Thoughtful new post by our own Josh Honn on how to support digital humanities scholarship among graduate students:
“On (Actually, Really, Digitally) Supporting Humanities Graduate Students,” http://joshhonn.com/?p=2456.
graduate students
Notes on NUDHL #8: Defining DH @ NU
A great big thanks to Emily, Amanda, Andrew, Kevin, Beth, and all the other HASTAC@NUDHL Scholars for organizing a productive meeting!
A few “takeaways”:
We need to move from talking just about graduate education and DH in an all-purpose way to (1) the different stages of graduate education (1st year vs midpoint vs. home stretch) and DH and (2) where the intersections are among disciplines in graduate training and where it’s good for different disciplines to be just that: different—and then how DH can help to mediate those points of convergence and divergence in productive ways.
To me, the example of Andrew’s research encourages graduate students to (1) go for it with whatever tools you have at your disposal…dive in and explore, dead ends and negative results can be just as productive as brilliantly clear breakthroughs; digital humanities can encompass toying with MS Word or even pen and paper…”Why not?!” (2) think about the digital as both a tool of analysis (screwmeneutics, heuristic, analytic in the literal sense and think about it as a tool for visualization, narration, dramatizing an argument you already have articulated; (3) talk with others, consult, converse, seek new perspectives on your research questions, go deeper into your specialty and explore more broadly across different methods; (4) visualization of a poem, the poem as a visual object, comparative work through the digital, layering versions, and other ways that the digital is quite literally (literature-istically?) fertile, productive of new readings and interpretations.
Josh’s presentation reminded me that there is an emerging network or constellation of people, resources, projects, and interests at Northwestern. The challenge is how to give these better “definition,” more support, more instances of connection and elaboration.
– Michael
HASTACers @ NUDHL: Feb. 26 Meeting Minutes
Hello fellow HASTACers. In response to my last post:
Andrew, Amanda, Kevin, and I met up earlier this week to talk about some possible directions for the HASTACers to take this spring. I’m attaching an abbreviated list of the points we touched on, to keep you all in the loop. Please feel free to respond to this post with suggestions, or to bring your ideas to the next NUDHL meeting. We’re hoping we can get all of the HASTAC grads here on board to make next quarter productive.
Also, feel free to use the #NUDHL tag on Twitter to keep the conversation going. You can find me, for example, @emilydvb (as I desperately attempt to become a tweet-er). Looking forward to all of us collaborating on the next quarter.
(Apologies for the messy form of these minutes!)
Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Andrew, Amanda, Kevin, & Emily
1. Discussed potential tools workshops (ex: text mining, coding, GIS, programming languages)
2. Discussed pooling opinions and information via census (which Andrew has created as a Google Doc)
3. Discussed potential census questions
4. Discussed possibility of creating an NUDHL twitter handle
5. Discussed enlisting grad students from other departments (non-humanities) to help us learn coding languages by leading workshops
6. Discussed the possibility of consolidating resources at NU to establish a larger digital community (ex: connecting our work with the library’s ongoing software workshops), trying to connect our grad student digital initiative to other ongoing digital resources @ NU
7. Discussed setting up informal working group (as outlined in NUDHL blog post)
8. What would this look like in a quarter? We think we should approach it on a month-to-month basis. We discussed alternating workshops (to learn tools/skills/technologies) with working groups (presentations and discussions with grad students, Michael, Jillana, and Josh).
9. We think the workshop topics should be determined by the grad student working group. We discussed tracking interests/suggestions/opinions via a short survey at the end of each group meeting.
10. Who is the audience for these workshops and working group meetings? We think it would be best to start out with these sessions being open to all NU grad students, and then eventually expanding to accommodate others. We could keep Michael, Jillana, and Josh in the loop, and ask faculty members to visit and do workshop presentations. We could even expand this to include undergraduates, eventually.
11. We tried to think of a name/label for this initiative FOREVER. Could not think of one that we loved. Agreed on a working title of: Graduate Student Digital Scholarship Working Group
12. Game plan: First step is sending census to HASTACers and non-HASTAC grad students. Second step is having a meeting with Michael, Jillana, (and Josh?). Third step is scheduling first working group (with one presentation and a general meeting among all participants to gauge interests and gather ideas). We are aiming for the second week of April. We’d like to do at least one workshop before the end of the year, and more than one working group.
