Updated March 16, 2015

Tue Jan 13, 2015: Defining the Digital Humanities

What are the digital humanities? Why digital humanities?

In-class

• Introductions
  • Why are you interested in the course?
• How might digital humanities be relevant to your work?
• Overview of course and its objectives
• Introductory exercise
• Course survey (in-class if time; otherwise at home)

Related Resources

• Jason Heppler, What Is Digital Humanities?
• Day of DH 2014
• DHQ’s definition of digital humanities
• towards understanding DH values: Debates in Digital Humanities

Thu Jan 15, 2015: Evaluating Digital Humanities Projects

What different forms does digital humanities scholarship take?

Before Class

• Read
• Anne Burdick et al, A Short Guide to the Digital_Humanities (2012)
• Miriam Posner, “How did they make that?”
• Select a digital humanities project to explore. Be ready to give an informal, two to three minute overview of the project in which you consider:
• goals: What is the project trying to achieve?
• methods: How does the project pursue those goals?
• scholarly contexts: How does the project try to advance humanities scholarship?

You might pick one of the projects featured in one of the following sources, or you’re welcome to select one on your own:

• Around DH in 80 Days: http://www.arounddh.org/journey/
• List of DH projects prepared for previous version of this class, with additions by students
• DH Commons: http://dhcommons.org/projects

In Class

• Brief presentations on example projects.
• Break up into small groups to evaluate a project. [hand-out]

Recommended Resources

• Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. (2010). “What is Digital Humanities and What’s it Doing in English Departments?” ADE Bulletin
• “Interchange: The Promise of Digital History.” Special issue, Journal of American History 95, no. 2 (September 2008). http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/issues/952/interchange/index.html
• Svensson, P. (2009). “Humanities Computing as Digital Humanities.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 3(3). http://digitalhumanities.org:8080/dhq/vol/3/3/000065/000065.html
• Lisa Spiro, “Getting Started in Digital Humanities,”Journal of Digital Humanities (Winter 2011)

Tue Jan 20, 2015: Creating and Using Digital Archives

Guest instructor: Amanda Focke, Woodson Research Center
Meet in the Woodson Research Center on the first floor of Fondren Library.

What is an archive? And what is a digital archive? What factors go into constructing and maintaining an archive in the digital age?

Before Class

• Read Katharina Hering, Michael J. Kramer, Joshua Sternfeld and Kate Theimer, “Digital Historiography and the Archives”, Theimer, “A Distinction Worth Exploring: ‘Archive’” and ‘Digital Historical Representations’” and Sternfeld,  “Historical Understanding in the Quantum Age,” Journal of Digital Humanities, Vol. 3, No. 2 Summer 2014

• Compare and contrast the following:

• The Walt Whitman Archive, http://www.whitmanarchive.org/
• William Ward Watkin architectural records, 1903-1956, http://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/12394
• Our Marathon, http://marathon.neu.edu/

In-Class

Explore the Woodson Research Center and its approaches to archives.

Recommended Resources

• Ed Folsom, “Database as Genre,” PMLA 122 (October 2007), 1571-1579, http://www.whitmanarchive.org/about/articles/anc.00142.html
• Jerome McGann, “Database, Interface, and Archival Fever”, PMLA 122.5 (October 2007): 1588-1592, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.rice.edu/stable/25501805
• Tanya Clement et al, “Toward a Notion of the Archive of the Future: Impressions of Practice by Librarians, Archivists, and Digital Humanities Scholars.” The Library Quarterly 83.2 (April 2013): 112-130. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/669550.

–At this point the course became an independent study, HUMA 498–

Thu Jan 29, 2015:  Lab: Creating Digital Collections Using Omeka

What decisions must one make in building a digital collection? How might such a collection be presented?

Before Class

• View “What is Omeka.”
• Explore two Omeka sites. How does Omeka work? What are its strengths and weaknesses?
• Skim these articles on using the Dublin Core descriptive metadata standard.
• “Mapping the world of cultural metadata standards,” idea.org blog post , 4-Nov-2011 http://www.idea.org/blog/2011/11/04/mapping-the-world-of-cultural-metadata-standards/
• “Understanding Metadata.” NISO Press, 2004. Pgs. 1-4 and 10-12. http://www.niso.org/publications/press/UnderstandingMetadata.pdf

In Class

• Hands-on Lab: Create a simple Omeka collection using the Sandbox. We’ll use Miriam Posner’s “Up and Running with Omeka.net” tutorial. You may bring your own digital files (e.g. images) or we’ll use files that I provide.

