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Syllabus

History 580/482

Theory and Practice of Digital History

Dr. Chad Black
The University of Tennessee
Class Meetings: Wednesdays, 4:40-7:05
Office: 2629 Dunford Hall, 6th Floor
Office Hours: Wednesday, 1:30-3:30 or by appt.
Email: cblack6 -at- utk.edu

about

This seminar will explore the current and potential impact of digital technologies on the research, writing, and presentation of History. The age of humanities computing was born in a meeting between Dr. Roberto Busa and IBM’s Thomas Watson, Sr. in 1949. Over the course of decades, with significant investment from IBM, Busa created the Index Thomisticas. Humanities computing has, since Busa’s innovations, remained on the relative margins of our disciplines, including History. But that is changing, and quickly. What once took years with punch cards and magnetic tape can now be accomplished in months with a scanner, OCR, and desktop computer. Many of the research and writing tasks that historians once managed by hand have been moved to the computer. In such cases, computer technology has simply sped up and expanded the scale of what historians have traditionally done by hand.

But what might we gain if we begin to use the computer to do something that only it can do? What could we discover if we read every book published in the nineteenth century? What would we learn if we could visually break down and compare the language in decades of newspapers from various regions of the United States? How would it change our understanding of criminals records if we laid them out in geographical space? Does History change if one’s archives are born digital?

In this course we will consider these questions as we explore the nascent field of Digital History (DH). Through readings and various projects, we will familiarize ourselves with the concepts, tools, and debates of and within DH. In teams, undergraduate and graduate students in this seminar will work together to construct a Digital History project. We will be part lab, part discussion seminar, and will learn by doing as much as by talking.

Many thanks to Fred Gibbs and Trevor Owens, from whose own digital history syllabi I borrowed extensively. Credit to them.

Course Objectives

  1. To introduce students to the history of digital technology, and to its impact on the practice of history.
  2. To introduce students to basic programming and web technologies.
  3. To yack about the theoretical challenges posed by new media to reading, writing, and conceptualizing history; to hack out a basic digital history project.
  4. To help students understand some historical approaches to asking and answering questions, including:
    a. How to identify, closely read, and analyze primary sources.
    b. How to work with and evaluate useful secondary sources, specifically identifying and evaluating their central arguments.
    c. How to work with non-written sources (including images and artifacts).
  5. To understand and appreciate ambiguity in historical argument and presentation.
  6. To encourage students to hone their skills at collaboratively posing and solving problems.

readings

The following books are available for purchase at the bookstore, or of course from Amazon and the like.

Other readings will be available on the web, or through this course site. All readings must be done before the class for which they are assigned. Graduate students will generally read longer selections or additional readings beyond those for undergrads.

Looking for tools for digital research? Bamboo DIRT is a great place to start.
Looking for more on digital history? Digital History Project

requirements

See the Assignments page for more information.

  1. Reading and Participation. (30% of grade) Each week’s assigned readings must be completed before class.
    • Tool/resource demonstration.
    • Lead discussion of readings.
    • Attendance (it’s mandatory!).
  2. Blog essays. (30 % of grade)
    • Reading response posts. (2 posts, sign up on week 2)
    • Tool/resource response post. (1 post, sign up on week 2)
    • Show and Tell. 1 post.
    • Project posts. 2 proposal posts (print, digital), 1 reflection.
    • Commenting. 12 substantial comments on posts on the course blog.
  3. Project
    • Proposal for a print project.
    • Proposal for a digital project.
    • Final paper OR final digital resource and write-up.
    • Final project poster presentation.
    • Project reflection post.

policies

Qualified students with disabilities needing appropriate academic adjustments should contact me as soon as possible to ensure that your needs are met in a timely manner with appropriate documentation.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism occurs when someone knowingly or unknowingly presents another person’s words or ideas as his or her own. Any work turned in for this class must meet University standards for academic honesty. Any students unsure about how to apply these rules are urged to consult with me prior to turning in any written work.

