My digital humanities project involves the field of education, specifically literature. So often I have heard of classes interacting via Skype and Facetime, which sounds like such a great opportunity for my students; however, the wifi in our school would be more of a hindrance than a help. I can just imagine FaceTime timing out, the wifi shutting down mid-Skype session, and my projector failing me. (If you can’t tell, technology is the enemy in our school district, unfortunately). One idea that I always wanted to do was to talk to other classrooms in other school districts about the class novels we are reading. However, our school day starts earlier than most other school districts, and our class schedules would most likely not match up with the others. This predicament lead me to my digital humanities project. Continue Reading!
Category: course-related
Semiotics, here I come!
This post is going to be short, because my idea is still rather rudimentary. And I want your thoughts!
So I am an English master’s candidate, and I have a huge passion for semiotics – the study of signs. Something I’ve realized, though, is that semiotics is so broad in its applicability to various areas that it can be hard to find like minded individuals and relevant resources; that is, research and community on a specific semiotic topic can be virtually impossible to accomplish.i
I would like my project proposal to address this issue through the use of a CMS/topic modeling resource. The CMS would contain and publish research, scholarly work, etc. regarding sign systems – anyone can submit material to be included in the database, and an admin would be in charge of keeping it all organized. Then there would be a topic modeling tool that visitors can use to determine if specific documents are right for them. OR, and this might be a stretch, the topic modeling would already be done: the submitted resources on the site are put through topic modeling and the results are included in the code as metadata, so if someone performed a search for a particular topic, that document would show up in results as a viable resource toward that topic. All this would allow students easier research, and scholars smoother discussion and theory, on semiotics.
What do you think? Should I narrow this down at all? Does any of it not add up?
EDIT: So I realize that my proposal sounds a lot like the list of things the grant says I SHOULDN’T be doing – oops. So let me amend a bit: The culmination of work will, ideally, result in the above. But to catalyze it, I would perform the digitization, topic modeling, and analysis of documents and articles referring to semiotics and sign systems to determine an idea of just how diverse that area is, and how that may affect research and understanding of the limits (or lack thereof) of semiotics. In so doing, DH can assist in improving the understanding of semiotics and its relevance to areas outside of language and linguistics – and, as I said, culminating into a resource and community for those interested in the topic.
Does that sound better?
Creating Relationships in Education
My digital humanities project is related to the field of education, teacher improvement, resource preservation, technology integration and student success. More specifically I am working on creating an interface that allows educators to “find their match”. It will mimic an online dating website, but with educational professionals. The goal of this project is to connect teachers to other professionals who use technology in their classrooms. After they make the connection, the experts will act as a mentor to the teacher. In turn the resources that are shared will allow both to benefit from this connection. Continue reading “Creating Relationships in Education”
DH…It’s Going to be Okay…
I had a bit of an “Ah Ha” moment while I read Dave Parry’s “The Digital Humanities or a Digital Humanism” essay. In this section of the text, various authors discuss the future of DH and their interpretation of DH. Parry, however, captures and, in my opinion, eloquently defines Digital Humanities (even though he claims it is impossible to do so). He starts his essay by describing the lack of control scholars have over DH and how it is defined. Though, after reading the rest of the text, DH and the possibilities of DH have never been clearer to me. Parry argues that there isn’t a foundational project that exists that other DH projects can be based upon. However, I believe Parry captures the foundation when he says, “digital humanities is largely, or primarily, about using computing technologies as tools to do traditional humanities-based research.” Now, he makes it clear that what constitutes “research” is open-ended and SHOULD expand from texts to social media and beyond.
Keep on reading . . .
The Many Tales of DH
In this week’s readings, the focus is on practicing the Digital Humanities and DH’s role in academia. I found these readings to be thought-provoking and interesting. Overall, I believed I ended the readings with a comprehensive understanding of how DH factors into the university realm today. What I thought was most interesting and what I ended thinking about was the fact that the moment I stopped reading the text, there was probably some change or evolution occurring in DH at that very same moment. It’s a fascinating concept to me, since my English education at the collegiate level was so canonized and traditional. DH is constantly adjusting to its role at the university level, and though the authors did an excellent job of conveying their own interpretation of DH’s role, I couldn’t help but think that there are thousands of other ways that DH affects a university. This chapter was just a small, savory taste. Keep on Reading!
DH Inclusion: BREAK THE CYCLE
Sorry for the slight delay here, folks. Don’t know about you all, but my week has been CRAZY.
