The weekly schedule of discussion topics, reading assignments, and hands-on activities to be completed before each class session. “Watch” and “Read” should be self explanatory, but “Explore” means you should skim over the entire collection of articles, projects, or whatever is listed, and then pick a few that grab your attention to read or investigate more fully. Think critically about why you were drawn to those instead of others as you formulate your responses and think of discussion questions.
“Lab” contains a link to the lesson plan for each class period. These links will go live just before class each day, when they will give you an introduction to the topic, in-class exercises and the specifications for that week’s Blog posts and Lab Assignments.
Week 1: Introduction to Digital Humanities
1.1 Introductions
- Introductions
- Syllabus
- Digital Making 101
Lab: Digital Creation: 3D basics
Assignments
- Blog (due by end of day Friday)
- FREEBIE
- Lab (due by end of day Sunday)
- Model an object you know well in Fusion 360
- Discussion (due by end of day
MondayTuesday)- Read and post comments on two of your classmates posts — also feel free to respond to any on yours!
Week 2: How it Works: DH Projects and the Code at their Heart
2.1 What are the Digital Humanities? Who are the Digital Humanists?
Read:
- Burdick et al. “One: Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 1-26.
- Debbie Chachra, “Why I Am Not a Maker,” The Atlantic, January 23, 2015.
- Moya Z. Bailey, All the Digital Humanists Are White, All the Nerds Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave
Lab: Defining Your Place in DH
2.2 Digital Humanities Projects 101
Read:
- Burdick et al. “The Project as Basic Unit” (124-125) and “Project-Based Scholarship” (130-131) in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 124-125.
Watch:
- Miriam Posner, How Did They Make That
Explore:
Assignments
- Blog (due by end of day Friday)
- Defining DH reflection
- Lab (due by end of day Sunday)
- Reverse Engineering a DH project
- Discussion (due by end of day Monday)
- Read and post comments on two of your classmates posts — also feel free to respond to any on yours!
Week 3: Data and MetaData
3.1 Web Development Fundamentals
Read:
- Matt Kirschenbaum, Hello Worlds: Why Humanities Students Should Learn to Program
- Evan Donahue, A “Hello World” Apart (why humanities students should NOT learn to program)
Lab: Under the hood: HTML/CSS/JavaScript and Programming 101
- DevTools: inspecting the web
3.2 Humanities Data and Your Computer
- Collecting Data, Where and How
- Content Management Systems
- Setting up your own server, cPanel 101
Guest presentation by Em Palencia on navigating your server space in cPanel
Read (pick any 2 out of the 4 below):
- Big? Smart? Clean? Messy? Data in the Humanities by Christof Schöch
- Tidy Data for the Humanities by Matt Lincoln
- Stephen Marche, Literature is not Data: Against Digital Humanities
- Scott Selisker and Holger Syme, In Defense of Data: Responses to Stephen Marche’s “Literature is not Data”
Lab: Humanities Data
Assignments
- Blog (due by end of day Friday)
- To code or not to code
- Lab (due by end of day Sunday)
- Setting up your own server and WordPress site
- Discussion (due by end of day Monday)
- Read and post comments on two of your classmates posts — also feel free to respond to any on yours!
Week 4: Data Visualization
4.1 Text Analysis and Network Analysis
Read:
- Natalie Houston, Text Analysis
- Scott Weingart, Demystifying Networks, Parts I & II
Lab: Text Analysis and Network Analysis
4.2 Data Viz 101
Guest lecture by Lin Winton, Director of the Quantitative Resource Center at Carleton College
Read:
- D’Ignazio, C., & Klein, L, Chapter 4, “What Gets Counted Counts,” In Data Feminism (2020).
- Edward Tufte, “Escaping Flatland” and “Narratives of Space and Time” in Envisioning Information (1990): 12–35, 97-119.
Lab: Basic Data Viz principles
- Cleaning Data
- Exploratory Data Analysis
Assignments
- Blog (due by end of day Friday)
- Network analysis DH project reflection
- Lab (due by end of day Sunday)
- Exploratory Data Visualization with online tools
- Discussion (due by end of day Monday)
- Read and post comments on two of your classmates posts — also feel free to respond to any on yours!
