During the first two weeks, we'll step back to take a bird's-eye view of data and delve into the digital humanities to get a better sense of the context in which we are doing our work this semester.
What is this course? Why is it important?
Readings/Viewings:
Nothing.
What is/are data, anyway?
Reading/Viewing:
Sarah Watson, "Data is the New '___'," dis magazine, 2015.
In class:
What are we talking about when we talk about data in the humanities?
Due:
Please sign up for your preferred date for contributing discussion questions/prompts.
Readings/Viewings:
Trevor Owens, “Defining Data for Humanists: Text, Artifact, Information or Evidence?” Journal of Digital Humanities, 2012.
Miriam Posner, "Humanities Data: A Necessary Contradiction," June 2015.
In class:
Introduction to Collection Deep Dive assignment. Due on 9/29.
What is the history of the computerization of cultural heritage collections?
Reading:
Lisa Spiro, "'This Is Why We Fight': Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities," Debates in the Digital Humanities, eds. Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein, University of Minnesota Press, 2012, focusing especially on the section below "Proposed Values."
You will be reading one of the following (assigned on Sept. 11 in class):
Publication of Roberto Busa's Index Thomisticus: Forty Years of Data Processing in the Humanities
Arader, Parrish & Bessinger Organize the First Humanities Computing or Digital Humanities Conference
A photographic film producer develops the world's first fully digital camera
Viewing:
Miriam Posner, "How did they make that?" (~40 minutes)
In class:
Project Sleuthing Exercise. Due on 9/22.
One way we tell data stories is through how we identify and collect data in the first place. In the humanities, we collect data from documentation that already exists, through surveys, interviews, and scraping websites. It is important to think not just about where data is collected, but also how, why, and who is collecting that data.
** Meeting in Library 254 **
Ryan Cordell, "Why You (A Humanist) Should Care About Optical Character Recognition," January 10, 2019.
In advance of class:
Download QuickScan (iPhone) or Mobile Doc Scanner (MDScan) Lite (Android)
In class:
Introduction to Final Project
Who is doing the work of collecting data?
Due:
Reading:
Matthew Pittman and Kim Sheehan, "Amazon's Mechanical Turk a Digital Sweatshop? Transparency and Accountability in Crowdsourced Online Research," Journal of Media Ethics, 2016, p. 260-62.
Lauren Klein and Catherine D'Ignazio, "Ch. 7: Show Your Work," Data Feminism, 2020, https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/0vgzaln4/release/3?readingCollection=0cd867ef.
How are data collected using APIs?
Due:
Email to aquigley@macalester.edu: Project Sleuthing Exercise by 9:40 am.
Readings:
Xavier Adam, "An illustrated introduction to APIs," 2019, https://medium.com/epfl-extension-school/an-illustrated-introduction-to-apis-10f8000313b9.
In class:
The way we, as humans, organize information dictates how we, as a culture, access, understand, and process that information. This means that classification practices are hugely impactful on how we learn, what we remember, and what we forget.
Reading:
James Coupe, “Art, Surveillance, and Metadata," in Worldmaking as Techné: Participatory Art, Music, and Architecture, 2018, pp. 1-22.
Jeffrey Pomerantz, "Chapter 1: Introduction," Metadata, 2015, p. 1-18.
In class:
Visit from Lizzy Baus, Metadata Librarian at Macalester's library
Due:
Collection Deep Dive Assignment by 9:40 am
Exploration:
Please familiarize yourselves with the Mapping Prejudice website.
What is classification? How does it shape our world?
Reading:
Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, “Introduction: To Classify Is Human,” pgs. 1-16, in Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (MIT Press, 1999), https://ar264sweeney.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/9780262269070_introduction.pdf.
Lauren Klein and Catherine D'Ignazio, "Ch. 4: What Gets Counted Counts," Data Feminism, 2020, https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/h1w0nbqp/release/3?readingCollection=0cd867ef.
