“The Rubayaat” demonstrates the process and results of a multicultural digital poetry research project conducted under the rubric of a Fulbright TechImpact award at the Department of Literary Arts, Brown University. “The Rubayaat” used Brown University’s interactive and immersive stereo 3D audiovisual environment (Cave) to make a digitally mediated work of poetic language art, while studying the Cave as a media system for digital literary practice. This project used the Cave to explore notions of translation, multiculturalism, and the impact of technological affordances on literary expression and reception. This was done through creating a digital version of the poem The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, one that allows the user to experience, simultaneously, different translations that exist for this work. Potentially, this provides the reader with an opportunity to gain equal access to alternative versions, some of which may fall outside the mainstream. For example, the digital Cave version not only includes the well-known translation by Edward Fitzgerald but also an unknown version by a Mrs H. M. Caldwell, a Persian scholar who dedicated her life to this translation and the study of the Persian language. The Arabic translation of the poem by Egyptian poet Ahmed Rami is also included as well as the original text in Farsi and an Irish version intended to represent the research-author’s multicultural identity.
Biography
Dr. Jeneen Naji is Digital Media Faculty in the Department of Media Studies in Maynooth University, Ireland where she lectures on the B.A. Media Studies, the BSc Multimedia, Mobile & Web Development run with the Department of Computer Science and the MA in Critical and Creative Media. Dr. Naji’s research is in the area of digital culture specifically exploring the impact of the digital apparatus on poetic expression. She is also a convener and founding member of the Maynooth University Digital Arts & Humanities Research Cluster. Dr. Naji is also a member of the international editorial review board of the International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL) and a Fulbright TechImpact Scholar.
©2019 Janeen Naji, used by permission
