ENGL 481: Digital Humanities

In this article Brian Croxall introduces the three digital workshops that will be on display at the 2013 MLA. Coxwell gives the importance of each workshop and he explains how they can be helpful while using MLA formating in the classroom. The first workshop entitled Digital Pedagogy Unconference is popularized in academia and is targeted for people who have never used technology in the classroom. The second workshop welcomes scholars who wish to pursue or join digital scholarly projects but do not have the institutional infrastruce to support them. The last workshop entitled ThatCamp is an open, inexspensive meeting where humanists and technoligies of skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposede on the spot.

The Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture has received funding as part of the Academic Masters Program. There are three goals presented in the mission statement: 1) To global affect the digital world through multiple content areas 2) Having it easily accessible 3) To utilize TAMU's resources to the best of their capabilities.

Cohen blogs about the future that he sees for The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). His passion sees to lie in collecting data and content from small, local libraries and museums. He still holds this goal despite recognizing the issues they would face in attempting to convert the material from physical to digital. He also talks about the technical layout and the best way to get it into peoples' hands (incorporating it into an app). He also touches upon technology that we do not have yet or is not yet out of the beta testing stage, and could be in the future of DPLA.

ProfHacker in The Chronicle of Higher Education put a notice out that people new to digital humanities can receive a mentor through DHCommons to help guide them. It also notes that those who have experience in DH can apply to be a mentor. Although ACH has had a mentor program, it seems to have been more unofficial and the technical sign-up was confusing (and funny!). The partnership with ACH and DH Commons allows greater access, and less confusion, for people to sign up.

Sean Sherlocks speech at Digital Repository of Ireland, and international workshop, addressed the funding provided by sponsors. He states that they will use the funds to create multiple PhD positions specifically allocated towards the digital humanities and it's future in Ireland. He believes that these positions, and all research in digital humanities, well aid Ireland in becoming socially and economically an international powerhouse. He believes that work in the digital humanities will help create jobs, promote economic stability, and will put Ireland in the forefront of education.

I linked this page from ADHO. It is a descriptive article of Gregory Chatonsky's project (?), The Subnetwork. A majority of the article focuses on the abstract relationships that Chatonsky uses to connect many aspects of his work, including participants' interaction (passive and active), animation, and general presentation of the work. It also notes that Chatonsky use of 'metaphor' goes beyond the accepted academic definition of the term, and uses it as an active 'member' or 'tool' to connect the text/concept to the presentation.

Stanford's Lit. Lab is a collection of short-term research-based projects/experiments. It is a new 'project,' created in 2010 by Matthew Jockers and Franco Moretti. They make a note that all projects are collaborative, even if only one author is cited. The best way to describe this project is a collection of 'mini-research-based' projects/experiments presented in/through a "digital and quantitative nature."

The main page for Stanford's CESTA is in a blog format. The moderator posts announcements, such as research positions that need to be filled, projects that they would like to 'spotlight,' and new/interesting information collected through one of the 3 projects. There are also posts of events/seminars/workshops/lectures/publications that relate either the subjects being researched in CESTA or about the digital humanities itself.

This is the main page of Stanford University's projects in digital humanities, mainly the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA). CESTA is a digital humanities project comprised of several projects, that span a wide variety of content areas and use different approaches. Two of the three projects mentioned (Mapping the Republic of Letters and Spatial History Project) seem to be a collaborative research effort to digitally map a concept. The last project under CESTA, Literary Lab, seems to be an archive of papers, dissertaions, and research by the current students and staff members of Stanford.

AHDO, or the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organization offers this website to "promote and support digital research and teaching across all arts and humanities disciplines, acting as a community-based advisory force, and supporting excellence in research, publication, collaboration and training." The website organizes news and current events in the field of digital humanities, making it very user friendly and a valuable source for those wishing to keep up to date. There are also sections on the website for publications, other resources, conferences, awards, committees, and how to join ADHO.

DH answers s is a part of the Association for Computers and Humanities' website that people can register to and join the online conversation about the Digital Humanities. Most of the forum is dedicated to issues digital humanists can run into in the technical side of the field. This link takes you directly to a list of the forums that many people use to ask questions, opinions, and overall discuss an problems or thoughts they may be having about the digital humanities.

Zotero forums is a part of Zotero's website that people can register to and join the online conversation about the Digital Humanities. Most of the forum is dedicated to issues digital humanists can run into in the technical side of the field. This link takes you directly to a list of the forums that many people use to ask questions, opinions, and overall discuss an problems or thoughts they may be having about the digital humanities.

This website is the main website for UCLA's Digital Humanities department and area of study. Here you can navigate between the programs the school offers, research projects, and many other aspects of the digital humanities through the school. The website is well thought out and very organized, which makes their program look streamlined and well done.

This website for The Journal of Digital Humanities allows for easy access of the journal. The Journal of Digital Humanities is a comprehensive, peer-reviewed, open access journal that features the best scholarship, tools, and conversations produced by the digital humanities community in the previous quarter. Here you can view the journal online through your web browser or download it to your computer.

This news article posted by Newsroom America outlines the quiet victory for librarians that occurred pertaining to copyright laws. This event has been described as a major victory for the digital humanities. Earlier in October 2012, a federal court ruled against the Authors Guild in favor of the HathiTrust, a massive digital archive of library materials converted from print that is co-owned and managed by a partnership of more than 60 academic institutions, including the University of Illinois. Publishers Weekly claimed this ruling as a "landmark in copyright" law.

This is a post on the website AIMS, the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies. The author of this posting is informing the website users of the symposium coming up hosted by the Miami University Libraries entitled "What is Digital Humanities?" Symposium, sponsored by the MU Humanities Center, on October 23rd from 3:00-6:30pm in King 320. The posting explains that "this symposium will be a chance for faculty, graduate students, and librarians to think about the implications, practices, and uses of Digital Humanities and digital collections."

This news article by Casey Gould for Campus Times of the University of Rochester addresses the Presidential Symposium and their meeting to discuss what to do with and about the humanities in higher education. The panel discussed what to do with the humanities to continue to make it relevant in times where many are claiming that it isn't. The discussion of digitizing the humanities came up to some agreement and disagreement.

This website, ThinkingCulture, aims to exercise the cultural imagination. Figure/Ground conducts a series of interviews for the website, continued here with Miriam Posner. Miriam Posner teaches Digital Humanities at UCLA. The interview with Posner focuses on the her path into her academic post. Posner explains her struggles with tenure and her early career in academics. The interview continues on to discuss Posner's teaching, digital humanities work and her writing plans.

This article, titled Humanities in the Digital Age by Alan Liu and William G. Thomas III, addresses the hard times that have fallen upon higher education. One solution and innovative way to combat these financial cuts, the writers claim, is to make a movement into the digital humanities in higher education. The article continues on to highlight the best parts of digital humanities and how it can be a huge help to struggling universities both public and private.

This website called Humanist is an "international electronic seminar on humanities computing and the digital humanities." The goal of this website is to create a forum where people can log on and discuss any issues with the digital humanities and share thoughts and ideas. Humanist is a publication of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) and the Office for Humanities Communication (OHC) and an affiliated publication of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).