Apr

01

…

writing

(via)

Here is the typical method of publishing: research, research, research, write, edit, write, edit, write, edit, publish, full stop.

Here is the blog version: research/write/edit, publish, research/write/edit, publish, research/write/edit, publish, ad infinitum.

Over the last few months I’ve written a number of posts that have been published quickly upon finishing. Some I wrote over the course of a week, some in a few hours. Some contain higher volumes of outside content, some contain no links at all. Some I read numerous and varied sources to formulate, some came strictly from my own thoughts.

My writing and reading have been distributed over the course of months, as opposed to compartmentalizing them neatly into beginning – middle – end. Because this is a blog, it would make no sense to do all of my research at the start of the project, spend a month or two writing and editing, and then publish all of the posts in rapid succession at the end. That’s just not how the medium works.

Too, there are expectations of readers here that are different from an academic paper. A blog is a place from which people expect consistent content production. Whether that consistency is daily, weekly, monthly, or something more loosely defined, what is not expected is a one-shot deal, a blog that is written all at once and never updated again. Constant content (say that three times fast), not final product, is the game here.

What that also means, in regards to a project that must be turned in, is that there exists an ellipsis at the end of my thesis – a place where it “ends,” except, not really.

I am wrapping this project up because I have to – because deadlines exist - not because it is ending. It might be more appropriate to say that I’m “wrapping it up.” My future work in this space and my future investigation of / participation in the Digital Humanities will not be classified under a CRN number, but it will exist, and in the very same format as my project thus far. This is yet another thing that the muddling of publishing models achieves: a tension in value status of “complete” vs. “ongoing.”

When we complete undergraduate papers, they get turned in, graded, and handed back. They exist to be read by one and only one person: our professor. If we’re working on an especially large project, perhaps other professors or advisors will read them. Maybe if we’re proud of something we’ll send it to a friend or family member. That gives us a grand total audience count of, what? Six? Maybe eight, if we’re ambitious? I’d say that’s generous, even for our bigger papers. The more standard audience count is exactly 1, plus whatever filing cabinet or trash bin they end up in once the semester is over.

This blog, in contrast, will likely (and hopefully) be read by many people, over many years. Its digital form will last as long as I want it to, and its content will show up in any number of different Google searches or ping-backs on other sites. The ellipsis at the end of my thesis and its digital nature ensure that five or ten years from now, someone may read this very entry. Or they may read future entries, and scroll through the archives to see what I’ve said in the past. The point is that blogs are not linear or constrained to a certain timeline and a certain audience, at least in comparison to academic publications.

Which leaves me wondering: what’s the value in that?

What I mean specifically is: to what end is the ellipsis at the end of my project a  valuable part of my project? What is the value of continued and unaffiliated exploration after a grade has been given? In most cases of undergraduate work, our research ends when our classes end. We put things down and forget about them – publish, full stop. But when we explore new arenas of publishing models, ones that a) are read by people outside of our classroom, and b) lend themselves to continued production, our work never really ends. It shouldn’t, at least, if we’re committed to the form.

So the ellipsis dangles. It begs of me: “You’re not finished. You can’t be.” And I’m glad it’s there, because I’m pretty sure I’ll have plenty more to say…

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Mar

30

potential academia

writing

What is this, anyway?

Is this thesis of mine an essay? Is it a blog? What genre does it fall under? What happens when, in a couple of weeks, I use Blurb to turn it into a book? Can it be categorized at all?

One thing that this project has accomplished is the muddling of publishing models, of what we think of when we think “academic research paper.” This was intentional from the beginning, but the process has made clearer the difficulty in moving from something traditional to something digital. Or, rather, in defining that something. There are clear differences in how I write here, in this online space, than how I have written research papers in the past.

I wouldn’t, for instance, say “y’all” in a paper, but I say it here all the time.

I probably wouldn’t cite Google results or Urban Dictionary, but I’ve done that here, too.

There are no chapter headings, necessarily, and it can be read in any order.

Some parts of this project could be skipped entirely, if you were so inclined.

