Teaching Digital Computation?

Suppose one were to ask undergraduates to engage in the most basic of digital computational projects–say measuring the percentage of words used in dialogue in a given novel compared to percentage of words dedicated to narration.  How would one calculate that and what tools are needed?

What other elementary computational exercises might one use in an undergraduate classroom?

Finally, how many of you ask undergraduates to explore digital computation of any kind?  Which digital tools are necessary for such projects?  And how useful is this kind of exercise in the classroom?

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BSECS Prize for Best 18th-C. Digital Resource

This following announcement from Daniel Cook (University of Dundee) may interest those working on digital resources.

The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies is pleased to call for nominations for the annual prize for the best digital resource supporting eighteenth-century studies.

The prize is sponsored by Adam Matthew Digital, and is judged and awarded by BSECS.

This prize promotes the highest standards in the development, utility and presentation of digital resources that assist scholars in the field of eighteenth-century studies broadly defined. Nominated resources should meet the highest academic standards and should contribute in one or more of the following ways:

• by making available new materials, or presenting existing materials in new ways
• by supporting teaching of the period at university level;
• by facilitating, or itself undertaking, innovative research.

The prize is intended to benefit the international research community, and the competition is open to projects from any country. Resources supporting any scholarly discipline are eligible. Websites or other resources and projects may be nominated by either creators or users.

They must have been first launched on or after 1 January five years prior to the year in which the prize is awarded. The winner will be announced at the BSECS Annual Conference.

The award of £200 is made annually. The winner is announced at the annual conference in January.

Nominations open: 1st September in any year

Deadline: 13th December in any year

The nomination form and a list of past winners can be found on the BSECS website at: https://www.bsecs.org.uk/prizes-and-awards/

best,
Daniel

Mapping Frances Burney’s Evelina

Brittany Miller has created an interactive map of France’s Burney’s Evelina using David Rumsey’s 1836 map of London.  Miller’s map may be helpful for those teaching Evelina.  

WWP Intertextual Networks Seeking Collaborators

Readers may be interested in the following post from WWP regarding a 3-year NEH project regarding citation and quotation practices in digital editing:

The WWP is seeking collaborators for Intertextual Networks, a three-year, $290,000 project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (http://www.neh.gov/) and focusing on intertextuality in early women’s writing. Starting in October 2016, the WWP will begin work on this collaborative research initiative that will examine the citation and quotation practices of the authors represented in Women Writers Online (WWO) to explore and theorize the representation of intertextuality. 

For this project, the WWP will assemble a team that includes faculty, graduate students, and members of the WWP staff, representing a diverse set of perspectives and expertise. Each member of the collaborative group will pursue a personal research project engaging with materials from WWO, to be published in Women Writers in Context (http://wwp.neu.edu/context/), the WWP’s open-access publication series. Collaborators might develop research articles, short exhibits, visualizations, experimental encodings, and other explorations of intertextuality. We will also be developing interface tools for exploring intertextual connections and patterns. 

As part of this work, we will be undertaking a broad encoding of quotations and citations across the entire WWO collection, linking textual references to a comprehensive bibliography of sources, which we will make openly available at the WWO Lab (http://wwp.neu.edu/wwo/lab/). We will also make a deeper exploration of subtler kinds of intertextual reference (such as allusion and parody) in a subset of the collection, to reveal the many ways in which the textual space reverberates with echoes and referential gestures. This deeper exploration will be strongly informed by the research of our scholarly collaborators and the particular projects they undertake.

For more details and to submit a proposal, see: http://wwp.neu.edu/research/projects/intertextuality/index.html

Please circulate to interested colleagues!

Best wishes and thanks,

Sarah

Sarah Connell
Project Manager

Women Writers

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NEH Digging into Data Challenge

Readers may be interested in the NEH Digging into Data Challenge Grant, which can be found at http://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/digging-data-challenge.  It is designed for projects using large-scale digital analysis.  With a funding ratio of 16%, it’s certainly worth a try.  I would love to hear what sorts of digital analysis projects are underway.

On a separate note, during a recent visit to the Massachusetts Historical Society, currently celebrating its 225th year, I saw “The Private Jefferson” exhibit, which placed digital facsimiles next to original documents.  Viewers could magnify the digitized text so as to better read it.  Jefferson remained as enigmatic as ever, but the exhibit provided a rich conduit into the archival clues to his life.  It was superb.  I would love to hear about how readers use digital technology for teaching or in library exhibits.

Save Ashgate

Readers will be familiar with the decision by Ashgate Press’s parent company Informa (which also owns Taylor & Francis, Routledge, and Garland) to close its Burlington, VT office.  Though we can discuss the practice of having one reviewer for manuscripts, no one can contest that Ashgate has published stellar work in the early modern period.  Indeed, it has added voices and diversity, enriching and broadening an academic conversation that is tightly controlled.

More information on the decision can be found here at Inside Higher Ed, at Burlington’s own 7 Days, and on the website below.  I have not published with Ashgate myself, though I have served as a reader.  For the record, I am all for the practice of having two readers.  But I also think that Ashgate’s departure results in a loss of voices, diminishing the academy.

If you are interested in learning more, or in contributing to the petition, please see Rabia Gregory’s web site and petition.

Digital Humanities Summer Institute

This is just in from the Renaissance Society of America. –Anna

 

The Renaissance Society of America is pleased to announce that it will partner with the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) in 2016, to offer five tuition scholarships (each for one week) to current RSA members who wish to attend the institute.

Additionally, all current RSA members will have the opportunity to register for one of the institute’s courses (one week) at a discounted rate.

