DH101: INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL HUMANITIES

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES | FALL 2013

Professor Miriam Posner: mposner@humnet.ucla.edu Teaching Assistant David Kim: david.js.kim@ucla.edu All classes (lecture and workshop) are in 2118 Rolfe Office hours: by appointment in Public Affairs 1070 Course site: dh101fall.humanities.ucla.edu/Fall13

Overview
What is digital humanities, and how does it differ from other ways of thinking about the digital? We will investigate this question by examining the activities, platforms, tools, projects, and critical perspectives that form this emerging field and constitute its current core practices. We will also discuss historical underpinnings and traditions of knowledge production on which digital practices depend for their operation. Our focus is on understanding thoroughly the basic components of a digital project from data to interface and on how the decisions we make at any point in a project affect the outcome. We will examine the difference between the world as we experience it and the world as the computer can capture it, and discuss how digital humanists think about and work through this disjunction. The course will explore these conceptual issues as they relate to emerging forms of humanities scholarly production and digital methodologies, such as digital exhibits, digital mapping, text analysis, information visualization, and network analysis. Students will become familiar with various digital tools to explore these approaches to knowledge production in the weekly lab/studio.

Learning Goals
To teach the basic vocabulary of concepts and tools in digital humanities and acquaint students with projects, critical work, resources in the field, and to provide a hands-on experience of resource/repository production.

Learning Outcomes
Students should have a working knowledge of HTML, Omeka, the basic language of digital humanities concepts and technologies, tools, and resources; they should also have developed knowledge of digital materials in their field or discipline.

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Requirements
Lecture and discussion/workshop sessions are tightly integrated; both are required. Students must be enrolled in both lecture and a lab.

Assessment
Projects: 50% 15% Midterm: Basic components and progress report due November 1, in lab, for review. 35% Final project: Completion and presentations in week 11, on a date to be determined via poll. See page 8 for more details. Written work: 50% 20% Midterm: Take-home assignment, due November 4, in class. 20% Final: In class, cumulative, questions to be circulated in advance. 10% Blog posts: By Wednesday of each week, students will write blog posts that respond to discussion questions that will be posted the preceding Friday. (See page 8 for details.)

Accessibility
In the spirit of Universal Design for Learning, I will strive to provide an environment that is equitable and conducive to achievement and learning for all students. I ask that we all be respectful of diverse opinions and of all class members, regardless of personal attribute. I encourage persons with disabilities or particular needs that impact on performance to meet with me to co-design accommodations, if necessary. I ask that we all use inclusive language in written and oral work. Students with disabilities may also want to register with the Office for Students with Disabilities (http://www.osd.ucla.edu). This syllabus is based on a course developed by Johanna Drucker with David Kim; see dh101.humanities.ucla.edu for prior versions of the course and past student projects. In the reading schedule below, C2DH refers to the Companion to Digital Humanities (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), available for free online at http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/.

A note on email
We enjoy working with you very much, and we strive to respond to emails within 48 hours. However, we regret that we cannot answer email after 5:00 p.m. or on weekends. Please plan accordingly. This class has many moving parts, and from time to time, well need to get in touch with you. Well expect you to check the email account associated with your MyUCLA profile each weekday.

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WEEK ONE: OVERVIEW

1A: Sept. 30 What is digital humanities? 1B: Oct. 2 Examples, basic terms, and approaches.

Required readings David Berry (2011-06-01). "The Computational Turn: Thinking About the Digital Humanities". Culture Machine. http://culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/viewDownloadInterstitial/4 40/470. Tara McPherson, Introduction: Media Studies and the Digital Humanities, Cinema Journal, 48.2 (2009) LAB ONE Introduction to student projects and form groups. Brainstorm group topics. What are the components of the digital final project? What is collaboration? What is building?

