Digital Humanities at AHA

In an earlier post we covered MLA panels devoted to digital humanities, electronic archives, and electronic tools. Thus, although the American Historical Association annual meeting has already recently concluded, we still thought it would be useful to review the sessions held at this convention. When available, I have included links to papers or abstracts.

Humanities in the Digital Age, Part 1: Humanities in the Digital Age, Part 1: Digital Poster Session
This session will provide participants with an overview of different digital tools and services and how historians are using them for research, teaching, and collaboration. After brief introductions to the various posters, participants would walk around the room spending time at the various stations, talking with the presenters and other participants. This will be followed in the afternoon by a hands-on workshop (session 73) where participants can learn more about how to use these specific tools. Co-sponsored by the National History Education Clearinghouse (NHEC):

Blogging, Jeremy Boggs, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Text Mining, Daniel J. Cohen, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Student Projects/Websites and Omeka, Jeffrey McClurken, University of Mary Washington

Zotero, Trevor Owens, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Teaching Tools, Kelly Schrum, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Web 2.0 – Flickr, YouTube/Video, Google Maps, Wikis, Jim Groom, University of Mary Washington

Humanities in the Digital Age, Part 2: A Hands-On Workshop
AHA Session 73
This will be a hands-on workshop where participants can learn to use some of the specific tools displayed at the morning session (40), for example, setting up a blog, creating a course website, doing some basic text mining, or creating a model student website. (Bring your own laptop) Co-sponsored by the National History Education Clearinghouse (NHEC)
Participants: Jeremy Boggs, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University; Daniel J. Cohen, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University; Jim Groom, University of Mary Washington; Jeffrey McClurken, University of Mary Washington;Trevor Owens, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University; Kelly Schrum, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Teaching Sourcing by Bridging Digital Libraries and Electronic Student Assignments
H-Net Humanities and Social Sciences Online
Chair:Dean Rehberger, Michigan State University
Commentator:Peter Knupfer, H-Net

The Big Picture: Opportunities for Building a Technical Infrastructure to Support History Education, Dean Rehberger, Michigan State University

The Citation Layer: Integrating Lessons on Souring into Electronic Papers, Steven Cohen, Michigan State University; Jason Friedman, Michigan State University

What Becomes of Print in the Digital Age?
Chair:Robert B. Townsend, American Historical Association (Panel discussion)
Participants: James W. Cortada, IBM; Anthony Grafton, Princeton University; Brian E. C. Schottlaender, University of California, San Diego; Abby S. Rumsey, independent consultant

Crossing the Electronic Rubicon: Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities Presented by Archival Records Created and Stored Exclusively in Digital Format
Chair:William B. McAllister, Office of the Historian, U.S. Dept. of State (Panel discussion)
Participants: Michael Carlson, National Archives and Records Administration; Margaret O. Adams, National Archives and Records Administration; Halbert M. Jones III, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State

The University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute’s Digital Video Archive: Searching through Nearly 52,000 Video Testimonies of Holocaust Survivors and Other Witnesses
Karen Jungblut , Shoah Foundation Institute,University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

New Directions in the History of the Automobile in America
Americans and Automobiles: Still an Open Road,Tom M. McCarthy , U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD

Teaching the Survey: Integrated Approaches to World, U.S., and California History
“Teaching the U.S. Survey in a Web 2.0 World,” Janice L. Reiff , University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

Seas, Islets, Peninsulas: Using the Periphery to Inform Teaching of Global History
“The Backwater, Front and Center: The Perception of Economic Strategic Value Upon a Traditional Periphery”,Jose Maria Herrera , Excelsior College

Is Google Good for History?
Chair: Shawn Martin, University of Pennsylvania (Panel discussion)
Participants: Daniel J. Cohen, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University; Paul Duguid, University of California, Berkeley;Brandon Badger, Google Books

Scholarly Publishing and e-Journals
Polish American Historical Association 2
Chair:Thomas Duszak, State Library of Pennsylvania
Scholarly Publishing and e-Journals: Quo Vadis—A Primer on the e-Journal Revolution in Academe, Tony Harvell, University of California, San Diego Libraries

Assessing Resources: Analysis and Comment on EDSITEment Lessons in the High School and Undergraduate Classrooms
Chair:Joseph Phelan, National Endowment for the Humanities
Co-sponsored by the National History Education Clearinghouse (NHEC)

Use of EDSITEment Resources in an Urban Public High School
Walter Rich, Jordan High School, Los Angeles Unified School District

Use of EDSITEment Resources in High School Advanced Placement U.S. History Survey Courses and American Studies,Tom Millar, The Marlborough Church of England School, England

Problem Based Learning: Enabling Student Teachers to Analyze Lesson Plans,
Brad E. Austin, Salem State College

EDSITEment at the College Level: Use and Alteration of Existing Lessons in the Undergraduate Survey Course
Nicholas Aieta, Westfield State College

Interpreting Race and Slavery: EDSITEment’s Lesson Plans on the “Peculiar Institution”, Bethany Jay, Using ESSEX History Project

Making Connections: American Foreign Policy Lessons on EDSITEment,
John D. Tully, Central Connecticut State University

American Religious Historians Online
Chair:Gary Laderman, Emory University

Blogging and the Reshaping of American Religious History, Rebecca A. Goetz, Rice University

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Web, Diane Winston, University of Southern California

Do Blogs Democratize American Religious History?
Paul W. Harvey, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

The Web and the Problem with Popularization, Kathryn Lofton, Indiana University

The Journal of Southern Religion and the Challenges of Online Publication, Randall J. Stephens, Eastern Nazarene College

As might be expected, many of these presentations and workshops focused on the ways in which the digital world is altering the possibilities for research and teaching. Yet one aspect of this list that stood out to me was the involvement of presenters with ties to governtmental, corporate, and institutions or foundations such as the National Archives, IBM, the State Department, Shoah Foundation Institute, NEH, and the like. While MLA had some panels that featured those outside of the academy proper, a larger percentage of the AHA digital panels seemed to reach beyond the university (though a more careful study might disprove this impression). On one hand, the composition of these panels suggest a greater public face for history and its involvement in digital work, yet on the other hand, it also suggests that historians as a whole might not yet be embracing digital work in large numbers. I should stress that I may well have missed a number of sessions (though I did find the cross-referencing and indexing performed by AHA program preparers to be more thorough than those handling the MLA online program).

Tags: AHA, digital access, Digital Humanities, pedagogy