Week 5: MUSEUM PROJECT: 3D, VR, and Simulation
5.2 Immersive Environments and 3D Simulation
Class Project Launch
Walk over to PERLMAN TEACHING MUSEUM in Weitz for second half of class
- Guest lecture by Teresa Lenzen
- Introduction to the teaching collection
Read:
- David J. Bodenhamer, Beyond GIS: Geospatial Technologies and the Future of History
- 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 71, no. 3 (2012): 273–77.
Lab: Virtual Humanities
- Making models
- Finding models
- Visualizing models
5.2 Analog to Digital and Back: 3D Printing and Fabrication
Explore:
- Ed Triplett, The Book of Fortresses
Read:
- Papadopoulos, Costas, and Susan Schreibman. “Towards 3D Scholarly Editions: The Battle of Mount Street Bridge.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 013, no. 1 (June 11, 2019).
Lab: Analog to digital and back
- Model Cleaning
- NetFabb
- Shapeways and the Maker Space
Assignments
- Blog (due by end of day Friday)
- Process post on your experience with museum project photogrammetry
- Lab (due by end of day Sunday)
- Museum photogrammetry assignment modeling
- Discussion (due by end of day Monday)
- Read and post comments on two of your classmates posts — also feel free to respond to any on yours!
Week 6: MUSEUM PROJECT: Spatial Humanities
6.1 GIS/Mapping 101
Read:
- Jo Guldi, What is the Spatial Turn? (read the introduction and at least one disciplinary section of interest)
- Anne Kelly Knowles, “GIS and History,” in Anne Kelley Knowles, ed., Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS are Changing Historical Scholarship (2008): 1–20.
Lab: DH Mapping Projects and Historical Mapping
- Georeferencer/MapWarper
6.2 Web Mapping 101
Read:
- Alan McConchie and Beth Schechter, Anatomy of a Webmap (use arrows to advance or go back)
Lab: WebMapping 101
- JavaScript APIs
- ArcGIS Online
Assignments
- Blog (due by end of day Friday)
- Georectifying and spatial humanities project impressions
- Lab (due by end of day Sunday)
- Map your museum object’s provenance
- Discussion (due by end of day Monday)
- Read and post comments on two of your classmates posts — also feel free to respond to any on yours!
Week 7: Putting it all together
7.1 Data Cleaning / Museum Finishing / Final Project launching
Lab: Cleaning data using Open Refine
7.2 Midterm Exam
Assignments
- Blog (due by end of day THURSDAY)
- Final Project Pitch
- Lab (due by end of day Sunday)
- MIDTERM EXAM
- Discussion (due by end of day Monday)
- Read and post comments on two of your classmates posts — also feel free to respond to any on yours!
Week 8: Project Work
8.1 Final Project Update and Work Session
Lab: Final Project Work
8.2 DA&H Across Campus
Assignments
- Final Project Team Charter (due by end of day Tuesday)
- Blog (due by end of day Friday)
- Final Project Source Documentation
- Lab (due by end of day Sunday)
- Final Project Update
- Discussion (due by end of day Monday)
- Read and post comments on two of your classmates posts — also feel free to respond to any on yours!
Week 9: Group Work to Finalize Projects and Presentations
9.1 Group Project Work
Prepare:
- Your final project materials
- Your interactive data vizualization
9.2 Tutorial Assignments
Everyone will give a brief description of the tool or technique they wrote a tutorial for, and we will each work through 2 of our peers’ tutorials in class, leaving feedback as comments.
LAB: Tutorial Demo & Final Project Presentations
Assignments
- Blog (due by end of day Friday)
- Tutorial Assignment
- Lab (due by end of day Sunday)
- Final Project Data Visualization
- Discussion (due by end of day Monday)
- Read and post comments on two of your classmates posts — also feel free to respond to any on yours!
Week 10: Project Presentations
10.1 Group Project Work
10.2 Final Project Presentations
Prepare:
- A “Pecha Kucha” style presentation of your final project:
- 20 slides, for 20 seconds each (6:40 total), following the 1/1/5 rule: at least 1 image per slide, each used only 1 time, and less than 5 words per slide
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- the final tech familiarity assessment and
- final course evaluation