Deadlines: Assignments that are due in class must be turned in at the start of class. If you anticipate problems, please contact me before the assignment is due, not after!

Office Hours: Students are strongly encouraged to speak with me outside of class. I am available during office hours on a first-come, first-served basis. If you cannot come during office hours, please contact me via email or phone to schedule an appointment.

schedule

Please note– this syllabus is an open-ended work-in-progress. We will make changes as the semester goes on, in part in response to your interests and needs and in part on as I see fit. You might want to check it frequently. It’s on github, so we can look back at previous iterations as needed.

week 1: introduction ( 21 August 2013)

Readings:
None.

Lab:
Set up a github account; The basics of prose.io; The basics of markdown.

week 2: what is digital history/digital humanities? (28 August 2013)

Readings:

Lab:
A. Philaplace.
B. Wordle.

week 3: theory of media I: the old new media (4 September 2013)

Readings:

Lab:

A. YouTube Time Machine (Check out this discussion too.)
B. What’s On the Menu?

week 4: theory of media II: new new media (11 September 2013)

Readings:

Lab:

A. Flickr. How does it work? Can you find institutions that use it?
B. Wikipedia. How does a wiki work? Wikipedia in particular? Review a few pages, both their public face and the history/discussion page. Pick at least one controversial topic.

week 5: computation (18 September 2013)

Readings:
* Charles Petzold, Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software. Microsoft Press, 2000. Selections * How Computers Work

Lab:

A. Computer History Museum
B. Internet Archive’s Computer Newsletters and Folkscanomy projects.
C. bitcurator

week 6: the Interwebs (25 September 2013)

Readings:
* Jeff Galloway, Protocol. * How the Internet Works in 5 minutes * Tim Berners-Lee and CERN original proposal for the www * The Machine is Us/ing Us

Lab:

A. Internet Archive Wayback Machine
B. The Internet Map

week 7: Distant Readings (2 October 2013)

Readings:
* Moretti, Graphs, Maps, and Trees, selection.
* Some responses to Graphs, Maps, Trees Choose three of the chapters that look most interesting to you, along with Moretti’s responses. * Michel, et. al. “Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books”, Science 331.6041 pp. 176-182. * Stanford Literary Lab, Pamphlet 1, “On Quantitative Formalism”

Lab:

week 8: Text Analysis (9 October 2013)

** Proposal’s Due!! Short proposal pitches: Five minutes each telling the group about your poposals. Tell us which one you plan to finish.

Readings:

Lab:
* Voyant
* Mining the Dispatch
* The Programming Historian, Topic Modelling, Data Manipulation

week 9: A Work Week (16 October 2013)

week 10: Mapping Networks, Time, and Space (23 October 2013)

Readings:
* Scott Weingart, Demystifying Networks I and II, Journal of Digital Humanities 1.1. * Martyn Jessop, Digital Visualization as a Scholarly Activity
* Easly and Kleinberg, Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World * Richard White, What is Spatial History? – take some time to poke around the Spatial History Project’s site too.

Lab:
* Hypercities
* Trove Tools * Republic of Letters
* BKLYNR

week 11: Narratives and New Media (30 October 2013)

Readings:
* Cohen and Rosenzweig, Becoming Digital
* Hayden White, “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality”
* David J. Staley, Sequential Art and Historical Narrative: A Visual History of Germany
* Alan Lui, When was Linearity? The Meaning of Graphics in the Digital Age

Lab:

week 12: Design (6 November 2013)

Readings:

Lab:

week 13: Copyright (13 November 2013)

Readings:

week 14: Scholarly Communication in the Digital Age (20 November 2013)

Readings:
* Writing History in the Digital Age
* Planned Obsolescence
* Robert B. Townsend, How is New Media Reshaping the Work of Historians?
* Robert B. Townsend, Assessing the Future of Peer Review

week 15: Final Work Week (27 November 2013)

Presentations – Poster presentations at our Scheduled Exam time.