Digital Humanities

Readings and Assignments

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS / ASSIGNMENTS
1	Introduction to Digital Humanities Sample DH Projects In–Class Activity Examine the four facsimiles of Register Pages from the Comedie–Française in Paris. Identify the different categories of information. Develop a method for the extraction of this information in a digital format. Brainstorm about possible storage and access options. Envision the tools that can tap into this data (search, visualization, etc.). What is the intended audience for your approach? What are the kinds of questions your audience could solve with your approach?	Readings Schnapp, Jeffrey. “Digital Humanities Fundamentals” and “The Project as Basic Unit.” In A Short Guide to the Digital_Humanities. SG2–SG5. Burdick, Anne, Johanna Drucker, et al. Digital_Humanities. MIT Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780262018470. [Free download available]. Assignments Assignment 1 (PDF)
2	Data Mining of Open Content: The Artbot Project Guest Speakers: Desi Gonzalez and Liam Andrew from the CMS / Hyperstudio Data Mining and NER Exercises	Readings Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic, July 1945. Assignments Assignment 2 (PDF) Tools import.io OpenRefine Kimono
3	Humanities Data: The Comedie–Française Registers Project (CFRP) From Written Records to Humanities Data Guest Speaker: Jeff Ravel, MIT History Department	Readings boyd, danah, and Kate Crawford. “Six Provocations for Big Data.” A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society, September 2011. Assignments Assignment 3 (PDF) Tools Diverse basic Visualization Tools
4	Databases and Structures Narratives and Filters Work with CRFP Data	Readings Blair, Ann. “Information Overload: Then and Now.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 28, 2010. Manovich, Lev. “The Database.” In The Language of New Media. MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780262632553. Optional Bowker, Geoffrey, and Susan Leigh Star. S_orting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences_. MIT Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780262522953. Assignments Assignment 4 (PDF) Tools D3:js
5	GIS / Location Data Visualization I (Spatial Mapping) Data and its Interpretations Discussion of Final Projects	Readings Drucker, Johanna. “Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 5, no. 1 (2011). Rosenberg, Daniel, and Anthony Grafton. “Time in Print.” Chapter 1 in Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline. Princeton Architectural Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781616890582. Assignments Assignment 5 (PDF) Moby Dick Mapping Materials (ZIP - 35.6MB) (This ZIP package contains 5 .jpeg files, 2 .txt files, 1 .ppt file, 1 .doc file, 1 .xls file, and 1 HTML document.)  Tools CartoDB Google Fusion Tables Google Maps / Earth Pro Mapbox TileMill
6	Data Visualization II (Time Mapping) Discussion of Final Projects (cont.)	Readings Tufte, Edward R. “Color and Information.” In Envisioning Information. Graphics Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780961392116. Few, Stephen. “The Chartjunk Debate: A Close Examination of Recent Findings.” (PDF – 1.8MB) Visual Business Intelligence Newsletter. April–June 2011. Assignments Assignment 6 (PDF) Tools TimeMapper SIMILE Timeline
7	Curation: From Museum Curation to Digital Curation Guest Speaker: Kristen Gresh, Photography Curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Selection of Final Projects	Readings Chitty, Andrew. “London Re-cut: Reclaiming History through the Co-curated Remixing of Film.” Curator: The Museum Journal 54, no. 4 (October 2011): 413-418.  Simon, Nina. “Principles of Participation.” Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift. AltaMira Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780759119659. Assignments Assignment 7 (PDF)
8	Spring Break–No Class	Assignment Work on Final Project Pitch Explore Ieraction between Technology and Public Spaces
9	Augmented Space and Design Process I Final Project Pitches Guest Speaker: Halsey Burgund, Artist and Mobile Developer	Readings Manovich, Lev. “The Poetics of Augmented Space.” 2012. Alexander, Jane, Jake Barton, et al. “Transforming the Art Museum Experience: Gallery One.” MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013: The Annual Conference of Museums and the Web. April 17–20, 2013. “Human Centered Design Toolkit.” Design Thinking Blog Listening. Assignments Assignment 8 (PDF)
10	Design Process II: Prototyping and Wireframing Guest Speaker: Frederico Casalegno, Mobile Experience Lab	Readings Brown, Dan. Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning. New Riders, 2010. ISBN: 9780321712462. [Preview with Google Books] Medero, Shawn. “Paper Prototyping.” A List Apart. January 23, 2007. Assignments Assignment 9 (PDF)
11	Digital Humanities Debates, Frontiers, and Future Final Project In–Class Work Time	Final Presentation Guidelines (PDF) Final Project Schedule (PDF)
12	Guest Speaker: Andy Stuhl, Digital Sound Studies & Sound Projects	Sterne, Jonathan and Mitchell Akiyama. “The Recording That Never Wanted to Be Heard and Other Stories of Sonification.” The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies. Edited by Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld. Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780199995813.
13	Final Project In–Class Work Time	Excerpts from Jenkins, Henry and Wyn Kelley. Reading in Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English Classroom. Teachers College Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780807754016.
14	Final Project In–Class Work Time (cont.)
15	Final Presentations