Contact Information

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the use of digital information and communication technologies in literary and humanistic study. We will survey the field of digital humanities, from electronic scholarly editing; to the computational analysis of style, theme, and structure; to considerations of the cultural impact of information technology on scholarly discourse, publishing, and the academy; to the study of vituality and materiality of digital objects and their non-digital counterparts.

We will also study several specific technologies in detail, including eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and the Text Encoding Initiative. Students will be expected to generate critical work on subjects related to digital humanities and to perform some hands-on exercises using technologies common in digital humanities research.

Texts

Schreibman, Susan, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, eds. A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.

Schreibman, Susan, and Ray Siemens, eds. A Companion to Digital Literary Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.

The above texts will be supplemented by online and reserve readings.

Assignments & Participation

Your grade will be based on 1000 points, distributed as follows:

Weekly Reporting / Reading Responses / Participation

Each week two students will be responsible for parts of class discussion. One student will be responsible for reporting on events in the digital humanities Blogosphere and Tweetville. The other student will be responsible for composing reading responses, including contributions from other students.

Blog/Tweet Reporting

Each week, a student will give a 20-30 minute presentation on activity in digital humanities blogs and tweets. You will provide a summary of activity on a number of blogs and twitter streams or focus on one very interesting blog entry or twitter stream. The report should be informal. You will discuss what you’ve found in front of the class. You can and should make use of the Web and do a bit of “show and tell,” taking us to sites mentioned in the posts and tweets and exploring on the Web what is discussed in the blog entry or entries. Feel free to post links to resources that you may be reporting on to the class through Oncourse. I maintain a list of digital humanities blogs in my Digital Humanities Resources page, but feel free to discover additional blogs on your own.

Reading Responses

A student will be responsible for composing and/or collecting from other students at least six reading responses, all of which should be at least a paragraph of a few sentences and include questions for discussion, not just commentary. The list of responses/questions must be posted to the class on Oncourse by 7pm the evening before class meets.

Class Presentation Schedule

See the class presentation schedule for your assigned weeks. If for some reason the schedule does not work for you, you are responsible for switching with another student and informing me of the change.

Mid-Term

Essay examination.

Text Encoding Exercise and Reaction Paper

An exercise in encoding a literary work in TEI/XML and a short (250-500 word) paper reflecting on the exercise.

Term Paper

2500-word paper on the topic your choosing (approved by instructor).

Final Exam

Essay examination.

Attendance and Participation

Students are expected to attend and participate in class discussions, and turn in assignments on time. One absence *or* one late assignment is permitted during the course of the semester. In this first instance, no explanation is required; on the other hand, no excuses will be accepted for subsequent absences or late assignments, and a half-grade penalty will be assessed for each absence or late assignment after the first, on the grade for the semester.

Letter Grade Definitions

All grades will be assigned according to the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science Definitions of Letter Grades.

Schedule

14 January 2011

21 January 2011, Perspectives on DH

28 January 2011, Classics, History

4 February 2011, Literature

11 February 2011, Materialities

18 February 2011, Materialities

25 February 2011, TEI Workshop

4 March 2011, TEI Workshop

11 March 2011, Mid-Term & Guest Speaker, Dot Porter, Associate Director for Digital Library Content and Services, IU Libraries

18 March 2011, Spring Break. No Class.

25 March 2011

1 April 2011

8 April 2011

15 April 2011

Project/Publication Pairings

22 April 2011

29 April 2011, Text-Image Linking Environment (TILE)