Course Overview

Introduction to Digital Humanities, DHM 280, offers an introduction to new media, digital humanities, and computational approaches to the humanities, with a survey of theories, methodologies, and current critical practices.

Through readings, discussions, and participation, this introductory course helps to develop familiarity with digital culture as a critical component of the humanities. This course provides substantial writing instruction and experience in writing, and helps students think across and about disciplinary boundaries. The course prepares students to think critically about the ways in which differing disciplines in the humanities and computational sciences take up software and hardware to tools to analyze, interpret, and explain the world.

About Our Course

• Our course requires no textbook.  We’ll use web-accessible texts for reading materials, web-accessible databases for research gathering, and web-based platforms for writing. In addition to D2L, you should be proficient in Google Drive and its associated apps for writing.  If you need help on D2L or Google Drive, make an appointment for 1:1 help.  You’ll gain proficiency in sharing content on WordPress, with in-class tutorials and workshops on WordPress.
• We expect you to have regular access to digital devices—and show a willingness to think critically about those devices and your use of them. Be mindful of others in your connection/disconnectedness.
  
• We expect you to work at your own pace in order to meet the schedule of the term.  Each of us is individual, with skills and aptitudes our own. Learning occurs primarily in the space of one’s own time, subject to challenge and revision with others.  
• We expect you to be willing to work with others, to give of yourself and allow others to give to you.  

We’ll explore materials that investigate the humanities—History, English, & Linguistics, mostly—through and with digital technology, engaging with the domains of Computer Science, Geography and Information Science.  We’ll ask you to think about the work of the humanities and how technology has served as a means to transform these disciplines. As an introductory course, we’ll expect you to develop a perspective on this subject and these methods by conducting an independent agenda of out of class research in order to inform and advance that perspective. You’ll make regular contributions to the class and online, sharing your work weekly. Together with a team, you’ll prepare analytic project reports, and research and compose a final researched project. Welcome!

Course Attributes: DHM 280

DHM 280 has been approved as a General Education Interdisciplinary (I) course.  The course is designed to help students meet general education goal 4: “Students will demonstrate the ability to think across and about disciplinary boundaries.”

DHM 280 has been approved as a General Education Writing Emphasis (W)course. This course is designed to help students meet general education goal 1: Students will be able to communicate effectively” and goal 3: “Students will be able to think critically and analytically.”

Student Learning Outcomes (SLO)

Upon completing DHM 280, you will be able to:

• Use writing to convey information, persuade, and offer interpretations that combine analysis, exposition, and synthesis. This will be taught through instructional methods involving lectures and discussion, writing conferences and feedback, and informal responses. Assessment: Disciplinary Presentation, Project Reviews, Final Project. This SLO helps students meet Gen Ed goal 1 and 3.
• Think across and about disciplinary boundaries by investigating the differing ways that humanists use the same methodologies, and the differing kinds of disciplinary work conducted by scholars researching in the digital humanities. This will be taught through course readings, lectures, and discussions, as well as through beyond-the-class research. Assessment: Disciplinary Presentation, project reviews and proposals. This SLO helps students meet Gen Ed goal 4.
• Construct a framework for the history, aesthetics, and development of digital environments/culture as well as your own digital identity and the role each citizen plays in a 21st century digital environment. You will receive instruction in this through the course readings and hands-on research. Assessment:  project reviews. This SLO helps students meet DHM program outcome 4.
• Recognize the transdisciplinary dimensions of digital research in the humanities. Assessment: Disciplinary presentation and project reviews. This SLO helps students meet DHM program outcome 3.
• Practice beginning skills of collaboration and participation in DH work. Assessment: contributions to in-person and online discussions, collaborative projects. This SLO helps students meet DHM program outcome 1.

Writing Instruction

This course has been approved as a general education writing emphasis course. This course provides writing instruction as one of its course goals, and you will write and think about writing throughout the term. This course uses a process approach to writing. You’ll write in a variety of formats—informally (in the discussion forum) and formally (graded project reviews). Formal assignments require a process of proposing, revising, drafting, revising, and polishing, before a final product is produced. I’ll require you to seek feedback from your peers at several steps, and give you feedback on at least one of these drafts for each formal assignment. Writing instruction will occur in brief class tutorials, as well as conferences beyond the class.

Course Disciplines

As an interdisciplinary “I” course, we require you to work across three or more disciplines in order to think about the way that technology interacts with the disciplines of the humanities. The disciplines include:

Linguistics is the study of the ways humans use language as a meaning-making activity.  Linguists study spoken language (“speech”) as well as written language (corpus-based linguistics). Research in linguistics can work historically—how did the use of these words change over time?—or with a single moment in time—what does it mean that some humans use language one way and other humans use it very differently? Linguists investigate just about any use of language, from words and patterns (including slang, dammit!) to pronunciation (accents like ‘valley girl’ or ‘youse guys’ in Philly and South Jersey) and interesting patterns of syntax and grammar.   

History is the study of the past, usually the human past.  Historians study primary sources, including written records, oral accounts, and objects of material and visual culture and use these sources as evidence to support interpretations about the past.  Research and dissemination of history can embrace a variety of digital tools and platforms. A sub-field of history, public history communicates historical interpretations to general audiences at museums and historic sites, and through exhibitions, podcasts, and a variety of digital platforms.

English is the study of the ways in which we use writing and reading as a cultural tool to produce human society. English researchers study literature, or those great works from the past, but they also study the millions of other forgotten works that might’ve even been greater than the ones we’ve kept track of. Some researchers in English are more concerned with the production of literate materials—writing, broadly considered.  There’s also a strong oral tradition in English studies, particularly in the sub field of Rhetoric. More recently, English has broadened the field of literate activities to include lots of other forms of human “writing”: visual texts (from photographs to movies and games), digital texts (texts made with the help of a computer), and oral texts.

Geography is the study of the land (and water!) of our planet. Geographers study human impact on our earth, make maps and study other spatial phenomena, and also study more human-centered activities such as those things we make called cities, or vacations.  Some geographers research qualitative questions, like “how did planning and zoning laws in the 60s & 70s create an urban landscape structured by race and economics?” Other geographers study more quantitative questions, like “how can we best represent our 3 dimensional earth on a 2 dimensional plane we call a map?”

Computer Science is the study of that technology we’ve invented known as the computer.  Computer Scientists study both the languages used to operate the machine—known as software—as well as the machines themselves—known as hardware.  Some computer scientists study such math intensive operations as data mining or image compression, while others study more qualitative topics such as human computer interaction, interface design, or other ways that human beings use computers.

Information Science is the study of information. Information scientists research how information is ordered & should be ordered, how human beings use information and how we should use information, and how information is retrieved and interacts with other information.  Growing out of libraries as storehouses of information, information science has grown to encompass a variety of approaches to how we use, order, interact with, and relate to information or data.

Learning in this Course: In and Beyond the Class