working Group have participated in the development of projects for handheld mobile technologies, created interactive motion-driven video installations, and applications for digital performance.

Course Information:

Here are some of the LCDM courses that may be of interest to exchange students studying digital culture and practice:

Culture and Media Studies II (7,5 ECTS, Autumn semester)
This course introduces students to key texts and concepts within media studies and philosophy, paying particular attention to theories concerning the relationship between media and text, as well as ideas concerning the role of digital media for social change. Primary theorists include Marshall McLuhan, Walter Benjamin, John Berger, Jay David Bolter, Espen Aarseth, and N. Katherine Hayles

Media Production I (7,5 ECTS, Autumn semester)
The goal of this course is to introduce students to basic principles and methods for web design and production, and to develop an understanding of how color, typography, and website navigation affect the reception of web-based content. The course includes technical workshops, lectures, and seminars. Students are engaged in the critique and development of web-based artifacts, analyzing the production methods, cultural positioning, and communication value of the artifacts they are observing and producing.

Communicating Innovation (7,5 ECTS, Autumn semester)
The objective of this course is to help students understand the ways in which technical innovations, particularly media technologies, are connected to communication practices within culture. Students study technological innovations such as mobile communication technologies, locative media, print and electronic texts, and Internet based-communications within historical contexts and analyze the ways in which innovations influence culture practice and communication.

Literature and Media Studies II (7,5 ECTS, Autumn semester)
This course focuses on literature that is created, published, and experienced using digital technology in various forms. Students examine links between digital technologies and literary forms mapping how digital media gives us new perspectives on what it means to read and write literature.

Special Project: Collaborative Media (15 ECTS, Spring semester)
In this course, students work as a team to develop a research-based media project. Project themes, research topics, and media utilized changes year-to-year. In the past, projects have included investigations of augmented reality, mobile technologies, interactive installation, and digital performance. Throughout the course, students develop an understanding of various production roles in large scale digital media projects.

Digital Cultures and Practices (7,5 ECTS, Spring semester)
This course focuses on social media, virtual worlds, artistic and cultural practices and the communities that surround them, exploring the ways in which these technologies alter community and individual identity formation.

Digital Video Production (7,5 ECTS, Spring semester)
In this course, students use digital video cameras and video editing applications to create and edit video footage. Students work collaboratively and independently on exercises and projects that communicate various aspects of video production and editing to demonstrate their knowledge of software and screen-based moving image construction. The course includes lectures, seminars, film screenings, and technical production workshops.

Media Production II (15 ECTS, Spring semester)
In this course, students examine and study the design and production principles of interactive and programmable media applications paying particular attention to the ways in which computation is utilized as an expressive medium in emerging digital art forms. As students explore examples of interactive digital art, they learn dynamic web-based coding practices through hands-on technical exercises and workshops.

Information for international students

The International Office at BTH is responsible for the initial contact with exchange students.
The International Office works together with the Institute's different departments and units in order to promote internationalisation and to increase the international profile of Blekinge Institute of Technology.

How to apply:

To apply for exchange studies contact the International Office at your home university. It is always your home university that selects and nominates who they wish to send as exchange students.

The application deadlines for ERASMUS Exchange Studies are the 15 of May for studies in the fall and the 15 of November for studies in the spring.

Here you will find more information on ERASMUS Exchange Studies at BTH:
http://www.bth.se/exr/intoffen.nsf/pages/erasmus-exchange-studies

Contact email at International Office: contactus@bth.se
Local contact person for the program: maria.engberg@bth.se

Faculty Biographies

Jay David Bolter is a Guest Professor in the LCDM program, giving 2-4 seminars per year. At Georgia Institute of Technology he holds the Wesley Chair in New Media and is the Co-Director of the Wesley Center for New Media Research and Education, directs the Writing Program (Freshman Writing and Technical Communication) in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture and teaches in the M.S. program in Information Design and Technology and the undergraduate program in Media Studies. Bolter's research areas include: Augmented Reality and Dramatic Experiences, Digital Art and Design, and Media Theory.


Maria Engberg is an Assistant Professor (lektor) at Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), and is currently the Director of English Studies which includes the Literature, Culture, and Digital Media Bachelor’s program. Engberg holds a Ph.D. in English from Uppsala University (2007). Engberg’s research focuses on digital literature, contemporary verbal-visual literature, visual culture, and the impact of digital technologies on literature and culture with particular focus on digital literature. Her doctoral dissertation on digital poetry investigated the impact of digital technology on the creation, dissemination, and reception of poetry. She teaches digital literature, communication, and digital culture.


Lissa Holloway-Attaway is a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in the Literature, Culture and Digital Media Program and within English Studies at BTH. Her background is in the performing arts and literary studies,with a special emphasis on Digital Media, American Literature, Gender/Science, and Critical Theory. She has published work in American Literature, Cultural Studies, and Technical Communications and has been awarded research grants from the Mellon Foundation and Georgia Board of Regents. She has presented research at numerous international conferences and been the recipient for technology design awards for her work in electronic pedagogy and interdisciplinary practice. Her current research is focused on digital performance, social media, and literary/media innovation.


Talan Memmott is a lecturer in the LCDM program and an internationally known practitioner of electronic literature and digital art whose practice ranges from experimental video to digital performance applications and literary hypermedia. His work is widely available on the Internet, and has been included in electronic anthologies, featured at festivals and conferences, and the subject of numerous critical texts. His work That Being Said is included in the John Hay Library collection of rare books and manuscripts at Brown University. Memmott is on the Board of Directors of the Electronic Literature Organization and is one of the editors of the forthcoming Electronic Literature Collection Volume 2. His current research interests include digital poetics, practice-based research methods, and digital media pedagogy in the humanities.


photo of Lissa Holloway-Attaway by Ida Gustavsson.