Recommended Resources

• Omeka documentation

Thursday, February 5: Electronic Textual Editing

What is a critical edition? How are electronic scholarly editions prepared and used?

Why would scholars want to mark up texts using TEI? When is TEI not a good choice?

Before Class

• Read

• Kenneth Price, “Electronic Scholarly Editions,” Companion to Digital Literary Studies
• Mark Twain Project, “Textual Editing at the Mark Twain Project: A Brief Account”

• Explore these electronic scholarly editions:

• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: an electronic text, Mark Twain Project
• “Introductory Sonnet (“A Sonnet is a moment’s monument”),” The Rossetti Archive

In Class

• Compare print critical edition to digital editions.
• Discuss the features of Letter 4 included in Ryan Cordell’s TEI Lab, http://f14tot.ryancordell.org/2014/09/17/lab-4-xmltei-encoding/
• Encode part of Letter 4

Recommended Resources

• Jerome McGann, “The Rationale of Hypertext”
• Susan Schreibman, “Digital Scholarly Editing”
• Amy E. Earhart, “Can Information Be Unfettered? Race and the New Digital Humanities Canon”
• Allen H. Renear. “Text Encoding,” in: A Companion to Digital Humanities. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/
• Women Writers Project Lab
• TEI Guidelines
• TEI Tutorial: http://teibyexample.org/TBE.htm?page=module

Thu Feb 19: Information Visualization in the Humanities

Guest: Kirsten Ostherr

To what extent does the way we visualize information shape how we understand it? What impact does visualization have on culture, politics, and scholarly knowledge?

Before Class

• Kirsten Ostherr, “Animating Informatics” (forthcoming)

In Class

• Discuss Ostherr’s work

Friday, February 20, 2015:  Towards a Computational Analysis of Victorian Poetics

Before Class

• Read
• Natalie Houston, “Towards a Computational Analysis of Victorian Poetics.” Victorian Studies 56.3 (Spring 2014): 498-510. [Owlspace]
• NEH Startup Grant application for Dr. Houston’s The Visual Page (a successful proposal)

In Class

• Discuss different models of digital reading.

Thur Feb 26:  Case Studies of Information Visualization in the Humanities

How might we use visualization tools to deepen our understanding? What does it take to develop a visualization? How should we evaluate visualizations to determine their quality?

Before Class

Read:

• Lauren F. Klein, “The Image of Absence: Archival Silence, Data Visualization, and James Hemings,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013): 661-88.
• Ben Schmidt, “Reading digital sources: a case study in ship’s logs” and “Data narratives and structural histories: Melville, Maury, and American whaling” (the whole series is recommended)

Experiment:

• Produce a simple visualization using a tool such as ggplot or Processing.

In Class

• Discuss sample visualization.
• Discuss readings.

Recommended Resources

• Martyn Jessop, “Digital visualization as a scholarly activity,” Literary and Linguistic Computing, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2008, http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/3/281.abstract
• Johanna Drucker, “Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display,” Digital Humanities Quarterly, 2011, Volume 5 Number 1

Thu Mar 5, 2015: SPRING BREAK

Thu Mar 12, 2015: 3D Reconstructions

Guest: Jeff Fleisher

How might we use 3D modeling technologies to answer scholarly questions about the past? How do scholars represent conjecture and doubt in their models?

Before Class

Read

• Chris Johanson and Diane Favro, “Death in Motion: Funeral Processions in the Roman Forum,” http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jsah.2010.69.1.12
• The London Charter for the Computer-based Visualisation of Cultural Heritage, http://www.londoncharter.org/

Explore

• Digital Hadrian’s Villa Project

Recommended Resources

• Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Forum, http://inscriptions.etc.ucla.edu/
• UCLA Experiential Technologies Center
• Diane Favro, “Se non è vero, è ben trovato (If Not True, It Is Well Conceived): Digital Immersive Reconstructions of Historical Environments,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians Vol. 71, No. 3, Special Issue on Architectural Representations 1 (September 2012), pp. 273-277
• “Rome Reborn 2.2: A Tour of Ancient Rome in 320 CE”
• Humanities Virtual World Consortium
• CyArk

Tu Mar 17, 2015: Knowledge Design and Making

What role do speculation and “generative aesthetics” play in (digital) humanities work? What happens when we use digital processes to craft physical artifacts or experiences?