WEEK TWO: CLASSIFICATION AND STRUCTURED DATA

2A: Oct. 7 What does it mean to classify? How do systems of classification embed cultural and political values? Required readings Michel Foucault, Introduction, The Order of Things, citing Borges http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/evolit/s05/prefaceOrderFoucault.p df C2DH: Chapter 14, Sperberg-McQueen, Classification and its Structures Musical instrument classification, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_instrument_classification 2B: Oct. 9 | Lecture by David Kim Required readings C2DH: Chapter 19. Willard McCarty Modeling: A Study in Words and Meanings Selections from Bowker and Star, Sorting Things Out (MIT, 1999) Chon Noriega, Preservation Matters, Aztlan 30:1 (2005) See example, Digital Harlem: http://acl.arts.usyd.edu.au/harlem/
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LAB TWO Introduction to Omeka and repositories. Knowledge modeling and design principles. What is descriptive metadata?

WEEK THREE: DATABASE, ARCHIVE, NARRATIVE

3A: Oct. 14 | Lecture by Craig Dietrich How do specific scholarly forms produce specific kinds of knowledge? Required readings: Sayers, Jentery, and Craig Dietrich. After the Document Model for Scholarly Communication: Some Considerations for Authoring with Rich Media. Digital Studies / Le Champ Numrique 3, no. 2 (August 22, 2013). http://www.digitalstudies.org/ojs/index.php/digital_studies/article/view/23 4. 3B: Oct. 16 Database fundamentals Required readings: C2DH Ch. 15 Stephen Ramsay, Databases Ed Folsom, Database as genre, PMLA Responses to Folsom, PMLA (Specifically, Jerome McGanns Database, Interface and Archive Fever LAB THREE Digital Exhibits in Omeka; Mapping groups topic and gathering resources and data.

WEEK FOUR: FROM DATABASE TO VISUALIZATION

4A: Oct. 21 | Lecture by David Kim Required readings Lev Manovich, Database as Symbolic Form Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digital History: see Introduction and Getting Started, http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/introduction/ 4B: Oct. 23 Historicizing data visualization Required Readings: Calvin Schmid, Statistical Graphics, excerpt Howard Wainer, Graphic Discovery, excerpt

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ManyEyes: (read the information on uses for each type) http://www958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/page/Visualization_Option s.html Visual Complexity website, http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

LAB FOUR Collecting and curating data with Google Fusion Tables.

WEEK FIVE: VISUALIZATION; TEXT ANALYSIS

5A: Oct. 28 | Lecture by Johanna Drucker Visualization, continued Required readings: Johanna Drucker, Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display Michael Friendly, Milestones in the History of Thematic Cartography, Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization http://www.datavis.ca/milestones/ Michael Friendly, Visualization Gallery http://www.datavis.ca/ 5B: Oct. 30 | Lecture by Zoe Borovsky Introduction to Text Analysis Required readings: William Turkel, Data Mining with Criminal Intent http://criminalintent.org/getting-started/ Commentary by Andrew Smith: http://andrewdsmith.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/the-promise-of-digitalhumanities/ LAB FIVE Data visualization with Tableau and ManyEyes

WEEK SIX: CLOSE/DISTANT; NETWORK ANALYSIS

6A: Nov. 4 MIDTERMS DUE AT START OF CLASS ON MONDAY. No late work accepted. Distant reading Required readings: Franco Moretti, Conjectures on World Literature, New Left Review 1, January/February 2000, http://newleftreview.org/A2094 Lev Manovich, Douglass, et al., How to Compare One Million Pictures
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6B: Nov. 6 | Lecture by David Shepard Network analysis Required readings: Scott Weingart, Demystifying Networks http://www.scottbot.net/HIAL/?p=6279 LAB SIX: Network Analysis with Gephi and Cytoscape

