This syllabus is a living document and changes frequently, depending on what’s going on in the course, though the general workload will remain more or less as indicated. If you print it out, you’ll need to keep your paper version up to date with the online version.
One of our goals is to think critically about how digital interfaces to historical interpretation changes the way we think about the past. This also includes examining the forms of the readings, particularly how the different layouts, typography, and writing style affects the way we interact with them. Please come to class prepared to discuss both form and content.
Today we’ll review the syllabus, course aims, assignments, and general plan for the semester. We’ll also figure out how to customize the course to best suit participants’ interests.
William Cronon, The Public Practice of History in and for a Digital Age.
Lisa Spiro, “This Is Why We Fight”: Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities.
Stephen Ramsay, DH Types One and Two.
Mark Sample, The Digital Humanities Is Not About Building, It’s About Sharing.
Peruse and come prepared to discuss some the sites listed here (and also briefly survey some of the past projects (links near the top) to get a historical perspective), and here.
You don’t need to spend a lot of time on each site, but you should be familiar with their purpose and functionality, as well as what you think they do well and not so well. Do they embrace the kind of digital humanities we read about for Monday?
In following up the possibility of doing a Diag history, it seems oddly difficult to find much. The Wikipedia entry, the first search result, largely ignores its history; a tantalizingly named but not all that helpful history, might be a model for something we make. This could be a demanding but fun project that would give us hands-on experience with many (not overly technical) digital skills, and be of wide interest to the community.
Be sure to click through this UM History site, and think about how we might contribute to or improve on that effort. I didn’t find much on the diag in this, either.
No Class (MLK Day)
Keith Jenkins, Rethinking History.
Joan M. Schwartz and Terry Cook, “Archives, Records and Power: The Making of Modern Memory,” Archival Science: International Journal on Recorded Information 2 (2002): 1–19.
Margaret Hedstrom, “Archives, Memory, and Interfaces with the Past,” Archival Science: International Journal on Recorded Information 2 (2002): 21–43.
Sheila A. Brennan, Public, First.
Andrew Hurley, “Chasing the Frontiers of Digital Technology: Public History Meets the Digital Divide,” The Public Historian 38, no. 1 (2016): 69–88.
Bruce Wyman et al., “Digital Storytelling in Museums: Observations and Best Practices,” Curator: The Museum Journal 54, no. 4 (2011): 461–68.
Hayden White, “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 1 (1980): 5–27.
David C. Perry and Wim Wiewel, “From Campus to City: The University as Developer,” available via Google Books
Dolores Hayden, “Place, Memory, and Urban Preservation,” in The Power of Place, 44-78.
Daniel Mendelsohn, A Critic’s Manifesto.
Dwight Garner, A Critic’s Case for Critics Who Are Actually Critical.
Robert Blackey, “Words to the Whys: Crafting Critical Book Reviews,” The History Teacher 27, no. 2 (1994): 159–66.
No new readings! Focus on completing drafts of your essays that showcase your research so far, and start to present a story that we can publish on our website. Come to class prepared to discuss your essay and research behind it; you’ll give a brief presentation/overview of what you’ve learned so far and where you’re headed with your research. We’ll critique each other’s work based on advice from the readings for (last) Monday; we’ll also spend some time discussing the readings in general.
Google ‘campus history’ and see what turns up (find somewhere other than Michigan). It’s a mixed bag. Find something that intrigues you (it doesn’t have to be on the first page). Write a ~800 word critique of the project, following the advice of the articles from last week.
Research Day: No Class; use time for Bentley visit
No class: Research / Reading Day
Bill Cronon, Scholarly Authority in a Wikified World.
Robert S. Wolff, The Historian’s Craft, Popular Memory, and Wikipedia.
HTML + Markdown + GitHub Demonstration
Third Essay Presentations
Requirements review and to-do lists
Course and website review