Thursday, August 24th 2023 (Journal #1)

Upon completing my reading of The Headstrong Historian by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I was filled with several conflicting feelings. Above the sympathy for Nwamgba and the many trials that she faced throughout her life, I found myself sharing in her frustration and confusion regarding the world rapidly changing all around her. One quote in particular stood out to me as especially powerful. Spoken to Nwamgba by Ayaju on paragraph eleven; "People ruled over others not because they were better people, she said, but because they had better guns." 

While an equally universal and heartbreaking truth, this stunning narrative of the colonization of the tribes of Southern Nigeria stands to remind us of the crucial role of storytelling and how it has the power to warp the lens through which many people learn their own personal histories. The act of storytelling, either written or oral, is a device with the power to give voice to people who would otherwise exist in the margins of the grander picture of history. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie used her potent cocktail of talent and skill in this art form to tell a story that would have otherwise gone unwritten, unspoken, and unknown. It is an ardant belief of mine that every person on this planet deserves to have their story told. And given the opportunity, I would gladly read each and every one of them. 

Thursday, September 7th (Journal #3)

Using StoryMap, I would like to tell the story of Chris McCandless (AKA Alexander Supertramp) who was an American explorer and nomad who disappeared from his college campus shortly after graduating from Emory University. Between 1990 and 1992, Chris traveled roughly the entire length of the United States but not before donating his $20,000+ in savings to the OXFAM organization and burning his social security card. Chris's story later became the inspiration for Jon Krakauer's novel, Into The Wild, which was adapted into a film of the same name in 2007. Krakauer focuses on the people that he met, changed, and inspired during his travels and explores the lifestyle that Chris was chasing by going off-grid. 

I am personally a huge fan of Krakauer's novel and it was the first thing I thought of when faced with this assignment. The location narrative of Chris's story is significantly strong because while he never formed a habit of staying in one place for very long, he left a lasting impact on the people that he befriended at each of his pit-stops. 

Thursday, September 14th (Journal #4)

The poem by Ada Limón that I chose to conduct a close reading of was Tattoo Theory from her book of poems entitled Bright Dead Things. Narratively, Tattoo Theory tells the story of her visit to Nebraska from the perspective of her flight home. She recalls a moment during the trip when 'the boys' (who we can deduce are likely named Michael and Adam due to the dedication in the top right corner of the page). wanted to get matching tattoos in the shape of the state of Nebraska to commemorate the journey. She digs into the reasons why she chose not to get a tattoo; admitting that she while she could admire the sentiments behind the act, the state of Nebraska wasn't something that she wanted to have printed on her body for the rest of her life. The third and second to last lines of the poem read; "What if I love another state more? What if I love the Montes Apalaches?" (Limón 87). This leads the audience to wonder if her hesitation about getting the tattoo has less to do with her feelings toward Nebraska and more to do with her uncertainty regarding commitment. 

When commenting on her in-flight navigator being translated into Spanish, she mentions how the shape of the state is still exactly the same regardless of the language through which it is presented to her, as are the mountains —the Montes Apalaches. By concentrating on this point, Limón is almost directly telling her audience that the significance of the moments she experinced in Nebraska won't be made any more or less significant by stamping it onto her body. For her, or the narrator of the poem, the poem itself is a tattoo in its own right. It is just as permanent, just as unstoppable. 

Thursday, September 21 (Journal #5)

Having the privilege of attending the intimate discussion panel with Ada Limón this afternoon as well as her lecture the following evening was both an eye-opening and heartwarming experience. I feel so insanely privileged to have been in the presence of such an inspiring and down-to-earth woman. I especially appreciated her discussion on 'distraction' and how sometimes the small things that we view as 'distracting' from a specific duty or task are all important in their own significant ways. I teared up during her anecdote about the dying bumble bee because she has this amazing talent of making each word she says sound so raw and emotionally-charged. I also appreciated her approach toward the question dealing with AI technology. The questions that she posed in return were so real. Why do we find ourselves using shortcuts for things like art and literature and poetry when those are the things that make life so interesting and fun to live? Why can't we utilize this technology and use it to save this world that is dying all around us? We don't need to eliminate the need to create art, we need to eliminate the elements that threaten the importance of art. 

Thursday, September 27 (Journal #6)

The StoryCorps video that I chose to listen to was of a conversation between Christy Stewart and Glenn Turner concerning all of the pets and animals that they have adopted into their lives at one point or another. What I found especially beautiful about this specific story was how the unspoken love/relationship between the two interviewees seemed to bleed through into the language that they used to tell these short little stories about their lives. The words 'i love you' weren't used, but you could almost feel its presence there in that room when they giggled about the dog peeing on the husband's pillow. Drawing this back to the article, I wanted to connect it to the two questions posed at the very beginning of the reading; What makes StoryCorps so powerful? Should museums be taking notes about how to engage new audiences, or does the project offer a cautionary tale about what is lost when history moves into popular culture and historians lose control? 

What I think gives StoryCorps so much power, especially in the digital age, is that listening to these stories envokes the same feelings as flipping through a stranger's family photo album. You're overwhelmed with a nostalgia that you know isn't yours to feel, but its almost like receiving a gift from a total stranger. Should museums be taking notes from StoryCorps on engaging new audiences? I don't think so. I think the 'museum' as we know it today is a vital tool in telling the story of our past and I think that the way it is generally done today is both relevant and important. However, adopting StoryCorps or even just the idea of a widespread oral history is something that I think we could genuinely benefit from. 