WEEK SEVEN: THINKING ABOUT SPACE

7A Nov. 11 No class: Veterans Day 7B: Nov. 13 | Lecture by Yoh Kawano Introduction to GIS Required Readings Stuart Dunn, Space as Artefact, Michael Goodchild, What Does Google Earth Mean for the Social Sciences? LAB SEVEN Working with time and space: Neatline in Omeka, Google Maps

WEEK EIGHT: SPACE, CONTINUED; INTERFACES

8A: Nov 18 What cultural and political values are embedded in the way we model space? Required Readings: Ian Gregory, Using Geographical Information Systems to Explore Space and Time in the Humanities Sara McLafferty, Women and GIS: Geosptial Technologies and Feminist Geographies 8B: Nov. 20 Interface theory and practice: What does it mean to design an interface? Required readings C2DH 34 Matthew Kirschenbaum, So the Colors Cover the Wires Jesse James Garrett, Elements of User Experience, http://www.slideshare.net/openjournalism/elements-of-user-experienceby-jesse-james-garrett
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Ben Shneiderman, Eight Golden Rules, http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/360/f04/sessions/schneid ermanGoldenRules.html Shneiderman and Plaisant (click on link, download Chapter 14) http://interarchdesign.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/schneidermanplaisant-designing-the-user-interface-chapt-14/ Aaron Marcus, et.al Globalization of User Interface Design http://zing.ncsl.nist.gov/hfweb/proceedings/marcus/index.html

LAB EIGHT Design Meetings; Project Documentation

WEEK NINE: 3D MODELING

9A: Nov. 25 3D modeling and cross-cultural interfaces. Required readings V. Evers, Cross-Cultural Understanding of Metaphors in Interface Design Nezzar AlSayyad, Virtual Cairo: An Urban Historians View of Computer Simulation Sheila Bonde et al., The Virtual Monastery 9B: Nov. 27. No class NO LAB WEEK NINE

WEEK TEN: DIGITAL LABOR & PATHS FORWARD

10A: Dec. 2 Digital (im)materiality Required readings: Blanchette, A Material History of Bits 60 Minutes: Electronic Wasteland 10B: Dec. 4 FINAL EXAM IN CLASS LAB TEN Finish final projects, prepare for final presentation

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COURSE ASSESSMENT
Project Documentation (15%) By week 8, each group will submit 3-5 page project documentation that describes the overall project as well as individual contributions. Summary of this documentation will be the About section of the final project site. Class midterm (20%) Questions will be circulated in advance and will require critical analysis based on class discussion, lecture, and readings. Project final (35%) Final projects will be evaluated during the presentation. See next section for more details. Final exam (20%) Final exam is cumulative and will be completed in class on December 4. Questions will be circulated in advance. Weekly blog posts: (10%) By class time on Wednesday, each student will do the following: 1. Write a 500-word blog post responding to one of two questions (posted the preceding Friday). 2. Write two 250-word comments on two other students blog posts.

MORE ON THE FINAL PROJECT

Students will work in groups to create a scholarly resource site that provides an overview and scholarly context of a topic chosen by the group and approved by the instructor. All projects are required to develop the following components: 1) digital exhibits, 2) maps/timeline 3) data visualization (info graphics, text analysis, network analysis), 4) About page that describes individual contributions and reflections, 5) accompanying writing/text for each of these components. All groups will present their projects to the class and invited faculty/staff during the final exam week. Exact time and location will be announced during first week. The evaluation of the final projects will be based on the following:

Interface, navigation and overall design, as they relate to knowledge organization, narrative and functionality. Descriptive Metadata and Citation: consistency of standards, searchability of digital assets, proper attribution of sources and reflection of both taxonomies and folksonomies Quality of research and discussion of the topic

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About page: description of process and critical reflection. Engagement with Tools: Do not be afraid to fail! Consult with the instructor to scale back anticipated outcomes and describe current limitations and future possibilities in your discussion

More detailed guidelines for the midterm and final projects will be circulated in advance. No late work accepted, no exceptions without express permission of the instructor in writing in advance.

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