In the coming paragraphs I will cite two books, and in both cases I will link to their respective Google Book entries, instead of giving you a citation in MLA format.

When we move between genres of writing, our writing styles change. Our intentions in writing in different spaces lead to different outcomes, to different types of work. When I write a paper for class, I am writing in a very clear voice for a very specific purpose. When I write something on Twitter, my voice changes, because the point of that platform is not the same. Through his Exercises in Style, Raymond Queneau demonstrates just how changeable voice really is – how you can say the same thing over and over again and sound entirely different. I could have written my thesis in the form of a hard-copy, start-at-the-beginning, 12-point-font, 5-paragraph format essay. The same information that I’ve included in my blog posts over the last few months would have become a very different creature had they been presented in a traditional genre. Then, too, I probably wouldn’t be writing this paragraph at all, as research papers don’t generally lend themselves to reflective entries.

In his essay Brief History of the Oulipo, Jean Lescure writes: “What the Oulipo intended to demonstrate was that these constraints [of literary form] are felicitous, generous, and are in fact literature itself. What it proposed was to discover new ones, under the name of structures” (173). They explored the possibilities of literature through new forms and new genres.

The Oulipo wrote “potential literature,” literature whose form existed only in the imagination.

To borrow from their ideas, I suggest this project as potential academia.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not the first person to write academically in an online space, nor am I the first person to present an academic project in digital form. However, as a part of a traditional English program, what I’m doing exists outside of the norm. When we open academia up to its own potentiality, new things happen. Here, in my blog/thesis/experiment, something new happened. An exercise in style, of sorts, a blending of mediums that has resulted in something of which the academic value remains to be seen, since I haven’t actually turned it in yet (ah yes, value. “value.” more on this next time.). Value aside, however, the point is that classification doesn’t always work the way we think it should. Our preconceived notions of form are bendable, and it is, quite frankly, exciting to bend them.

Heretofore, a thing that was published was a very specific thing. Our day and age, and the potential for different publishing models that come with it, has created a new set of possibilities that weren’t previously available to us. Again, as I’ve said before, when we let ourselves try new things, new things happen. When we drop our ideas of what something like a thesis should be, we discover what something can be. “Should,” ladies and gentleman, is an ugly word. It is a word that I think the Oulipo probably disapproved of, a word that holds us to defined expectations and a narrow belief system.

The world can be our shellfish, y’all, if we let it.

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Mar

24

and how!

writing

As a follow-up to my last post, some quick thoughts on a few ways that programs can incorporate the digital world into their curriculum:

Collaborative Sites: Wikis, Google Docs, etc.

+ : brings new value and ease to the dreaded group work; displays real-time results; better tracking for profs.

Text Analysis: Wordle, etc.

+ : greater understanding of work; adds a new dimension of connection with the material; fun with visualization!

Online Presence: blogs, microblogs, website-building, etc.

+ : students will need a web presence in the future; drive to produce better work when it’s public; potential conversations with people outside of class about coursework.

Social Networking: Facebook, Twitter, etc.

+ : students already know how to use these sites; exploration of different potential for a familiar form; keeping in touch outside of class may spark more connection in class.

- : more time will have to be spent teaching and learning the tools; students may resist putting their work out for the world to see; higher levels of creativity needed by both students and professors when working with new methods.

(then again, these could go in the + column, too.)

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Mar

21

why digitize?

writing

I’ve been thinking a lot about the value of digital work in academic spaces that do not normally lend themselves to  this type of scholarship. There is a reason that Digital Humanities is a field unto itself – because it operates differently than the Humanities traditionally do. The boundaries aren’t necessarily solid and fixed, but there are distinctions that put them into two different camps.

I’m in favor of blurring the line a bit; I believe traditional Humanities programs should embrace the inclusion of digital consumption and production into their coursework.

This is not a statement without controversy. Academia is not quick to change; new ways of doing things can certainly be challenging for those who are perfectly content with old ways. And, of course, new ways do not always equal better ways. There is risk in change. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t, and the value in discovering which is which is not always compelling enough to make us budge.

However.

