Digital Humanities for Undergraduates, AAC&U 2012

Digital Humani,es for Undergraduates AAC&U 2012

Introduc,on and Links Available Here hAp://blogs.nitle.org/2012/01/26/ digital-‐humani,es-‐for-‐ undergraduates-‐session-‐at-‐aacu12/

The Na,onal Ins,tute for Technology in Liberal Educa,on (NITLE) | www.nitle.org NITLE helps liberal arts colleges integrate inquiry, pedagogy, and technology. Future of Liberal Educa,on •  Digital Humani,es •  Libraries and Scholarly Communica,ons •  New Learning Resources

Humani,es at Risk “As history shows us, however, the arts and humani,es always risk falling from favor, seeming to some as ancillary or extrinsic, a frill to do without, to cut and drop when ,mes are hard.” Arts & Humani-es: Toward a Flourishing State? AAC&U, Network for Academic Renewal Conference November 3-‐5, 2011, Providence, Rhode Island

John Seely Brown, NITLE Fellow 2011 •  Explosion of data •  Exponen,al advances in computa,on storage and bandwidth •  Large-‐scale, deeply-‐connected problems

Kathleen Fitzpatrick “a nexus of ﬁelds within which scholars use compu,ng technologies to inves,gate the kinds of ques,ons that are tradi,onal to the humani,es, or, as is more true of my own work, who ask tradi,onal kinds of humani,es-‐oriented ques,ons about compu,ng technologies.” “Repor,ng from the Digital Humani,es 2010 Conference”, ProfHacker, July 13, 2010 Assoc. Professor of Media Studies, Pomona College Director of Scholarly Communica,on, MLA

Why the Digital Humani,es? Provide wide access to cultural informa,on Enable us to manipulate that data: manage, mash up, mine, map, model Transform scholarly communica1on Enhance teaching and learning Make a public impact Slide courtesy of Lisa Spiro. Find out more: “Why the Digital Humani,es?”

DH and Liberal Educa,on Alexander & Davis. “Should Liberal Arts Campuses Do Digital Humani1es? Process and Products in the Small College World.” In Debates in the Digital Humani-es, ed. MaAhew K. Gold. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

Digital Humanists at Small Liberal Arts Colleges •  Angel David Nieves & Janet Simons, Hamilton College •  Christopher Blackwell, Furman University •  Kathryn Tomasek, Wheaton College •  Laura McGrane, Haverford College •  Jen Rajchel, Bryn Mawr College

NITLE Digital Humani,es •  Techne: hAp://blogs.nitle.org •  Digital Scholarship Seminars –  February 3 at 2 pm EST: Building Scholarly Networks: Digital Humani,es Commons •  DHCommons.org •  Gedng Started in DH –  Lisa Spiro, Director, NITLE Labs

Curricular Connections to Digital Humanities Research: DHi s CLASS Program (Culture, Liberal Arts & Society Scholars) Angel David Nieves Associate Professor & Chair of Africana Studies Digital Humanities Initiative (DHi), Co-Director/Co-PI Janet Thomas Simons Associate Director, Instructional Technology Digital Humanities Initiative (DHi), Co-Director/Co-PI

Multimedia Course Support 1.  Extensive time investment by all involved 2.  Find or create examples or models of expected outcomes. 3.  Collaborative Design - faculty with academic support 4.  Structure media assignments as a sequence of learning experiences building upon each other over the course of the semester so that content can be assimilated simultaneously with critical literacys skill development. 5.  Multiple Checkpoints for Evaluation. 6.  Public presentations of students ﬁnal projects and process. http://academics.hamilton.edu/mediascholarship/index.cfm?PATH=Recommendations.html

http://dhinitiative.org/projects/scaffold/

Curricular Initiatives & New ModelsIndependent Projects •  Independent projects as versions of Course Support •  Alexander Benkhart http://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/from-ancient-to-animation-discovering-japanese-heroines •  Cinema and New Media Studies Minor http://www.hamilton.edu/academics/departments?dept=Cinema •  Research projects - Students and Faculty •  Alexander Benkhart http://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/alex-benkhart-11-awarded-fulbright-to-japan •  Erica Kowsz http://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/erica-kowsz-1-awarded-fulbright-to-canada •  Gabriela Arias http://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/gabriela-arias-11-interns-at-museo-del-barrio

http://www.dhinitiative.org/projects/japanesefilm/demo

Culture Language Arts and Society Scholars• Two week intensive training in digital approaches to humanitiesbased research.

Angel David Nieves Associate Professor & Chair of Africana Studies Digital Humanities Initiative (DHi), Co-Director/Co-PI anieves@hamilton.edu Janet Thomas Simons Associate Director, Instructional Technology Digital Humanities Initiative (DHi), Co-Director/Co-PI simons@hamilton.edu http://www.dhinitiative.org email: dhinitiative.@hamilton.edu

"Discovery & Insight""""Christopher Blackwell "Furman University"

Engaging primary sources."