The DHSI (dhsi.org) will be held on 6–10 June and 13–17 June 2016 at the University of Victoria, Canada. Participants may choose to attend one or two weeks of the institute. Each week will include a training workshop as well as a selection of colloquia, unconferences, panels, and institute lectures.

Tuition scholarships

Note: If you’re applying for a tuition scholarship, do not register for any course until after the RSA informs you of the result of the scholarship competition. This is because, in the event that you win a scholarship, DHSI cannot refund registrations.

Eligibility: Applicants must already be an RSA member in 2015, and if they win a scholarship, they must renew their membership in 2016.

Deadline: 30 November 2015

The committee will select two non-doctoral scholars, two junior scholars (including adjuncts and independent scholars), and one senior scholar (including adjuncts, independent scholars, and retired scholars).

The scholarship covers the cost of tuition only; transportation and lodging costs are the responsibility of the winner.

Application:

1. Fill out a very brief form that asks for name, email address, mailing address, affiliation, academic status, and discipline.
2. Submit documents by email (as attachments, to DHSIapp@rsa.org):
   • Resume (no more than two pages)
   • One-page letter indicating which DHSI course you propose to attend and how it meets your overarching research aims. Please also identify a second course choice, in the event that your first choice is unavailable.

Discounted registration rate for RSA members

Note: If you’re applying for an RSA tuition scholarship, do not register for any course until after the RSA informs you of the result of the scholarship competition. This is because, in the event that you win a scholarship, DHSI cannot refund registrations.

Before 1 April 2016, RSA members can register for either weeklong course at the discounted rate of $300 for students and $650 for nonstudents. To view a list of all forty-three courses, please go to dhsi.org. Because the most popular courses will fill before April, we recommend that you register in December or January, as soon as the results of the scholarship competition are known.

To register at the discounted rate, you must be a current RSA member (2015) and you must renew your membership for 2016.

• Follow the link from http://dhsi.org/registration.html to the registration system for the DHSI week you have selected. (Note: The schedule, at http://dhsi.org/schedule.php, lays out the general flow of the time, and the courses are listed at http://dhsi.org/courses.php.)
• Register by [1] entering your email address, [2] selecting a course, and (once a course is selected) [3] using the RSA’s discount code. The code is listed here, at http://dhsi.org/registration.html#SponsorRegistration.

ProQuest CANCELS/RESTORES RSA’s EEBO Access

PROQUEST has restored EEBO access through the RSA.  Please see http://www.proquest.com/blog/pqblog/2015/EEBO-Access-Continues-for-RSA-Members.html

Proquest has canceled EEBO access for members of the Renaissance Society of America starting 1 November 2015.  The announcement can be seen on the “Members Benefits” page of the RSA.

This is a deep disappointment for those of us whose libraries do not and cannot subscribe to EEBO.  If ProQuest never intended to offer continuing access, it would have been helpful if they had announced that from the beginning so that members could plan accordingly.  A longer grace period before the announced cancellation would be considerate, especially since the agreement was presented as lasting.

Exhibit: Bibliothecaphilia MASS MoCA (9/29/15 – 1/1/16)

Readers in New England may be interested in this announcement about MASS MoCA’s exhibit “Bibliothecaphilia” reposted from Book History at Harvard.  Anyone who has seen this exhibit and wishes to report back is invited to do so.  “Bibliothecaphilia’s” exhibit page can be found here.  The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA, is always worth a visit.

For centuries, libraries have exerted a quiet sort of gravity, pulling us in with the promise that for a while, in the hushed, book-filled corridors, we can exceed ourselves. But, in this age of eBooks and library apps, does the physical and philosophical space of the library remain relevant? And what qualities define a library? Can libraries exist digitally, or be constituted of things other than books? The six artists in Bibliothecaphilia, explore the medium and ethos of libraries: institutions straddling the public and private spheres, the escapism that libraries offer, libraries’ status as storehouses for physical books — and thus for experiences and knowledge — and the way that these objects circulate and are re-used. Participating artists include Clayton Cubitt, Jonathan Gitelson, Susan Hefuna, Meg Hitchcock, Dan Peterman, and Jena Priebe.

The exhibition coincides with a year-long initiative at Williams College (including the Williams College Museum of Art and Clark Art Institute) dedicated to books, libraries, and information. It focuses on exploring the diverse ways in which people preserve and convey ideas, creative works, data, and other forms of information. The project features a wide array of public presentations, performances, courses, and exhibitions (including at the Williams College Museum of Art and Clark Art Institute) that imagine the theme from many perspectives.

This exhibition is made possible by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in support of MASS MoCA and the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art.

Bibliothecaphilia is curated by Allie Foradas.

Date:

Tuesday, September 29, 2015 – 09:00 to Friday, January 1, 2016 – 17:00

Location:

MASS MoCA

1040 MASS MoCA Way

01247 North Adams, MA

United States

See map: Google Maps

http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=963

Harvard edX MOOC: Robert Darnton’s The History of the Book

I have never been in favor of pushing online teaching in the humanities, but the Harvard edX series makes the most of blending digital technology and humanities teaching.

Readers may be particularly interested in Robert Darnton’s course, which begins this week, “The History of the Book in 17th- and 18th-Century Europe.”

Gregory Nagy’s “The Greek Hero in 24 Hours” is superb, despite the requirement that epics be read in specific translations available only electronically. (A cumbersome 900-page print-out option only inspires desire for separate printed texts).  That said, Nagy’s course is fantastic, and Robert Darnton’s course looks equally valuable.

The Harvard/MIT Edx platform for free online courses rolled out in 2012, not without controversy. as this and other articles suggest.  The courses are making me think–both about their subject matter and about online teaching.