THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2021/2022

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : English Literature

Undergraduate Course: Digital Humanities for Literary Studies (ENLI10378)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryDigital Humanities is a field of study in which scholarly applications of technology are used to perform analyses and generate insights that would be difficult or impossible to achieve without the help of technology. This course will introduce students to a number of digital tools that will aid them both in their studies and their lives beyond university, and will help them to use these tools in a critical way.
Course description Digital humanities is a field of study in which scholarly applications of technology are used to perform analyses and generate insights that would be difficult or impossible to achieve without the help of computers. This course will introduce you to a number of digital tools that will help you both in your study of literature and in your life beyond university, and as we learn to use these tools we¿ll critically assess their output and think about what it means to quantify culture. The course is very hands-on, and you¿ll be given time and support in class as you learn how to use these applications.
The approach taken to digitisation and data in this course is grounded in literature, language and print culture. We¿ll examine computer-mediated communication, and consider the development of digital textual forms in the light of earlier technologies such as the printing press. We¿ll also focus on two kinds of approaches that are particularly prominent within digital literary studies, computational text analysis and digital mapping.
For the main assessment for the course, you¿ll produce a digital project which conforms to the same high standards of scholarly rigour as an assessed essay, and which also makes use of the affordances of the online environment in relation to such things as genre, design and useability. No specialist knowledge of technology is needed: if you can use a word processor and a web browser, you are amply equipped to fully participate in this course. Those who have more experience with software and/or programming will also be catered for: the course has been designed to work for students with a range of abilities and levels of expertise.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2021/22, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  12
Course Start Semester 2
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 196 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) There are three summative assessments for the course:

1. Oral presentation (20%)
2. Class participation (30%)
3. Digital project (50%)
Feedback Students will be offered formative feedback throughout the term on the discursive writing they produce for the class social media accounts, in the form of comments and responses by the class tutor.
The workshop format of the class also enables the class tutor to give students formative feedback in class while they are learning to use the tools for the final digital project, which includes performing different types of analysis and assembling the results into a form appropriate for a digital context. Some of this work will be done in the class itself, precisely so that the class tutor can correct mistakes and fix technical errors as they arise, which is an important part of the formative feedback for the students' work on their digital project.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. - use a selection of digital tools with practical applications for their study and their life beyond the university, for example tools for computational textual analysis, web publishing platforms, and applications that facilitate collaborative working.
  2. - think critically about what they are doing when they read, write, search for information and engage with others in an online environment, building on the critical reading and writing skills they have already begun to develop through their study of English literature.
  3. - produce writing in a number of genres, and to understand how to adapt their writing when producing a public-facing digital artefact.
  4. - articulate some of the benefits and the drawbacks of using digital tools to analyse literary and cultural artefacts.
  5. - attain a level of digital literacy that will allow them to critically interrogate the way they use digital resources to get information and interact with others, and will raise their awareness of the data trails they leave when they use the internet.
Reading List
Compulsory

