DH @ Guelph Fall 2012/Winter 2013 | College of Arts

DH @ Guelph Fall 2012/Winter 2013

Fall 2012

DigiCafé (October 12, 2012)  Bill Turkel: "Doing History in Real TIme"

Bill Turkel (Western University) presented a talk entitled "Doing HIstory in Real Time" which offered some practical considerations for those using digital resources in their research or teaching. After the talk, Bill sat down for a chat.

Bill Turkel Conversation Video Link 1

Getting started with digital humanities

 Bill Turkel Video Link 2

How do students respond to digital course components?

 Bill Turkel Video Link 3

Some thoughts on the future of digital humanities

Learn more about Bill's work: http://williamjturkel.net/
A Workflow for Digital Research Using Off-the-Shelf Tools: http://williamjturkel.net/how-to/

DigiRead

Fall 2012 discussion topics included:

  • Defining the Digital Humanities

  • The Standards and Ethics of Building and Using Things

  • Critiquing the Digital Humanities: Race, Class, Gender, and Accessibility

  • Collaboration, Publication, and Credit

Winter 2013

DigiCafé (March 1, 2013)  Aimée Morrison: "ACADEMIC/ONLINE"

In the “age of Facebook,” how might we shift the social parameters of scholarship to further the core academic missions of research, teaching, and service in online venues?

Surveying high-functioning academic networks across Twitter, Facebook, and the blogosphere particularly, drawn from the Digital Humanities community, participants will not only discover the wealth of resources available for them to use, but also learn techniques for effective self-presentation as academics online.

Aimée Morrison is an Associate Professor in English at the University of Waterloo. She specializes in new media theory and practice, and has published in New Media and Society, Biography, Feminist Media Studies, and elsewhere. Her current project, Deciphering Digital Life Writing, is funded by a SSHRC Standard Research Grant. She teaches a yearly workshop at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute at the University of Victoria. She is a founding editor of the feminist academic blog Hook & Eye, and can be found on Twitter at @digiwonk.
 
After the talk, Aimée sat down with us for a chat.
 

DigiRead, Winter 2013

Discussions of works in progress included:

  • Andrew Ross (History) – People in Motion (using census and military records to reconstruct and study historical life trajectories)
  • Emily Robins Sharpe (SETS) – Canada and the Spanish Civil War: a Digital Research Environment
  • Hannah McGregor (SETS) – Vast and Unwieldy Archives: Middlebrow Magazines and Digital Remediation

 

DigiDo Workshops, Winter 2013

TEXT VISUALIZATION WORKSHOP
VOYANT TOOLS (Dr. Stéfan Sinclair, McGill University)
 
The user-friendly suite of Voyant tools offers a wide range of ways to analyze and visualize texts for research or teaching. Come to this free workshop with Voyant creator Stéfan Sinclair, who will show you how you can easily use Voyant with your own single texts or collections of texts. Snacks will be served. Bring a laptop or a datastick containing some texts that interest you.

SPATIAL HUMANITIES: EXPLORING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE HUMANITIES

Arguably all topics of research in the Humanities have some relationship with space.  Dependent upon the discipline and context of study, the definition of space can be influenced by class, capital, gender and race amongst other constructs and further through the perspective of the individual versus the collective.  The concept of space in this context is thus complex and relativistic.

With the advent of tools such as Google Earth and mapping applications on our mobile devices, spatial understanding has begun to permeate everyday communication and navigation seemingly encouraging a level of spatial awareness amongst the general population not seen in decades.  Suddenly academics are presented with a plethora of digitized historical maps, imagery and other previously analog artifacts of history/culture that can be analyzed using computing techniques to reveal new patterns and trends that have previously remained hidden.  Not surprisingly there has been a steady uptake amongst academics within the Humanities in the usage of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in their research.  The results of which have been visually powerful and in many cases offer new perspectives on long studied topics.

Jennifer Marvin, GIS Librarian and DRC Coordinator address the topic of Spatial Humanities through a two part series. 

Beginning with the lecture, Jennifer will introduce the impetus of spatial analysis, including arguments for and against its place in the Humanities.  Innovative examples of key initiatives and research, locally and further afield will be used to demonstrate key concepts and processes.  Attendees will leave with a basic understanding of the potential of GIS and spatial analysis and its use within the Humanities.

A hands on workshop will be offered to those interested in test driving various GIS (Geographic Information Systems) tools.  Freely available web based tools such as Google Earth, and proprietary software, ESRI ArcGIS will be used. 

ZOTERO (Online bibliographic management software)
Get organized with Zotero, a free web-based reference management program that helps you to collect, cite, and share your research sources.  The workshop will cover the basics of getting started and setting up your resource library.   Recommended: Bring your own laptop, or book one from the Media Centre.

http://www.zotero.org

DROPBOX (Online document storage) Where's that file?  Dropbox is a free service that lets you get at your documents wherever you are, and share them with colleagues on collaborative projects.  Learn how to get this useful tool working for you. Recommended: Bring your own laptop, or book one from the Media Centre.
https://www.dropbox.com