This is one area where I believe the value exceeds the risk, and where I think we’ll be pleasantly surprised if we give it a shot.

Here’s why:

  • Because that’s just the way the world is going.

We’re living in a digital world. This is a fact. It is a fact that e-readers are selling like hotcakes and that people buy music from iTunes more than the record store. It is a fact that people text and send emails and don’t write letters with pens and paper nearly as often. It is a fact that we’re constantly connected to the cloud and that things we knew previously as nondigital objects now exist in pixels.

These things will not change because some of us are not satisfied with them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a fellow English student lament over the state of the written word and how the Internet is killing literacy, etc. I have lots of opinions about those arguments, but my point here is that, well, that’s just the way it is. The Internet is not going anywhere. Neither are e-readers or iTunes or any number of other digitized versions of things. We have moved into a new arena of navigation with our world, and a big part of that revolves around previously uncharted technologies.

We can lament, or we can take action. That action could be to rally against digitization, and certainly this is a legitimate option. Or that action could consist of trying out these new things and seeing what happens – embracing the facts of our new age and exploring the outcome. If we’re going to live in a digital world, we might as well see what all the fuss is about.

  • Because students can relate to it.

The majority of undergraduate students are in their late teens or early twenties. These kids have grown up digitally connected . They understand this stuff in a way that even I, only a few years older than them, don’t, because they’ve been doing it all of their lives. Sure, not all young people use the same tools, and not all of them are in love with the digital world. But they get it, and for many of them it is simply a way of life. I never questioned television growing up, because there was one in my home as far back as I can remember. There were (and still are) arguments against television, but for me it was just a staple of life. The same goes for kids today with the Internet, with Facebook, with blogs, with texting, etc. For them, there hasn’t ever been anything else.

If these are the people we’re teaching, shouldn’t we be speaking to their experiences? There has got to be value in using tools that students understand intuitively as a means of getting them more engaged with their work. Doing more new media work means that the people who are getting the education will understand it better, because we’ll be speaking their language. More understanding = better education, every time.

Not to mention, if the greater world is moving more and more towards the digital, these are skills students are going to need in the future. For those students who don’t yet have an intuitive understanding of the digital for whatever reason, they’re going to need it eventually. If it’s educators’ jobs to provide students with the skills they’ll need in the workforce, then this necessarily includes some level of competency with digital tools.

  • Because there’s always room for improvement.

The argument for the incorporation of digital tools is not an argument against traditional tools. Incorporation =/= replacement. It shouldn’t, at least, and if it does, there’s a good chance that whatever tool disappears was on its way out to begin with. But the suggestion that “going digital” means completely eradicating anything nondigital simply doesn’t make sense. Sure, I have a Kindle that I love, but I also have a huge bookshelf in my living room that somehow just keeps acquiring new books (some might say “stop buying new books when you already own dozens that you haven’t read,” to which I would say: “pooh-pooh”). They are both important, they both bring me joy, they both serve a purpose in my life. I don’t automatically stop going to Borders because I’ve started shopping at Amazon.

Having a Kindle improves my reading experience. I believe that digital work will improve the classroom experience. We all want our fields of study to get better, even if they’re already good. We want them to be the best they can possibly be.  It’s important to look at all the ways that bettering may be possible, even if some of these ways are far outside of the box that we’re used to.

  • Because if we do what we’ve always done, we’re going to get what we’ve always gotten.

Trying new ways of doing things leads to greater levels of discovery, greater layers of understanding. Certainly there are new revelations that come out of traditional methods – otherwise, we wouldn’t still doing them, right? However, when we continue doing the same thing, we get the same types of results. There are only so many destinations that the same path can lead to. If I always take the highway, I can only end up at places that the highway goes.

When we try something new, when we step off of our usual path, we have no idea what the outcome might be. The possibilities become endless, and the results will be different than they’ve been. They might not be earth-shattering, but they will be different. Different may not equal better, and in some cases it may not even equal valuable, but I’d suspect that in many cases we’ll be quite intrigued by what we discover. At any rate, we’ll be working with new information, and that in itself is valuable.