Thursday, October 5th (Journal #7)

When first exploring the National Archives website, something that immediately struck me was the visually appealing digital exhibit tucked into the margins of the website. As I scrolled through the 'about' page, I could glance to the right of my screen and see real examples of what the National Archives had to offfer. Mugshots of early 20th century criminals, covers of comic books publicizing the development of nuclear energy, a young woman's needlework sampler from 1840. For lack of a better term; the proof was in the pudding. I didn't need to read an 'about' page to feel convinced to devote attention to the National Archives (although I still read it and found it thoroughly interesting). By the time I reached the quote by Thomas Jefferson warning the public against the loss of public records ("Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices."), I found myself already reminded of an excerpt from the reading of Archives Power; "Archives are places of knowledge, memory, nouishment, and power" (Jimerson 2). This quote is one that I felt especially drawn to because of the use of the word nourishment, which I didn't realize until looking at the archives themselves perfectly incapsulated the emotions that were pulled from me upon seeing even just digitalized versions of the framework of our human past. 

Thursday, October 26th (Journal #8)

A word that I think deserves some extensive study in the text of Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is 'motherliness.' While the word alone could be argued as not unique, the way it is utilized in the context of the reading gives it another layer of uniqueness that, when dissected at length, has the potential to add to one's understanding of the text entirely. The reader recieves a definition of  'motherliness', or 'motherhood' first from the character Terry (ew) through the voice of the narrator who provides us with the followingf quote; "Terry's idea of motherliness was the usual one, involving a baby in arms, or a 'little flock about her knees,' and the complete absorption of the mother in said baby or flock" (Gilman 75). What I find interesting about this definition of motherliness is that it is used less as an adjective used to describe a woman with a child and morphs into the word associated with an identity that Terry (and many men, honestly) believe absolve a woman of all other traits as soon as she becomes a mother. Terry's definition of 'motherliness' describes a woman who is stripped of all idividuality and identity aside from her children and domestic life. What makes this word especially unique is how the women of Herland differ in their idea of a mother, which describes both the age-group of a woman able and prepared to concieve a child and a woman who has bore children. 

Thursday, November 2nd (Journal #9)

Q: Why does data science need feminism, and/or why does feminism need data science?

A: Data science and feminism are two things that I think have the potential to benefit each other in a variety of different ways. For instance, data science can provide the tools that are necessary to collect, organize, and analyze data that relates to issues of feminism such as gender-based violence, the issue of reproductive/abortion rights, workplace discrimination on the basis of sex, and many others. Information backed by data retrieved through the data sciences can inform would-be policies and efforts to advocate for equal rights for women, making policy-making and responses to these issues more effective in the long run. 

Thursday, November 9th (Journal #10)

Q: What is the problem with how we see, collect, and use data?

A: Personally, I do not believe that data has the capacity to exist on seperate plane from human bias. Especially in the age of TikTok and the phenomenon of users turning to the platform as a primary news source for all things related to current events or politics. The issue with how we see, collect, and use data lies in the fact that we never solely judge the data by itself, but we also take into account the way that the data is presented, by whom it is presented, and how others before you have interpreted the data being distributed. The context of data presentation is just as significant to someone's understanding as the data itself. My favorite example of this is TikTok user @bikini.bottom.news who impersonates the news anchor fish from Spongebob, using an AI-generated voice to relay 30-second news broadcasts. There are several things to consider when viewing a video like this, including for instance the following questions; if you. grew up watching Spongebob, how does that pre-existing impression of the character influence how you interpret the information that they are thrusting upon you? How does the data being represented in the video compare to the attitude that can be identified in the people who chose to comment on the video? How does the attitude of the comment section impact your takeaways from the video? Does your final takeaway differ from your initial feelings regarding the data?

Thursday, November 16th (Journal #11)

An example of how data can be used to further or advance the justice system in the United States can be found on page 54 of the text Data Feminism. The reading describes a "137-question worksheet" that is generally given to each detainee that enters the system. The answers of this questionnaire are run through a software that has the capacity to predict or determine each person's risk score. The author states that "although the questionnaire does not ask directly about race, it asks questions that, given the structural inequalities embedded in the U.S. culture, serve as proxies to race" (Data Feminism 54). My question is, why are we feeding a software any indication of race based solely on the cultural belief that one is more prone to crime than another? My initial reaction to reading this was "well, the software is flawed, obviously," but upon further inspection, this is simply not the case. It is not the software that is causing this issue, but the nature of the questions and answers being fed into it. By changing the data being provided to the system, we have a capacity to drastically shift results from 'who is most likely to be black' to 'who is most likely to be committing these crimes' -- which is the sole purpose of the machine in the first place. It is never as simple of an answer as 'this is a computer and it inherently knows everything.' It is alarming to me that this was ever an acceptable form of justice advancement in our country.

Thursday, November 30th (Journal #12)

Personally, I would define the digital public humanities as a field that combines many different diciplines and is applicable to any study or focus in both the working and academic world. DPH applies a humane approach to research conducted by more analytical fields such as computer engineering or data analytics and serves as a model for humanistic studies students such as myself if or when we need to conduct research in the future. Above all else, I think the most relevant thing that I took away from this course was how significant the inclusion of women in discussions of data analytics truly is. By observing current structures of data analysis and that of the recent past throughout this course, I have gained a thorough and developed understanding of the world in which I live.