October 17th, 1:30 – 3:00 P.M.
Wilson Media Lab (220 Davis Family Library)

Scalar is an open-access digital publishing technology that allows authors (whether scholars or students) to engage closely and critically with media through annotation, arrangement, and more. In this workshop, you will be introduced to the basics of writing in and with Scalar and to potential classroom uses. Because it is a digital publication platform, using Scalar in the classroom foregrounds issues of audience, tone, design, and argument. Together we will explore and assess how traditional assignments might be reimagined through Scalar.

No technical expertise required.

Registration for the workshop is free but required. Please sign up below or send an email to dla@middlebury.edu (put Scalar Workshop in the subject line). Wilson Media Lab has 16 Mac workstations. If you would prefer to work with a PC, please bring your own laptop.

Sample assignments for workshop:

• Alicia Peaker’s “Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body” Writing Portfolio | pdf docx
• Louisa Stein’s “Remix Culture” Assignment | pdf docx video

 

[sign_up_sheet]

Have questions about the digital liberal arts? Need help with a project? Seeking collaborators? Come meet other interested faculty, staff, and students in an informal setting on Thursdays, from 12:30-1:30 in the CTLR Lounge in the Davis Family Library.

Special Sessions

In spring 2015 the DLA is launching a special series called “Behind the Scenes: Demystifying Project Development in the Digital Liberal Arts” that will run every other week during the Brown Bag Lunches. During these sessions, Middlebury faculty and staff will share stories and tips from their experiences creating digital projects.

Feb. 19 – Daniel Houghton, (Arts Technology Specialist, DLA), “Collaborative Media Production”
March 5 – Holly Allen (American Studies), “Doing Digital Public History at Middlebury”
March 19 – Anne Knowles (Geography), “Dealing with Data”
April 2 – Christopher Andrews (Computer Science), “Bespoke Visualization”
April 16 – Carrie Anderson (HARC), “Planning and Documenting a Digital Project”
April 30 – Louisa Stein (Film & Media), “Digital Publishing and Rethinking Our Audience”

Stay in the loop for future DLA events by signing up for our mailing list in the right-hand column.

September 18th, 12:30 – 2:00 P.M. Wilson Media Lab (220 DFL)

On Thursday, Sept. 18, Professor Tara McPherson (USC) will lead an introductory workshop on Scalar, a free, open source authoring and publishing platform that’s designed to make it easy for authors to write long-form, born-digital scholarship online. Scalar enables users to assemble media from multiple sources and juxtapose them with their own writing in a variety of ways, with minimal technical expertise required.

If you would like to learn about this semantic web authoring tool, please sign up below or send an email to dla@middlebury.edu (put Scalar Workshop in the subject line). Wilson Media Lab has 16 Mac workstations. If you would prefer to work with a PC, please bring your own laptop.

Tara McPherson, a keynote speaker in the 2014 Clifford Symposium, is Associate Professor of Critical Studies at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. She is a core faculty member of the IMAP program, USC’s innovative practice based-Ph.D., and an affiliated faculty member in the American Studies and Ethnicity Department. Her research engages the cultural dimensions of digital media, including the intersection of gender, race, affect, and place.

[sign_up_sheet]

The DLA will host a bi-monthly faculty reading group to explore themes and issues in the digital liberal arts by discussing peer-reviewed articles, short books, blog posts, digital projects, and websites. This fall, we will examine the complex, contentious landscapes of the digital and spatial humanities. Led by Alicia Peaker and Anne Knowles, the reading group is an open forum for learning about the plurality of approaches and critically assessing their applications in digital projects.

Faculty are welcome whenever they can come. Watch this space for session readings.

Logistics:

We will meet every other Friday from 1:30 – 3: 00 P.M. at Alicia’s house (email dla@middlebury.edu for address). Coffee, tea, and light refreshments will be offered.

Sept 26th – Intro to DH and digital liberal arts

Readings:

• Drucker, Johanna. “Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship.”
• Kirschenbaum, Matthew. “What is the Digital Humanities and What’s It Doing in English Departments?”
• Pannapacker, William. “Stop Calling it Digital Humanities: And 9 other strategies to help liberal-arts colleges join the movement.
• Hockey, Susan. “The History of Humanities Computing.” (optional)

Oct 10th –  Network analysis & visualizations

• Weingart, Scott. “Demystifying Networks.”
• Moretti, Franco. “Network Theory, Plot Analysis.”
• Project: Mapping the Republic of Letters
  • Case Study 1: Ben Franklin
  • Case Study 2: Voltaire

Oct 24th – Spatial humanities

• Bodenhamer, David. “Bodenhamer Potential of Spatial Humanities.”
• Cooper & Gregory. “Cooper&Gregory Lake District 2011.”
• Gigliotti, et al. “Gigliotti et al. From the Camp to the Road.”

Nov 7th – Digital pedagogies

• Sample, Mark. “Building and Sharing (When You’re Supposed to be Teaching).”
• Ross, Nancy. “Teaching Twentieth Century Art with Gender and Data Visualizations.”
• Morris, Sean. “Digital Pedagogy: A Case of Open or Shut.”
• Examples of assignments and student work (optional):
  • Croxall, Brian. Assignments for Introduction to Digital Humanities course at Emory.
  • Various student projects from Susan Smulyan’s 2010 Digital Scholarship course at Brown.

Nov 21st – Critiques of the Digital Humanities

• Bailey, Moya. “All the Digital Humanists are White, All the Nerds are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave.”
• Nakamura, Lisa. “Economies of Digital Production in East Asia: iPhone Girls and the Transnational Circuits of Cool.”
• Risam, Roopika & Adeline Koh. “Postcolonial Digital Humanities.”
  • Project: Rewriting Wikipedia, led by Adeline Koh and Roopika Risam

Dec 5th – Reflections and Next Steps

• No readings this week. Discussion questions will be circulated via email. Contact Alicia Peaker (apeaker[at]middlebury[dot]edu) for more information.