Darnton, Robert. 'Google and the Future of Books.' New York Review of Books 12 February 2009. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Drucker, Johanna. 'Pixel Dust: Illusions of Innovation in Scholarly Publishing'. Los Angeles Review of Books (2014). Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
Duguid, Paul. 'Material Matters: The Past and Futurology of the Book'. The Book History Reader. 2nd revised ed. Ed. David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. Abingdon: Routledge, 2006. 494-508. Print.
Flanders, Julia. 'The Productive Unease of 21st-century Digital Scholarship.' Digital Humanities Quarterly 3.3 (Summer 2009). Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Grafton, Anthony. 'Future Reading: Digitization and its Discontents.' The New Yorker 5 November 2007. Web. 13 Dec 2013.
Gregory, Ian, and David Cooper. 'GIS, Texts, and Images: New Approaches.' Poetess Archive Journal 2.1 (2010). Web. 13 Dec 2013.
Hayles, N. Katherine. 'How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine,' ADE Bulletin 150 (2010): 62-79. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Hindley, Meredith. 'Mapping the Republic of Letters.' Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities 34.6 (2013). Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Hitchcock, Tim. 'Big Data for Dead People: Digital Readings and the Conundrums of Positivism.' Keynote Address at CVCE Conference: Reading Historical Sources in the Digital Age, 4-5 December 2013. 9 Dec. 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Juola, Patrick. 'Authorship Attribution.' Foundations and Trends in Information Retrieval 1.3 (2006): 233'334. Web. 21 Oct. 2011.
Keim, Brandon. 'Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be ' Paper.' Wired 1 May 2014. Web. 8 May 2014.
Kirsch, Adam. 'Technology Is Taking Over English Departments.' The New Republic 2 May 2014. Web. 8 May 2014.
Kirschenbaum, Matthew. 'What Is Digital Humanities and What's It Doing in English Departments?' ADE Bulletin 150 (2010): 1-7. Print.
Leary, Patrick. 'Googling the Victorians.' Journal of Victorian Culture 10:1 (Spring 2005): 72-86. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Madrigal, Alexis. 'How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood.' The Atlantic 2 Jan. 2014. Web. 18 Nov. 2014.
McCarty, Willard. 'What is Humanities Computing? Toward a Definition of the Field.' Address at Reed College, 2 Mar 1998. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Michel, Jean-Baptiste et al. 'Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books.' Science 331.176 (2011): 176-182. Web.
Nunberg, Geoffrey. 'Farewell to the Information Age.' The Future of the Book. Ed. Nunberg. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. 103-138. Print.
Piez, Wendell. 'Something Called 'Digital Humanities'.' Digital Humanities Quarterly 2.1 (2008). Web. 13 Dec 2013.
Rockwell, Geoffrey. 'What is Text Analysis, Really?' Literary and Linguistic Computing 18.2 (2003): 209-219. Web. 13 Dec 2013.
Schmidt, Ben. 'Reading Digital Sources: A Case Study in Ship's Logs.' Sapping Attention 15 Nov. 2012. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Serlen, Rachel. 'The Distant Future? Reading Franco Moretti.' Literature Compass 7.3 (2010): 214-225. Web. 13 Dec 2013.
Sinclair, Stèfan. 'Computer-Assisted Reading: Reconceiving Text Analysis.' Literary and Linguistic Computing 18.2 (2003): 167-74. Web. 13 Dec 2013.
Underwood, Ted. 'Where to Start with Text Mining.' The Stone and the Shell 14 Aug 2012. Web. 13 Dec 2013.
Underwood, Ted. 'Why Digital Humanities Isn't Actually 'The Next Thing in Literary Studies''. The Stone and the Shell 27 Dec. 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Vanhoutte, Edward. 'The Gates of Hell: History and Definition of Digital | Humanities | Computing.' Defining Digital Humanities: A Reader. Ed. Melissa Terras, Julianne Nyhan, and Edward Vanhoutte. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 119'156. Print.

Other relevant critical material will be made available on Learn.


Recommended

Bartscherer, Thomas, and Roderick Coover, eds. Switching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and the Arts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Print.
Bodenhamer, David, John Corrigan, and Trevor Harris, eds. The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the Future of Humanities Scholarship. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010. Print.
Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. Print.
Davidson, Cathy N. Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. Print.
Gold, Matthew K., ed. Debates in the Digital Humanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Print.
Gregory, Ian, and Paul S. Ell. Historical GIS: Technologies, Methodologies, and Scholarship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
Jockers, Matthew Lee. Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013. Print.
Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2008. Print.
Lang, Anouk, ed. From Codex to Hypertext: Reading at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012. Print.
Moretti, Franco. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for A Literary History. London: Verso, 2005. Print.
Ramsay, Stephen. Reading Machines: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011. Print.
Schreibman, Susan, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, eds., A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Web.
Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. London: Penguin, 2009. Print.
Siemens, Ray, and Susan Schreibman, eds. A Companion to Digital Literary Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Web.
Terras, Melissa, Julianne Nyhan, and Edward Vanhoutte, eds. Defining Digital Humanities: A Reader. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Print.

Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills A. Research and Enquiry (Graduates of the University will be able to create new knowledge and opportunities for learning through the process of research and enquiry): developed through readings and in-class activities; tested by class participation activities, presentation and project.

B. Personal and Intellectual Autonomy (Graduates of the University will be able to work independently and sustainably, in a way that is informed by openness, curiosity and a desire to meet new challenges): developed through class participation activities and presentation.

C. Communication (Graduates of the University will recognise and value communication as the tool for negotiating and creating new understanding, collaborating with others, and furthering their own learning): developed through presentation, class participation activities and project, which ask students to communicate their ideas and understanding in different formats (eg. speaking aloud vs. informal digital writing vs. formal digital writing).

D. Personal Effectiveness (Graduates of the University will be able to effect change and be responsive to the situations and environments in which they operate): developed through the class participation activities, especially those designed to help students understand their digital presence in a fast-changing online environment, and also the collaborative work required to complete the project.
Keywordsdigital humanities,computational analysis,GIS,digital mapping,print culture,data privacy
Contacts
Course organiserDr Anouk Lang
Tel: (0131 6) 5 50 8936
Email: Anouk.Lang@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMs Sheila Strathdee
Tel: (0131 6)50 3619
Email: S.Strathdee@ed.ac.uk
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