The Virtual Aesthete will be a discussion and hands-on workshop in using digital pedagogy to model the literature and art of the past. Focusing on Harold Acton’s bedroom, we shall look at ways to transform Acton’s already virtual life as a twentieth-century aesthete into digitally available forms for teaching and research. Harold Acton crafted a life for himself in La Pietra as curator of his father’s collections, arranging rooms into virtual collages that mixed historical periods, artistic styles, and furniture into a living Wunder Kammer. We will explore how to do the same using contemporary digital media. The workshop will provide examples of some proven pedagogical approaches, such as having students compose Twitter fictions or remediate the setting and characters in a gaming environment, and then ask participants to share their own classroom strategies. We will conclude by constructing our own historical timeline of objects from Acton’s bedroom using the new timeline tool at The COVE. Please bring a digital camera or phone so that you can upload images for the collaborative timeline.

Seminar leader: Jay Clayton
Assistant: Wietske Smeele