We gain tremendous insight when we take a step back and question what we’re doing. This goes for all areas of life, not just academia, of course. When we do a thing because that thing is what we’ve always done, we risk missing out on something important. Adding new models of investigating, accessing, and creating information into our studies means that students and professors alike will have more to work with and greater chances of stumbling into uncharted territory. Digital tools can, and will, help make this happen.

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Feb

22

you got your digital in my traditional!

writing

I don’t think I’ve mentioned explicitly that this blog, in its current form, is the substance of my senior thesis project.

Yes, I’m blogging the cumulative work of my undergraduate career.

If that seems a little weird to you, too, then you may be a traditional scholar, like I’ve been.

When I thought “senior thesis” in the past, I thought: 30-40 page paper. I thought: research, write, edit, write, edit, (etc), submit. I thought of one form of writing and one form of publishing only. Traditional or bust, amirite?

Except, no. My project is on Digital Humanities, and if I’m going to be investigating a highly digital, highly experimental, emergent field of study, well then I better be digital and experimental and emergent myself. My background, however, is not in this area. My degree, when I graduate this spring (gulp!), will be in English Language, Literature, and Writing from what is arguably a pretty traditional English program. Branching out from what I’m used to has been exciting, and complicated, and one hell of a learning experience.

I didn’t know it would happen in exactly this way, but I am, as we speak, restructuring my own ideas about what it means to do academic work.

I’ll tell you a little secret: I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re not supposed to admit this in Academia, I don’t think. At least, not all out in the open where anyone can hear you. But I’m pretty sure it’s true more often, and for more of us, than we would have each other believe. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing. In fact, not knowing what I’m doing is a big part of the reason I chose to do this project in this particular way from the very beginning. I like things that are new, that are experimental. I like to look underneath rocks and see what I can do with whatever I happen to find. I like to explore.

However. Liking =/= easy.

It’s tricky, this opening up of my assumptions and expectations of scholarship. There are lots of questions that I don’t have answers for. Not fully formed answers, at least.

To wit: how do I measure what I am doing? This is not a traditional paper or project, so what is it supposed to look like? Is there a certain post count that is equivalent to 40 pages of linear argument? Do I count words? Paragraphs? Do I set a goal for a certain number of posts, and when I’ve reached that, I’m done? Do I copy and paste my posts into Word to keep track of length? When do I stop? How do I turn it in? Etc.?

To all of these: yes, no, and maybe, we’ll see. Yes, there are parameters. I couldn’t write three posts and call it a day. There are equivalency expectations put forth by the Honors College, and for good reason. A cumulative project has to have some degree of substance to be worth a damn, after all.

But, no, the measurements are not the same. First of all, plugging everything into word and calling it good when I reach 35 pages just wouldn’t fit in with the point of this project. It also wouldn’t take into account the different aspects of digital writing that traditional papers don’t incorporate. For instance: If I link to, say, 25 outside sources (or 60, or 200), and my readers follow those links, what then? Does that hold the same value as a reader looking up a cited reference in a bibliography? I don’t think so. For one thing, the ease of access to outside sources is sure to change the reading experience. A person could read half of my blog post, follow a link, be gone for half an hour, and come back to read the rest. Authorship and citation are interwoven with one another here on the Interwebs. What does that mean for the substance of my writing?

Then, too, is the publishing method. These posts are not edited by anyone but me. They don’t get reviewed by one or two or five people before I put them out into the blogoverse. With a traditional thesis, there are layers of writing and editing that happen by not only the author, but their advisor(s). Of course, I generally don’t hit “publish” as soon as I’m done writing; I let posts sit for hours or days, and re-read/edit them before I make them public. But no one else is responsible for the quality of my work except for myself, which means that my thesis will never be “polished” in the same way that a traditional paper would be, for the simple fact that there is only one of me.