HASTAC Scholars @ NUDHL
We are delighted to welcome our 11 (!) HASTAC Scholars @ NUDHL. The HASTAC Scholars come from a wide range of fields across the humanities and will be contributing to both the NUDHL blog and the HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Sciences, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) forums this academic year. The HASTAC Scholars @ NUDHL are:
- Emily Vanburen, History
- Aaron Greenberg, English
- Amanda Kleintop, History
- Kendall Krawchuk, Slavic Languages & Literatures
- Sarah Roth, English
- Beth Corzo-Duchardt, Screen Cultures
- Lisa Kelly, Theatre and Drama
- Kevin Baker, History
- Raff Donelson, Philosophy
- Juliana Serôa da Motta Lugão, Spanish and Portuguese
- Jade Werner, English
Life Cache? Literary Cache?
Dear members of NUDHL,
I have a very good reason for writing so late: yesterday I was watching the presidential debate, live-twitting, live fact-checking online and today I was doing… the same thing, but for the local elections in Rio de Janeiro. The time I most enjoy using all this web tools is when elections come . For some reason, I sense that the voters enjoy having the digital tools to engage as citizens. Well, I was a journalist before coming back to academia, that might also mean I’m an election/ debate addict.
I just came from Brazil to start the PhD in the Spanish and Portuguese Department here at NU. I’m part of the first class of this new PhD Program, which makes everything very exciting. My major interest is memory and memory studies in the literary field. But I will be working mainly with contemporary authors and how this genre, this kind of discourse is shaped today. If literature was at some point the space that shaped discourses, reactions, even documented eras, where is it now? Still in the literature? Is it somewhere else? Finally, how does the Internet influence all that?
Also, when we talk about this eternal archiving the web provides I can’t help to think about the traditional archives. How did the “big data” change the way we store raw-material for our own memories? And how do we perceive other’s memories? I have more questions than answers now.
Part of thinking about Digital Humanities and thinking through it, for me, is how the digital is invading every sphere of life and thinking, many times without getting the needed attention.
P.S: Sarah, I’m also a bookie, always guilty for spending so much time on the internet and not on my beloved paper-made objects.
Can’t wait to meet you all!
Juliana
Call for Graduate Students: Become a HASTAC Scholar @ NUDHL
CALL FOR GRADUATE STUDENT HASTAC SCHOLARS @ NUDHL (Northwestern University Digital Humanities Laboratory)
**APPLICATION DEADLINES EXTENDED** INTERNAL APPLICATION DUE SEPT 20, 2012 EXTERNAL APPLICATION DUE SEPT 30, 2012
NUDHL, the Northwestern University Digital Humanities Laboratory, invites graduate students to apply for HASTAC Scholarships in connection with a 2012-2013 Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities Research Workshop. The research seminar is co-organized by Jillana Enteen of the Gender Studies and Asian American Studies programs and Michael Kramer of the History Department and American Studies program. HASTAC (pronounced Haystack) is the Humanities, Arts, Sciences, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, an active website for digital humanities exploration and study that is funded, in part, by the MacArthur Foundation.
REQUIREMENTS AND STIPEND:
HASTAC Scholars @ NUDHL are required to participate in the yearlong research seminar, post blog entries and reflections on laboratory blog as well as the HASTAC website. They will also have the opportunity to share their own work and research in our workshop, on our blog, and in HASTAC’s active online forums.
Graduate students are welcome to apply from all departments and schools at Northwestern. Each HASTAC Scholar will be required to attend at minimum six of the nine research workshop meetings and will receive a $300 stipend, funded by the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities.
The seminar itself is open to both graduate students and faculty members regardless of whether you are a HASTAC Scholar or not. Books and readings are provided for all participants. The seminars will generally be held between 12 and 3pm on three Fridays each quarter. Fall dates are Oct 5, Nov 9, and Dec 7.
APPLICATION PROCESS:
The application process has two parts.
- First, we ask you to apply for the HASTAC Scholars @ NUDHL program. By September 20th, 2012, please send a brief letter to <mjk@northwestern.edu> with your name, affiliation at Northwestern, and a short description of your interests in the digital humanities. You will hear back from us within five days.
- Second, once you hear that NUDHL has accepted your application, you must apply to the HASTAC Scholars program itself by September 30th, 2012. This is a simple and quick process. Instructions are at: http://hastac.org/scholars/apply/form. You may use Michael Kramer, Jillana Enteen, or your own thesis adviser as a “mentor” for the application. Full details of the application process for HASTAC are at http://hastac.org/scholars/apply. The home page for the HASTAC Scholars program can be found at http://hastac.org/scholars/.
If you have any questions, please contact Jillana Enteen at <j-enteen@northwestern.edu> or Michael Kramer at <mjk@northwestern.edu>.