Compilation, Alignment, Analysis & Collaboration"

Freely seen & re-‐used"

Lists & More Lists"

christopher.blackwell@furman.edu · folio.furman.edu"

Kathryn Tomasek,Wheaton CollegeWheaton College Digital History Project

Eliza Baylies WheatonTravel Journal &Pocket DiariesSpring 2005Summers 2005-2008

EncodingFinancialRecordsDay BookDaily accounting oftransactions that reflect themany business activities ofLaban Morey Wheatonbetween 1828 and 1859Payments Rents Land, equipment Taxes PostageLaborPurchases Food Fabrics and sewing supplies Lumber and building supplies

Technologies of Argument: Undergraduate Literary Scholarship Laura McGrane, Associate Professor Haverford College Jen Rajchel, Digital Initiatives Intern Bryn Mawr College Tri-College Digital Humanities Initiative AAC&U 2012

Guiding QuestionHow do we create and evaluate new-mediaundergraduate projects that producearchival arguments?

… OR Where’s the final paper?

Constructing the digital archive

Integrating Digital Collections into the Curriculum"   Fostering the undergraduate as scholar•  Encouraging new forms of close reading, knowledge production and interpretation"   Enabling original research that moves beyond a set syllabus and a specific classroom

Crucial components"   Multi-directional navigation"   Balance between user- and architect-driven modes of reading"   Multi-media forms"   Interdisciplinary synthesis"   Student work as process versus product"   Projects that open out into the public sphere

Digital Collections"   ECCO (Eighteenth-Century Collections Online)"   17th-18th Century Burney Coll. Newspapers"   Early American Imprints"   American Periodicals Series" ARTstor"   EEBO (Early English Books Online)

Examples from Student ArchivesWhat follows are screen shots from one student’s digitalarchive. In the “real” thing, all links are live (and many areinvisible here), and allow the reader to move throughprimary texts and arguments freely.

Gastronomic Revolutions (Greg Toy, 2010)

Prior to the ratification of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776,many American colonists had been engaged in political discussions anddisputes regarding the taxable status of essential food items. Indeed, due tothe successive English parliamentary acts that imposed tariffs on molasses,sugar, and tea, the colonists had become conscious of the social implicationsand political connotations of food. Although the Declaration ofIndependence and the following Revolutionary War effectively endedEngland s egregious political control over the American diet, remnants ofEnglish culture still permeated the culinary landscape of America; though theAmerican colonies successfully achieved political independence, they stillremained culturally attached to England. Consequently, situated within thisrevolutionary context, this archive endeavors to conceptualize thechanging relationship between England and America by examining thechanging culinary landscape as depicted in popular domestic guides andcookbooks; through the juxtaposition and purposeful ordering of Britishand American documents, this archive traces a second revolution.(Gregory Toy, Fall 2010)

Most of the American fruits are extremely odoriferous, and therefore are very disgusting at first to us Europeans: on the contrary, our fruits appear insipid to them, for want of odour. Samuel Pegge in The Forme Of Cury (1780) 1. Beef 2. Turkey 3. Salmon 2 4. American Specialties 3 1 4MainMenu

Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. Alexandria: Cottom & Stewart, 1805.(Originally published in 1747 in London. Later reprinted in America) The English Way Choosing Beef How would you characterize each excerpt? The American Way Simmons, Amelia. American Cookery. Hartford: Hudson & Goodwin, 1796.MainMenu

American SpecialtiesSimmons, Amelia. American Cookery. Hartford: Hudson & Goodwin, 1796. What makes these recipes uniquely American? Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. Alexandria: Cottom & Stewart, 1805. (Originally published in 1747 in London. Later reprinted in America)MainMenu

Evaluation"   Close reading of rhetoric/terminology & creation of an argument•  Analysis of archives as constructed around categories/ metadata•  Ability to integrate course materials into an original research project

Outcomes"   Projects that move beyond the boundaries of the classroom and individual institutions"   Projects that encourage the reader and user to roam freely, but within the constraints of an argument"   Recognition that design choices have theoretical and cognitive impacts

The Undergraduate ThesisPreparation for involvement in senior thesis work, and larger projects that function trans-institutionally.

Jen Rajchel (BMC ‘11)Mooring Gaps: Marianne Moore’s Bryn Mawr Poetry is a Bryn MawrCollege senior English thesis in the form of a website. This essayexplores three of Marianne Moore’s Bryn Mawr poems. It combinesclose textual analysis of the poems with an interrogation of thepossibilities of a website as a critical form. My interpretation ofMarianne Moore’s work features three different analytic structures(one for each poem) to suggest that new media allow for multi-presentational critiques as well as multi-vocality.

Dramatizing poetic argument

Collaborating in new ways

Involving Undergraduates in Institutional Conversations

Re:Humanities http://news.haverford.edu/blogs/rehumanities/Tri-college Digital Humanities: http://www.brynmawr.edu/tdh/

Gabrielle Arias on Soweto ‘76

2011 Re:Hum Alums"   Alexander Benkhart (Hamilton) Fulbright Scholar, Film Digitization in Japan"   Michael Suen (Middlebury) Outreach Coordinator, Learning Games Network"   Evan Donahue (Brown) Senior Quality Assurance Engineer, Riverbed Technology"   Evan McGonagill (Bryn Mawr) Systems Associate, Open Society Institute"   Ethan Joseph (Haverford), Operations Assistant, National Symphony Orchestra

Challenges: How to Enhance …"   Direct ties between undergraduate humanistic inquiry and private/public technologies"   Opportunities for undergraduate institutions to partner with each other and R1 universities"   Opportunities for undergraduates to produce original research and writing as active scholars and citizens beyond individual classrooms

Further ConversationFor questions, comments and collaborative possibilities:Laura McGrane: lmcgrane@haverford.eduJen Rajchel: jrajchel@brynmawr.edu

Digital Humanities for Undergraduates, AAC&U 2012

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