The most fascinating question that I have yet to answer is that of the end point. This is a blog. More importantly, it’s a blog that I created for purposes other than my thesis. Which is to say, this project is not self-contained. When the time comes that I am “done” with my thesis work, I will still be writing here. There’s a good chance that I will still be writing here about the same subjects that I am writing about currently. I have no intention of abandoning the field of Digital Humanities and the question of traditional-meets-digital once I’m finished with my undergraduate degree. How do I incorporate the ongoing and never-quite-finished aspect of my work into something that I must turn in at the end of the semester?

The more I think and read and write, the more questions arise. None of this is simple, or easy. It’s kind of messy, it’s a little strange, and it’s certainly not going to be resolved in this one post. But these are questions that are important, not only to me, but to the myriad of students and scholars out there who will turn to digital creation more and more as time goes on. It may not be traditional, but it sure is fascinating.

(word count: 1,005 – 3 pages, double spaced)

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Feb

14

this is dh: part 3, the point

writing

[part 1, part 2.1, part 2.2, part 2.3 , interlude]

Investigating the Digital Humanities programs at Loyola, UCL, and Alberta has been educational, and in some ways challenging to what my previous ideas of DH were.

My original intent was to pinpoint what separates DH from traditional Humanities. I questioned in the beginning the importance of labels. I wondered if in calling something “Digital Humanities,” we were being redundant, or drawing too hard a line between things that are far more gray than not. I wondered how we know when we are practicing a standalone H or an H paired with a D. After looking into how one goes about becoming a bona fide Digital Humanist, I’ve discovered that there is, indeed, a line.

Both Loyola and UCL‘s programs aim to train professional Digital Humanists, without focus on moving further up in Academia. Alberta is a bit of an outlier in that their program is both professionally and academically minded, which leads to a greater leaning toward the theoretical. However, what they all have in common is this: the emphasis is on the technical. The emphasis is on the tools, not the Humanities.

This is demonstrated especially in the fact that not one of these programs defines for their students what “Humanities” is. There are a broad range of specialization options and the freedom to work in whichever Humanistic field the students choose. These are not Digital English programs or Digital History programs or Digital Arts programs, they are Digital Humanities programs. There is incredible range that exists inside of that word, spanning a vast array of scholarship and authorship. Although students of these DH programs choose the field(s) in which they are most interested in working, that path is not set for them by the department, and certainly not in the courses that exist at their foundation. The important thing is not which area a person works in, but how they work in them.

The programs are highly technical. The foundational courses teach students digital tools: what they are, why they’re important, and how to use them. They are skill based; they revolve around digitized methods of operation. Where traditional Humanities programs may introduce their students to these concepts, and perhaps provide them with introductory skill-building opportunities, DH programs center on the digital.

When I started out I would have defined DH as such: Humanities work done with digital tools. This isn’t quite right, I’ve discovered. This definition puts the digital tools in the background, and sets the Humanities on center stage. It should be the other way around. Digital Humanities is capital-d Digitization applied to Humanistic work. Although I think the term “Digital Humanities” implies that it is simply an extension of traditional scholarship, it is really the technical skills that are at the foundation of DH. These are digital professionals using their skills for work in the Humanities.

So, the question of “where do we draw the line?” becomes defunct. The line is there. Yes, both traditional H and DH center around certain fields, and have certain things in common. In the content of investigative interest, they’re quite similar. But in method and skill set, they are different. Although one may borrow from the other, they are effectively doing two different things, two different ways (or many different things, many different ways). Certainly that’s not to say that they contrast as wildly as, say, performance art and electrical engineering. It is to say, however, that there is more separation than I previously thought. I expected two sides of the same coin, and walked away with two different coins of the same monetary system. Both exciting, both useful, both valuable in their own right. But each with their own individual place in the universe. Or wallet, as the metaphor goes.

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Feb

11

this is dh: part 2.3, Alberta

writing

[part 1, part 2.1, part 2.2]

Required courses for the University of Alberta Humanities Computing degree are: Survey of Humanities Computing, Theoretical Issues, Technical Concepts and Approaches, and Project Design and Management. The foundation of this program is rooted more in the theoretical than the previous programs I’ve looked at. Both the Survey course and the Theoretical course focus on evaluation, analysis, and give students a deeper look at the history and theory behind HC. In both Technical Concepts and Project Design, students move more toward the technical skills needed to produce digital work, although assessment rather than creation still seems to be highly valued.