As I sort through all the DH criticisms highlighted in this week’s readings, I nearly started my blog post by asking “Is this for real? Are there really so many issues ALREADY?” But I had to remind myself: no, not already. DH has been around a long time, but as William Pannapacker says in “Digital Humanities Triumphant?”, DH is just now becoming the big thing. However, he contends it is not the “next” big thing, as if it will eventually phase out – DH is here to stay. So of course, even in its low-profile beginnings, DH would suffer criticisms just like any other field that reaches its peak of recognition.
The difference in this unit compared to our past units, I think, is the issue of inclusion. The question is no longer what and more who; or, to use metaphor, we care less about what the clubhouse is made of and more about who gets to come through its doors. I find this ironic because DH is a calculated method of analyzing and theorizing about aspects of humanity like history and current trends, but the debate over what earns the title of “DH” parallels the very problems of inclusion and equality found in the human history that DH scholars seek to study.
Tara McPherson dives into this concept headfirst in her essay addressing why DH currently runs on a one-track mind in terms of what DH could and should be used for. In instances where issues of race, gender, and other divisions in humanities could potentially find benefit in the use of DH analysis as well as in the integration of such issues into DH methods themselves, most people choose either one side or the other – it is far too easy and non-confrontational to avoid crossing what would be a rough river that, as many would argue, doesn’t necessarily need to be crossed (the same stance used by many who would ignore, rather than address, current social issues). As McPherson says, “very few audiences who care about one lens have much patience or tolerance for the other.”
Moving on through the readings, Charlie Edwards addresses the user community of DH application. He asks questions such as: Who is a user of DH? Should being a DH user, if it is a discipline to be learned, be an easy process? Or an honor to be earned? Edwards continues to describe how DHers develop systems with the user in mind, trying to determine the best method to make DH content accessible to the right audiences for that tool. Of course, those wanting to begin learning how to use DH for their own work try to acquaint themselves with these tools, but an unofficial rule of inclusion exists that inhibits their ability to enter and succeed in the “lab” of DH, since those who have already mastered it insist on defining what makes a DH user worthy of being labeled a DH user. As Edwards puts it: “experimentation and collaboration are there, to be sure, but it also conjures a bright pristine working environment sealed to all but the eminently qualified. To generalize, most humanists are not in the habit of breaking into laboratories.”
I think the chapter that struck me the most was “The Turtlenecked Hairshirt” by Ian Bogost, because this is the point at which a DH scholar directly addresses the flaws of humanist study in accepting what DH has to offer. Humanities can provide insight on a wide array of issues in many fields, and DH could open doors for scholars of other areas to use this insight in their work. However, humanists who use DH are inherently putting up walls around the field, trying to take ownership of DH as a “you must know the secret password” method of study. Bogost states: “Humanists work hard but at all the wrong things, the commonest of which is the fetid fester of a hypothetical socialist dream world, one that has become far more disconnected with labor and material than the neoliberalism it claims to replace.” In other (less fancy) words: in their desire to be revolutionary, humanists have used DH to put themselves on a pedestal, and only those who worship them long enough from the ground can have the honor of joining the DH society. How, then, can DH – particularly the humanities aspect – progress and earn respect as a field of those who spearhead its development are too busy “masticating on culture for the pleasure of praising our own steaming shit,” as Bogost so eloquently suggests?
I bring all this up to support my previous assertion: that DH is a mirror to the flaws in human history. Matters of embracing differences, being all-inclusive, promoting equality: all these are issues that have plagued human history as well as current human events, and they all also plague the DH field. If this isn’t already obvious to DH scholars, I wonder what would happen if they took a step back and realized DH can be a tool – a hands-on experiment in how to challenge the problems of humanism in an actual academic and technical discipline. Perhaps if DHers are able to take a step back from themselves and recognize the value of DH as a tool toward human issue resolution, DH can really begin to skyrocket into a highly regarded discipline that excludes no one, and feeds on the very differences that other fields too easily exploit as a means to exclusion and propriety.
My question to my fellow classmates is, do you think DH could have any significant value in your work outside of humanities (assuming there are those out there who do not work full-time in the humanities field)? If not, should DH remain an exclusive field, and for what kind of people? Do you feel that DH could be a tool toward increasing humanism and resolving human issues? Why or why not?
Evaluating DH
Like Liz and, it seems, so many others I am still struggling with the concept of DH. I am not necessarily struggling with the general definition of DH but rather what can be categorized as DH. Now, we have added the concept of evaluating DH which, at this point, might seem even more foreign to some of us who lack the necessary background. Not only is the definition of DH changing rapidly, all concepts related to DH are changing. This, of course, makes evaluating a project in DH much more challenging. In a way, I worry that I am in no way qualified to evaluate a DH project because I cannot even come to a simple conclusion on what kind of projects can even be considered DH.