Before Class

Read

• Johanna Drucker and Bethany Nowviskie, “Speculative Computing.” In A Companion to Digital Humanities, edited by Susan Schreibman; Raymond Siemens; John Unsworth. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Pub., 2004.

• Bill Turkel and Devon Elliott, “Making and Playing with Models.” In PastPlay: History, Technology and the Return to Playfulness, edited by Kevin Kee. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013.

• Nina Belojevic, “Debuting Our Early Wearables Kit,” Maker Lab in the Humanities | UVic, http://maker.uvic.ca/debut/

In Class

• Simple design exercise.

• Discuss readings

Recommended Resource

• Kraus, “Conjectural Criticism: Computing Past and Future Texts”

Thu Mar 26, 2015: Transformations in Scholarly Communication

What are possible futures for scholarly communication? How might we rethink peer review, authorship and texts?

Before Class

Read

• Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Planned Obsolescence, http://mcpress.media-commons.org/plannedobsolescence/. Read the introduction and Chapter 3, “Texts.”
• Will Thomas and Edward Ayers, “The Difference Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities”

In Class

• Discussion of emerging genres of digital scholarship. [Slides]
• Mini-workshop: Sketch out how you might remix one of your essays as a work of digital scholarship. [Handout]

Recommended Resources

• Tara McPherson, “Scaling Vectors: Thoughts on the Future of Scholarly Communication”
• Roopika Risam, Rethinking Peer Review in the Age of Digital Humanities. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No.4 (2014). doi:10.7264/N3WQ0220
• Kristen Nawrotzki and Jack Dougherty,  ed. Writing History in the Digital Age, http://writinghistory.trincoll.edu/. Look in particular at the introduction and conclusion
• Edward Ayers, “Does Digital Scholarship Have a Future?” Educause Review (August 5, 2013).
• Will Thomas, “Writing A Digital History Journal Article from Scratch: An Account” (2007)
• Example publications:
• Southern Spaces
• Kairos
• MediaCommons
• Sensate Journal
• Vectors
• Scalar projects

>>Attend Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s talk on March 26 at 4 p.m. in Herring 100.

Thu Apr 2, 2015: MIDTERM RECESS

 

Mon Apr 6, 2015 Geo-Humanities

Guest: Kathy Weimer

How might we use GIS to support the representation and exploration of humanistic ideas? What does it take to create a GIS map?

Before Class

Read

• “The Triumph of the Humanities” commentary by Stanley Fish in the New York Times, June 13, 2011 and the project, “Mapping Time” by Edward L. Ayers
• Visualizing Geography: Maps, Place and Pedagogy, HASTAC Scholars program. See the topics raised in the comments section.
• Kathy Weimer, “Defining GeoHumanities”
  
• Projects:
• Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761
• Orbis
• Mapping Texts

Recommended Resources

• Placing history : how maps, spatial data, and GIS are changing historical scholarship / edited by Anne Kelly Knowles.  (Esri Press, 2008)
• Toward Spatial Humanities: Historical GIS and spatial history / edited by Ian N. Gregory (Indiana University Press, 2014)
• Spatial humanities : GIS and the future of humanities scholarship / edited by David J. Bodenhamer, John Corrigan, and Trevor M. Harris. (Indiana University Press, 2010).
• GeoHumanities: Art, History, Text at the Edge of Place / by Michael Dear, Jim Ketchum, Sarah Luria, Doug Richardson (Routledge, 2011)

Th Apr 16, 2015: Reconceptualizing DH: Critiques and Challenges

Before Class

Read

• Natalia Cecire, “Theory and the Virtues of Digital Humanities”
• Alan Liu, “Where Is Cultural Criticism in the Digital Humanities?”

In class

• Draft project proposal due.
• Discuss readings.

Recommended Resources

• Alexis Lothian and Amanda Phillips, “Can Digital Humanities Mean Transformative Critique?”
• Wendy Hui Kyong Chun And Lisa Marie Rhody, “Working the Digital Humanities: Uncovering Shadows between the Dark and the Light”

Thu Apr 23, 2015: Synthesis

In Class

Discuss what view of digital humanities has emerged over the semester?