In addition to the required classes, students choose five additional courses: at least two from the list of Humanities Computing options, and two from their home (I assume this means Humanities) department. The optional HC classes include Electronic Texts, online information systems, Multimedia, Posthumanism, and Research Methods. Again, most of these courses seem to focus more on traditional theoretical work, rather than technological skill-building. There is a final thesis, although there is no information on the expected format.

Although the Humanities Computing degree is set up as a professional program, it’s important to note that unlike Loyola and UCL, Alberta does mention that they also prepare their students for further work in a PhD program. This seems to be the most academically oriented program of the bunch. It  was created more than a decade before the other two, and I imagine that at the time of its inception, Humanities Computing was neither well-known nor set up as a professional career option for many people.

Alberta’s faculty members come from a wide range of backgrounds. There are professors of Philosophy, Classics, Literature, Information Science, and Theatre. Most of the professors are based in the Humanities, which is in keeping with Alberta’s heavier focus on the “Humanities” side of HC. Their research explores a diverse and intriguing array of topics  including public dictionary crowdsourcing, play/film script analysis, alternative browsing designs, and Canadian history.

Up Next: So… what?

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Feb

10

this is dh: part 2.2, UCL

writing

[part 1, part 2.1]

The foundation for UCL’s MA/MSc program in Digital Humanities consists of four required modules. Digital Resources in the Humanities is an introductory course, with a focus on teaching students what types of resources exist, how to evaluate and manage them, and to some degree, how to create them. Internet Technologies centers around creating a foundational understanding of markup languages, with a heavier emphasis on the creation of digital texts. XML focuses specifically on, well, XML. Finally, Database Systems provides a more advanced education on the intricacies of databases by requiring the students to create a working system themselves over the course of the term.

The most interesting part of this particular program is the incredible range of specialization possibilities. Students are required to choose an additional four modules from a list of almost thirty options. The subject areas range from Anthropology to Design to Linguistics to Archaeology to History to Multimedia and on and on and on. Students also have the choice to take one module of “pure humanities” from an outside department. UCL provides a tech-heavy foundational basis for their students, as well as giving them the ability to focus in on whatever specific area they choose. They are able to tailor their education to exactly what is right for their future goals.

The final project of the degree is a an applied placement (which I take to be the same thing as an internship in the States), and a dissertation. Much like Loyola, UCL is a heavily applied program, focusing on giving their students the technical skills they need to work in their field, as well as the experience necessary to succeed once they graduate. For students who are interested in the education they offer but not in pursuing a degree, the College offers Short Courses in XML, Internet Tech, and Digital Resources. Students of these individual modules can apply the credit they earn to a MA or MSc in DH in the future, if they choose.

The faculty (or “Team” as they’re called) at the Centre for DH is mostly comprised of tech-centered professors, in fields like Electronic Communication, Virtual Environments, and Information Studies. They have an impressive and broad listing of research, although they note that it’s not only projects being undertaken by members of UCL, but affiliated members as well.  One of my personal favorites is Qrator, which seeks to create a more interactive environment for museum-goers, including what sounds like a Yelp-esque communication forum. Very, very neat.

Up Next: Alberta

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Feb

08

this is dh: part 2.1, Loyola

writing

[part 1]

I started off my comparative look at three different DH programs by giving a general overview of  how each one is set up and the type of degree they offer. Now let’s take a closer look at how students in each of the programs get there, who they’re working with, and what the institution as a whole is doing.

Loyola requires six foundational courses, including a capstone thesis project. There are two elective requirements, to be chosen from whichever courses happen to be offered that particular year that fit the student’s individual academic goals. Examples include “Social and Ethical Issues in Computing,” “Media and Culture,” and “Archives and Records Management.” Additionally, the program is split up into two different tracks, so that a student whose background is in Humanities is required to take an Intro to Computing course, and a student with a CS background would take a graduate-level Humanities course in their chosen field.

