The humanities faculty is reorganising into fewer, larger departments, and humanistic informatics will be with comparative literature, comparative linguistics, nordic language and literature, theatre studies, classics and art history – should be a really interesting mix. Tomorrow and the next day we’re all having a seminar out at Solstrand to get to know each other, and everyone’s been making posters of research projects to hang up on the walls so we can wander around and see what the other 80 odd researchers in our new department are up to. I made the poster for our games research (well, mainly World of Warcraft research as far as I’m concerned, but Hilde and Silje do other game research too) and Scott made one for our work on electronic literature.

This is the first time I’ve made a poster. It turned out OK, considering that and the fact that I only had two hours to do it in. I had planned to do it properly in InDesign. I even bought the Classroom in a Book for InDesign and installed the software – but after three minutes I was frustrated and went back to Photoshop. Some day I really will learn how to use other software…

Apart from that, I’ve been planning group work for the seminar, preparing a ten minute presentation of our (current, small) department, trying to read more of the chapters from our WoW anthology and oh, I’m sure there was something else too but I’ve forgotten it. By Wednesday morning I have to participate in the seminar for two full days (which’ll be fun), read the remaining four WoW chapters and prepare teaching on Wednesday morning.

My daughter, after spending a week at the office with me, told me that she thinks we have to do a lot more work at work than at school. There isn’t even any friminutt (recess/break) at work.

But I only have 119 days left till my Sabbatical officially starts! Yeeha!!


Discover more from Jill Walker Rettberg

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

3 thoughts on “making posters and being busy

  1. willy pepper

    Hei Jill
    AngÂende plakaten din liker jeg det asymmetriske formsprÂket ditt, som en som jobber med  lage slike ting hver dag synes jeg du burde lÊre deg InDesign;-)

  2. Jill

    Ja, jeg fÂr lÊre med InDesign – ser at det kan vÊre nyttig for andre ting ogsÂ… Og det var jo litt festlig med plakater, da 🙂

  3. […] We made a poster about humanistic informatics, too, when we were doing the research project posters on electronic literature and game research. Those of you who can read Norwegian can, well, read it, the rest of you can enjoy the pretty fonts. Ha. […]

Leave A Comment

Recommended Posts

Academics in Norway: Sign this petition asking for research-based discussions of how to use AI in universities

I just signed a petition calling for Norwegian universities to use research expertise on AI when deciding how to implement it, rather than having decisions be made mostly administratively. ,  If you are a researcher in Norway, please read it and sign it if you agree – and share with anyone else who might be interested. The petition was written by three researchers at UiT: Maria Danielsen (a philosopher who completed her PhD in 2025 on AI and ethics, including discussions of art and working life), Knut Ørke (Norwegian as a second language), and Holger Pötzsch (a professor of media studies with many years of research on digital media, video games, disruption, and working life, among other topics).  This is not about preventing researchers from exploring AI methods in their research. It is about not uncritically accepting the hype that everyone must use AI everywhere without critical reflection. It is about not introducing Copilot as the default option in word processors, or training PhD candidates to believe they will fall behind if they do not use AI when writing articles, without proper academic discussion. Changes like these should be knowledge-based and discussed academically, not merely decided administratively, because they alter the epistemological foundations of research. Maria wrote to me a couple of months ago because she had read my opinion piece in Aftenposten in which I called for a strong brake on the use of language models in knowledge work. She was part of a committee tasked with developing UiT’s AI strategy and was concerned because there was so much hype and so few members of the committee with actual expertise in AI. I fully support the petition. There are probably some good uses for AI in research, but the uncritical, hype-driven insistence that we must simply adopt it everywhere is highly risky. There are many researchers in Norway with strong expertise in AI, language, ethics, working life, and culture. We must make use of this expertise. This is also partly about respect for research in the humanities, social sciences, psychology, and law. Introducing AI at universities and university colleges is not merely a technical issue, and perhaps not even primarily a technical one. It concerns much more: philosophy of science, methodological reflection, epistemology, writing, publishing, the working environment, and more. […]

screenshot of Grammarly - main text in the middle, names of experts on the left with reccomendations and on the right more info about the expert review feature
AI and algorithmic culture Teaching

Grammarly generated fake expert reviews “by” real scholars

Grammarly is a full on AI plagiarism machine now, generating text, citations (often irrelevant), “humanizing” the text to avoid AI checkers and so on. If you’re an author or scholar, they also have been impersonating and offering “feedback” in your name. Until yesterday, when they discontinued the Expert Review feature due to a class action lawsuit. Here are screenshots of how it worked.