01-01: Introduction to Digital History

Matt Price

About Me

matt_headshot.jpg
  • Historian of Science & Technology
  • Interdisciplinary Background
  • Interest in "Engaged" scholarship

Why Care about History? Why care about the Digital Age?

History

The World Out of Which We Come

The past is the world out of which we have come, the multitude of events and experiences that have shaped our conscious selves and the social worlds we inhabit. To understand how and why we live as we do, we cannot avoid appealing to the past to explain how and why we got to be this way. ([CrononWhyMatters2000], p. 4)

Not just Fact but Story

It is remembering and storytelling we care about, not the raw past, because only by being perennially resurrected in the mind of each new generation does the past become meaningful. Only this does it become a living memory which in turn gives meaning to our present lives by reminding us ho we are–as individuals, as a state and nation, as a people. (Ibid., p. 13)

A Digital Age

Opportunity

  • masses of data
  • tremendous participation

Challenge

  • filtering data
  • trusting writers
  • lack of collective experience

Our Project

Understand how to write history for a digital age!

  • what can we preserve?
  • what opportunities are there for change?
  • what has been done already?

Class Method

For most of us, DH is experimental.

  • no canon
  • minimal technical background
  • unknown professional plans

Systematic inquiry won't get us where we want to go

  • Hackers not Computer scientists!
  • Basic Concepts & Practical Tools, as a foundation for self-guided further learning
  • Trial & Error, frustration management

(cf. constructivist pedagogy, e.g.)

  • Intro to toolbox
  • but tools keep changing
  • therefore: simple coding, basic plumbing: code editors,version control, web dev absolute basics

Syllabus

Some Highlights

Participate

  • come to class unless you absolutely cannot!
  • watch these lectures!
  • join Slack
  • ask questions
  • help your classmates

Be Willing to Try

  • get outside your comfort zone
  • if you don't get it right, try again
  • read the assignments & follow instructions & feedback carefully

Use your Computer

  • we will code almost every class
  • but not chat/social media

Find the Fun

  • every challenge is an opportunity

4 blocks!

Text and Code

  • Aims:
    • understand how the web works and what it changes about the practice of history
    • Intro to our tools & infrastructure (code editor, version control, build tools)
    • Intro to HTML and CSS (web page structure and appearance)

Data Driven History

  • Aims:
    • understand "Distant Reading" and the problems of textual abundance
    • experiment with treating texts as data
    • distinguish between "meaning" and "information"
    • introduction to Javascript (variables, functions, control structures)

Maps & Visualization

  • Aims:
    • understanding geohistory
    • GIS basics
    • work with web-based GIS

Oral History & Crowdsourcing

  • Aims:
    • work with non-textual media
    • appreciate the power and perils of crowdsourced & amateur history
    • plan your own professional or independent future as a digital historian

Objectives

At the end of this course, you should:

  • be able to describe to others what the phrase "digital humanities" means to you.
  • be able to frame a coherent and nuanced argument of your own about the value of DH methods to the field of history
  • be able to clearly state and defend a position regarding "engaged scholarship", and articulate the relationship of your argument to the contemporary media landscape
  • have a basic understanding of markup languages and their use in DH
  • be able to read and navigate basic Javascript programs
  • be able to make compelling use of media materials such as audio, video, and animation in historical arguments
  • understand how to create simple historical maps, and have an opinion about the value of GIS in historical argument

Weird Grading Method

  • you choose what grade you want to get
  • do the assignments required for that grade
  • to "pass" an assignment, you need to achieve a high standard – approx. B+
  • if you fail the first time, you have a chance to try again
  • +/- set by participation

Assignments

Assignment Due Date Skills/Aims A B C D
Class Profile May. 07 version control and collaboration ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
G & GH Extras     ✔      
Zero to Blog Post May. 15 web markup and presentation ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Z2B Extras     ✔      
A Feast of Ministers May. 22 Programming Concepts: abstraction, loops, data types ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Ministers Extras     ✔      
DOM and Data May. 29 Programming Concepts: Object structure, substitution, text as data ✔ ✔ ✔  
DOM and Data Extras     ✔      
Spatial History Jun. 03 API's, GIS ✔ ✔    
Oral History Jun. 12 API's, Multimedia Narratives ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Project Proposal Jun. 17 Imagine a Digital History Project ✔      
             

Assignments, put another way

To Pass

  • Class Profile
  • Zero to Blog Post
  • A Feast of Ministers
  • Oral History

To Get a C

  • Class Profile
  • Zero to Blog Post
  • A Feast of Ministers
  • DOM and Data
  • Oral History

To Get a B

  • Class Profile
  • Zero to Blog Post
  • A Feast of Ministers
  • DOM and Data
  • Spatial History
  • Oral History

To Get an A

  • Class Profile
  • Zero to Blog Post
  • A Feast of Ministers
  • DOM and Data
  • Spatial History
  • Oral History
  • Project Proposal
  • All Reflection Questions

Participation

  • come every time (unless you really can't)!
  • pay attention and ask questions!
  • no email/youtube/reddit/facebook etc etc etc etc
  • participate in Slack!

Assignments 0 and 1!

  • Check the website for details
  • Both due soon!
  • Hoping to make some improvements to make your lives a little easier – hence the delay

Before class

Intros

  • In Slack #general channel, introduce yourself – name, year, majors, interest in class; also something else about yourself that will help us all remember tha that name on the screen is a real live person :-)

Take some time for this one!

in #project-fantasies channel, imagine a Digital History project. Then see what other people have proposed and comment on their ideas, remembering to thread your comments using the "start a thread" icon (a bit like this: 💬) which you will find by the original idea post.

Bibliography