The six base courses for the degree are: Intro to Digital Humanities Research, Textual Studies and Scholarly Editing, Markup Languages: Electronic Editions, HCI Design, Instructional Design and e-Learning, and the Directed Electronic Thesis.

The focus of all of the courses, of course (ha), is the use of digital tools in the evaluation and creation of texts. They look at ethical issues, social implications, and historical factors of digital work, teach technical skills and educational tools, and culminate in an “innovative electronic project” that is meant to function as a real-world practical application of DH principles and theories. The coursework seems to be heavily tech-based, instilling its students not only with a theoretical understanding Digital Humanities, but a real working knowledge of how to function in the field.

The faculty at the Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities is composed mostly of CS and English professors, however the Steering Committee and Advisory Board include a wide range of people from different fields including History, Communication, Bioinformatics, Fine Arts, and IT. As expected, this is a heavily interdisciplinary consortium.

The research at CTSDH is a bit more narrow in its scope, composed mostly of work in the field of English. It’s important to note, I think, that CTSDH is a new Centre, having only started in 2009, and the MA program will launch this September. I imagine as the program grows, their areas of research will expand and broaden. These things take time, after all.

Up Next: UCL

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Feb

07

this is dh: part 1, an introduction

writing

In my last post, I asked the question, “Where do we draw the line between what constitutes DH and what is simply plain old Humanities?” I thought I’d take a stab at answering that question, specifically by looking at the people and institutions that very clearly claim the title Digital Humanities. What better place to start, then, but the programs that are training the DHers of the future?

I picked three programs to dissect and compare: Loyola University Chicago, University College London, and the University of Alberta. All three offer an MA in Digital Humanities, or in the case of Alberta, Humanities Computing. Certainly, these are not the only Masters programs in the field (and there are plenty of PhD programs, as well), but they do have the distinction of being part of a select few that specifically use the DH title. They’re also in three different countries, which I thought would lend itself nicely to getting a broader view of how DH works.

My questions are these: How does each program define what they’re doing? What does their coursework and research look like? Are they professional degrees, or do they expect their students to continue further in Academia? What about the three programs is similar? Different? Are there contradictions?  How do all of these things differ from what I know about traditional Humanities programs?

 

A General Overview:

Loyola’s program resides in the Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences. The program is brand spanking new, in fact the very first set of students will not start until this coming fall. They describe this degree as professional:

The Digital Humanities program combines theoretical and practical courses, but its aims are ultimately practical and professional, training new digital specialists for the growing knowledge and information economy. Because the nature of Digital Humanities work is applied and project-based, students in the M.A. program will be given hands-on training in workshop or seminar-based classes, training in text editing and text encoding, electronic publishing, programming, interface design, and archive construction.

The program requires 30 hours of work, and has two separate tracks, depending on if the student’s background is in Computer Science or the Humanities. Students’ work culminates in a final electronic thesis.

The Centre for Digital Humanities at UCL has also only just started offering their MA/MSc program as of this coming fall. Their website states that there is an incredible amount of interest in the program, and encourages students to apply ASAP. Again, the coursework leads up to a dissertation. Although they don’t use the phrase “professional degree”, they do note that “…students will work on a practical application of digital humanities… ,” and that during the writing of their dissertation they will “…undertake a placement at a related institution where they can apply taught aspects of the programme.”

Alberta’s MA in Humanities Computing is offered through the Faculty of Arts. Again, this is effectively a professional program, although they note that their students will also be prepared to continue on to a PhD program, if they so choose:

Graduates of the program are well positioned for leadership in important emerging areas such as digital libraries, electronic publishing, electronic museum archives, and distance learning. … Through its emphasis on graduate-level study in one of the participating humanities departments, the program also prepares students for the option of continuing graduate work at the Ph.D. level in their field of specialization.

From poking around on Google, it appears as though this program started all the way back in 2001 (see Sean Gouglas’s description here), which makes it incredibly established compared to the other two (and quite possibly ahead of its time, back then).

 

Up Next: A closer look at each of the programs’ coursework, faculty, and research.

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