CMS.633 | Spring 2015 | Undergraduate

Digital Humanities

Readings and Assignments

SES # TOPICS READINGS / ASSIGNMENTS
1

Introduction to Digital Humanities

Sample DH Projects

In–Class Activity

  1. Examine the four facsimiles of Register Pages from the Comedie–Française in Paris.
  2. Identify the different categories of information.
  3. Develop a method for the extraction of this information in a digital format.
  4. Brainstorm about possible storage and access options.
  5. Envision the tools that can tap into this data (search, visualization, etc.).
  6. What is the intended audience for your approach?
  7. What are the kinds of questions your audience could solve with your approach?

Readings

Schnapp, Jeffrey. “Digital Humanities Fundamentals” and “The Project as Basic Unit.” In A Short Guide to the Digital_Humanities. SG2–SG5.

Buy at MIT Press Burdick, Anne, Johanna Drucker, et al. Digital_Humanities. MIT Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780262018470. [Free download available].

Assignments

Assignment 1 (PDF)

2

Data Mining of Open Content: The Artbot Project

Guest Speakers: Desi Gonzalez and Liam Andrew from the CMS / Hyperstudio

Data Mining and NER Exercises

Readings

Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic, July 1945.

Assignments

Assignment 2 (PDF)

Tools

import.io

OpenRefine

Kimono

3

Humanities Data: The Comedie–Française Registers Project (CFRP)

From Written Records to Humanities Data

Guest Speaker: Jeff Ravel, MIT History Department

Readings

boyd, danah, and Kate Crawford. “Six Provocations for Big Data.” A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society, September 2011.

Assignments

Assignment 3 (PDF)

Tools

Diverse basic Visualization Tools

4

Databases and Structures

Narratives and Filters

Work with CRFP Data

Readings

Blair, Ann. “Information Overload: Then and Now.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 28, 2010.

Buy at MIT Press Manovich, Lev. “The Database.” In The Language of New Media. MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780262632553.

Optional

Buy at MIT Press Bowker, Geoffrey, and Susan Leigh Star. S_orting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences_. MIT Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780262522953.

Assignments

Assignment 4 (PDF)

Tools

D3:js

5

GIS / Location

Data Visualization I (Spatial Mapping)

Data and its Interpretations

Discussion of Final Projects

Readings

Drucker, Johanna. “Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 5, no. 1 (2011).

Rosenberg, Daniel, and Anthony Grafton. “Time in Print.” Chapter 1 in Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline. Princeton Architectural Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781616890582.

Assignments

Assignment 5 (PDF)

Moby Dick Mapping Materials (ZIP - 35.6MB) (This ZIP package contains 5 .jpeg files, 2 .txt files, 1 .ppt file, 1 .doc file, 1 .xls file, and 1 HTML document.) 

Tools

CartoDB

Google Fusion Tables

Google Maps / Earth Pro

Mapbox

TileMill

6

Data Visualization II (Time Mapping)

Discussion of Final Projects (cont.)

Readings

Tufte, Edward R. “Color and Information.” In Envisioning Information. Graphics Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780961392116.

Few, Stephen. “The Chartjunk Debate: A Close Examination of Recent Findings.” (PDF – 1.8MB) Visual Business Intelligence Newsletter. April–June 2011.

Assignments

Assignment 6 (PDF)

Tools

TimeMapper

SIMILE Timeline

7

Curation: From Museum Curation to Digital Curation

Guest Speaker: Kristen Gresh, Photography Curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Selection of Final Projects

Readings

Chitty, Andrew. “London Re-cut: Reclaiming History through the Co-curated Remixing of Film.” Curator: The Museum Journal 54, no. 4 (October 2011): 413-418. 

Simon, Nina. “Principles of Participation.” Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift. AltaMira Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780759119659.

Assignments

Assignment 7 (PDF)

8 Spring Break–No Class

Assignment

Work on Final Project Pitch

Explore Ieraction between Technology and Public Spaces

9

Augmented Space and Design Process I

Final Project Pitches

Guest Speaker: Halsey Burgund, Artist and Mobile Developer

Readings

Manovich, Lev. “The Poetics of Augmented Space.” 2012.

Alexander, Jane, Jake Barton, et al. “Transforming the Art Museum Experience: Gallery One.” MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013: The Annual Conference of Museums and the Web. April 17–20, 2013.

Human Centered Design Toolkit.” Design Thinking Blog Listening.

Assignments

Assignment 8 (PDF)

10

Design Process II:

Prototyping and Wireframing

Guest Speaker: Frederico Casalegno, Mobile Experience Lab

Readings

Brown, Dan. Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning. New Riders, 2010. ISBN: 9780321712462. [Preview with Google Books]

Medero, Shawn. “Paper Prototyping.” A List Apart. January 23, 2007.

Assignments

Assignment 9 (PDF)

11

Digital Humanities Debates, Frontiers, and Future

Final Project In–Class Work Time

Final Presentation Guidelines (PDF)

Final Project Schedule (PDF)

12 Guest Speaker: Andy Stuhl, Digital Sound Studies & Sound Projects

 Sterne, Jonathan and Mitchell Akiyama. “The Recording That Never Wanted to Be Heard and Other Stories of Sonification.” The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies. Edited by Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld. Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780199995813.

13 Final Project In–Class Work Time

 Excerpts from Jenkins, Henry and Wyn Kelley. Reading in Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English Classroom. Teachers College Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780807754016.

14 Final Project In–Class Work Time (cont.)  
15 Final Presentations  

Course Info

As Taught In
Spring 2015
Learning Resource Types
Projects with Examples
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