The Digital Past Rewind

Digital History

Open source/Open access

 

Collaboration

 

New scales of analysis/publication

Our DH mantra...

Remember what Miriam Posner taught us:

You can analyze any digital project by considering these three things: what sources are used and how are they being processed by the computer and presented to the public?

What about DH tools?

The same categories also apply to thinking about DH tools: processing and presenting.

Presentation tools are mostly used to convey meaning to readers through a publication--think Soundcite or Juxtapose.

Processing (or computational) tools are mostly used by researchers to explore, ask questions of, or transform humanities data--we will experiment with this when we do text analysis, for example.

Some tools do both: help a researcher ask questions of data and present their findings to readers--mapping could be considered one of these tools.

What is history?

Our definition:

An argument about how to interpret the past.

Therefore, everything we read will be made up of an argument + sources.

1. Identify the author: what is their name? what is their field? what is their stake in the topic we're discussing?
    
2. Identify the main argument(s): you can usually find this in the first few paragraphs of a piece.
    
3. Identify evidence used: how does the author make their argument? what kind of evidence are they using (documents, photographs, etc.) and what kind of writing is this (cultural, political, medical history, etc.)?
    
4. Identify important sections of the reading: moments when the author makes an interesting point? ties things all together? doesn't quite make sense or raises further questions? Be sure to the page number so you can easily cite it later, or direct your classmates to it in discussion groups.

Skimming history in 4 easy steps.

Citation matters!

I've been seeing some ...creative citations in your blog posts and midterms.

Make sure citations include the following information:

• Author(s) (remember--PEOPLE write scholarship)
• Title of piece (chapter, article, blog)
• Title of larger publication (entire book, journal, website)
• Date of publication
• Place of publication (websites can be an exception)
• URL.

For example:

Sheila Brennan, "Digital History," The Inclusive Historian's Handbook, June 4, 2019, https://inclusivehistorian.com/digital-history/.

What about the New Deal era?

These are the four arts and culture projects created under the WPA that put American artists back to work: Federal Arts Project, Federal Writers' Project, Federal Music Project, and Federal Theater Project.

Remember Kenneth Bindas' argument: FDR's central dilemma was how to meet the economic and spiritual needs of the nation. Federal One projects were uniquely able to address both, but each project had to prove its usefulness in the face of criticism.

We're moving our focus in the second half of the semester to the Federal One Project.

Putting it all together...

For the remainder of the semester will use digital tools to process and present primary sources created by Federal One projects. We will annotate photographs, text mine life histories, create timelines from oral histories, and map travel guides.  
 

Reading actively and critically will help guide the way you process and present these sources. Having good notes, and understanding the arguments in our readings, will make sure you approach these projects with good questions and start to develop good answers.

And, as always, don't panic!

...and don't forget to Google and use the #help channel.