Related Artworks:
Song Dong, Waste Not
Readings:
Ed Folsom, “Database as Genre: The Epic Transformation of Archives,” MLA: The Changing Profession, 2007 (9 pages).
In class:
How are library and archival collections built? What does this mean?
Readings:
Gretchen L. Hoffman, "Chapter 5: What's the Difference between Soul Food and Southern Cooking? The Classification of Cookbooks in American Libraries," in Dethroning the Deceitful Pork Chop: Rethinking African American Foodways from Slavery to Obama, 2015, 61-75, https://www.dropbox.com/s/gksmoamg0a2s12c/Dethroning%20the%20deceitful%20pork%20chop_Chapter%205.pdf?dl=0.
Emily Drabinski, “Standard Practice: Libraries as Structuring Machines,” SSRC Parameters (July 5, 2017).
Listen: Dominique Luster on “Archives In Context” Episode 7 – https://archivesincontext.archivists.org/2019/01/28/episode-7-dominique-luster/
Reading:
Johanna Drucker, "Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display," Digital Humanities Quarterly, 2011 http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/5/1/000091/000091.html.
Giorgia Lupi, "Data Humanism, The Revolution will be Visualized," georgialupi, 2017.
Readings:
Lauren Klein and Catherine D'Ignazio, "Ch. 3: On Rational, Scientific, Objective Viewpoints from Mythical, Imaginary, Impossible Standpoints," Data Feminism, 2020, https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/5evfe9yd/release/5?readingCollection=0cd867ef.
Rachel Starry, "Accessible Design for Data Visualizations," DLF Forum 2020.
Due:
Data Cleaning Lab Reflection, by 5 pm.
Readings:
Nathan Yau, "Visualization: The Medium," Data Points, 2013.
In class:
Introduction to Personal Data Postcard assignment. Due on 11/10.
Download Tableau Public
Due:
Please post a map (screenshot, link, etc.) to this slideshow- a map that you've used recently in your own life (Google Maps, Apple Maps, Strava, etc.)
Reading:
David J. Bodenhamer, "The Potential of Spatial Humanities," The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the Future of Humanities Scholarship, ed. David J. Bodenhamer, John Corrigan, and Trevor M. Harris (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), pp. 14-29, http://www.kurthackemer.com/docs/SpatialHumanities.pdf.
Shannon Mattern, "Gaps In The Map: Why We're Mapping Everything, And Why Not Everything Can, Or Should, Be Mapped," Words in Space, http://wordsinspace.net/shannon/2015/09/18/gaps-in-the-map-why-were-mapping-everything-and-why-not-everything-can-or-should-be-mapped/.
In class:
Due:
Group Project Charter and 3 Research Questions by 5 pm. (If you would like to read more about research questions, check out Trevor Owens' "Where to Start? On Research Questions in the Digital Humanities")
Readings:
Jo Guidi, "What is the Spatial Turn," http://spatial.scholarslab.org/spatial-turn/, (Please read the introduction and at least one disciplinary section of interest).
Readings:
Stephen Marche, "Literature is Not Data: Against Digital Humanities," LA Review of Books, 2012, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/literature-is-not-data-against-digital-humanities/.
Holger S. Syme and Scott Selisker, "In Defense of Data: Responses to Stephen Marche's 'Literature is Not Data,'" LA Review of Books, 2012, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/in-defense-of-data-responses-to-stephen-marches-literature-is-not-data.
Erin Davis, "Sweet and Slim, Greasy and Grim: The Physical Traits that Define Men & Women in Literature," The Pudding. https://pudding.cool/2020/07/gendered-descriptions/.
Due:
Readings:
Chad Topaz, Bernhard Klingenberg, Daniel Turek, Brianna Heggeseth, Pamela E. Harris, Julie C. Blackwood, et al., "Diversity of artists in major US museums," PLoS ONE 14 (3), https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212852&type=printable.
Amardeep Singh, "The Archive Gap: Race, the Canon, and the Digital Humanities," 2015, http://www.electrostani.com/2015/09/the-archive-gap-race-canon-and-digital.html.
