Embodied Storytelling: STEM and Humanities Collaboration in the Classroom

In fall 2017 a collaboration between professors in STEM and the humanities at Vanderbilt University resulted in teams of computer science and humanities students working together to create VR immersive environments using a video game engine. As one of the professors affiliated with the course, I worked with an interdisciplinary team of students to create a digital story of how medieval texts may have been transmitted between East and West in twelfth century Cyprus. For several centuries, the island of Cyprus hosted a multicultural court at the intersection of the sea and land routes of the Silk Road. Travelers, pilgrims, crusaders, and merchants intermingled and told stories from their own lands. Students modeled situations in which texts were told and transformed in their telling. Serving as our case study, one story from the Arabian Nights shares unique qualities with several Old French stories. The resulting model shows how and under what conditions these stories may have been transformed as they were translated, transmitted, and told between cultures. The presentation will provide details on the collaborative process between STEM and humanities students and professors. The final product, a video game/digital story, will be available for the audience to experience. In conclusion, we will consider the feasibility and utility of such a venture in order to understand vectors of manuscript transmission in the medieval Mediterranean.