Sharon Leon, "The Peril and Promise of Historians as Data Creators: Perspective, Structure, and the Problem of Representation," [bracket] November 24, 2019.
Exploration:
Eric William Lin, Casting Shakespeare
Brianna Heggeseth, Bernhard Klingenberg, Steven Nelson, Chad Topaz, "Diversity on Display: Who's on the Wall at NGA?" https://bheggeseth.shinyapps.io/DiversityOnDisplay/.
In class:
Visit from Dr. Brianna Heggeseth, MSCS
Optional Reading:
Optional: Stephen Ramsay. “The Hermeneutics of Screwing Around; or What You Do with a Million Books,” April 17, 2010.
Readings/Exploration:
Scott Weingart, "Demystifying Networks, Part I & II," Journal of Digital Humanities 1, no.1, Winter 2011, http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-1/demystifying-networks-by-scott-weingart/.
Readings:
None. Just collect your data for your personal data postcard, please!
Due:
Personal Data Postcard assignment.
In class:
Personal Data Postcard critique
Network Analysis Lab
Intro to Personal Geography Assignment
Reading:
Dorothy Kim, "Social Media and Academic Surveillance: The Ethics of Digital Bodies," Model View Culture, 2014, https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/social-media-and-academic-surveillance-the-ethics-of-digital-bodies.
Evan Ratliff, "Vanish," in The Best Technology Writing 2010, edited by Julian Dibbell (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) 9-37.
Reading:
[Warning: this reading does contain references to sexual assault] Lena V. Groeger, "When the Designer Shows Up In the Design," ProPublica, April 4, 2017.
"Design Ethos," your name here.
Readings:
Mark Andrejevic, "The Big Data Divide," International Journal of Communication 8, 2014, https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/2161/1163.
Lauren Klein and Catherine D'Ignazio, "5. Unicorns, Janitors, Ninjas, Wizards, and Rock Stars," Data Feminism, 2020, https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/2wu7aft8/release/2?readingCollection=0cd867ef.
Fair game: https://reallifemag.com/fair-game/.
Readings/Exploration:
The Endings Project, "Projects: Building Sustainable Digital Humanities Projects," https://projectendings.github.io/projects/.
Killed by Google: https://killedbygoogle.com/.
Lauren Young, "Ghost in the Reels," Science Friday, https://apps.sciencefriday.com/data/ghosts.html.
Please take a look at the Socio-Technical Sustainability Roadmap website (https://sites.haa.pitt.edu/sustainabilityroadmap/).
In class:
Digital Preservation Guide by the Library of Congress
In class:
Introduction to Data Autoethnography post (Due December 8th)
Due:
Personal Geographies by 5 pm.
Due:
Readings:
Frank Chimero, "What Screens Want," 2013
Readings:
"Distant Viewing: Analyzing Large Visual Corpora," Lauren Tilton and Taylor Arnold, 2018.
Readings:
Alison Martin, "Hearing Change in the Chocolate City: Computational Methods for Listening to Gentrification," Digital Humanities Quarterly, 2021.
Due:
Group Project Presentation Tool (just let me know verbally in class what tool your group will be using)
In class:
Due:
Data Autoethnography (~45-60 minutes), by 5 pm.
Readings:
Shannon Mattern, “Databodies in Codespace,” Places Journal (April 2018). Human Project went offline sometime between November 22 and January 23, 2021.
Jennifer R. Whitson, "Gaming the Quantified Self," Surveillance & Society, 2013, https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/gaming.
No readings due. We'll take a brain break by watching something related to data but also a bit different.
Due:
Final projects (send project link to aquigley@macalester.edu).
Please complete this Self-Reflection Form by the end of the day on Friday, December 15.
Please complete this Group Evaluation Form by the end of the day on Friday, December 15.
*These forms were adapted from Elizabeth F. Barkley, Claire Howell Major, and K. Patricia Cross' Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty, p. 109 and 111, 2014.