Postgraduate Course: Digital Modernisms (ENLI11198)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | In this course we will examine the intersection of Digital Humanities and Modernist Studies. In recent years scholars of literary modernism have embraced the potential of digital technologies, exploring the innovative modes of analysis and critical methods they make possible and thereby generating new insights into modernist literature. At the same time, many of the key paradigms that we associate with modernism¿ideas about the radical and the new, the inter-medial and the experimental¿have underpinned debate about the value of digital media and digital scholarship. We will analyse projects and discussions that have resulted from this mutual engagement, evaluating their contribution to Modernist studies, considering the kinds of questions that they raise, and contextualising them in broader debates about the future of humanities scholarship. In parallel, we will also conduct our own practical exploration of digital humanities tools and methods, experimenting with technologies such as encoding, text mining, network analysis, and mapping, in order to collaboratively analyse and explore modernist texts.
(No specialised technical knowledge is required)
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| Course description |
1. Introduction: Defining Digital Modernisms / Defining Digital Humanities
2. Modernist Projects and Paradigms
3. Text Encoding
4. Text Analysis 1: Big Data
5. Text Analysis 2: Scalable Reading
6. Mapping and Timelines 1: The Geospatial Turn
7. Mapping and Timelines 2: Modernist Moves
8. Project Workshop
9. Network Analysis 1: Small worlds and Complex Networks
10. Network Analysis 2: Networked Modernism
11. Humanities 2.0: DH and the Future of Scholarship
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, through contributions in class, blogs, independent reading, and practical work, students should:
*Understand some of the ways in which digital humanities methods and tools can expand, develop and challenge other forms of scholarship
*Have a critical awareness of the key concepts and paradigms that underpin discussion of the digital humanities
*Have a critical awareness of the key concepts and paradigms that underpin discussion of modernist literature
*Be able to synthesise this knowledge in order to define small scale research questions and use simple digital tools to answer them
*Have developed digital literacy skills, including an understanding of text encoding and data management, how to create and maintain digital research profiles through the use of social media, and the ability to present scholarship online
*Have developed team work and collaboration skills in online and offline environments
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Reading List
In addition to the seminar readings below, students will be expected to conduct project research, sourcing and reading critical material relating to the modernist writer on which their group is focusing. Seminars in weeks 3 - 10 will also involve analysis of online DH projects.
Seminar Readings
Week 1
* Kirschenbaum, M. 'What is Digital Humanities and What's it doing in an English Department?' in Debates in the Digital Humanities. M. Gold (Ed.) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Pp. 3-11.
* Forster, Chris. 'I'm Chris. Where am I wrong?' (blog post and comments) «http://hastac.org/blogs/cforster/im-chris-where-am-i-wrong»
* Weller, Martin. The Digital Scholar: How Technology is Transforming Scholarly Practice. London: Bloomsbury, 2011. Pp. 41 - 63.
Week 2
* Ramsey, Stephen. Reading Machines: Towards an Algorithmic Criticism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011. Pp. ix - 31 ('Preconditions' and Chapters 1 & 2)
* Various DH manifestoes online (eg. THAT Camp manifesto «http://tcp.hypotheses.org/411», and Humanities 2.0 Manifesto, «http://www.humanitiesblast.com/manifesto/Manifesto_V2.pdf»)
* Van Hulle, Dirk. 'Hypertext and Avant-texte in Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Literature' in A Companion to Digital Literary Studies. Susan Schreibman and Ray Siemens (eds.) Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Available online at: «http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companionDLS/»
Week 3
* Cummings, James. 'The Text Encoding Initiative and the Study of Literature.' in A Companion to Digital Literary Studies. Susan Schreibman and Ray Siemens (eds.) Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Available online at: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companionDLS/
* Rockwell, Geoffrey. 'What is Text Analysis, Really?' Literary & Linguistic Computing 18: 2 (2003) pp. 209-219.
Week 4
* Manovich, Lev. 'Trending: the Promises and Challenges of Big Social Data.' In Debates in the Digital Humanities. M. Gold (Ed.) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Pp. 460-475.
Week 5
* Moretti, Franco. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History. London & New York: Verso, 2005.
Week 6
* Cuddy-Keane, Melba. 'Imaging/Imagining Globalization: Maps and Models.' Discussion Paper for MLA Convention, New York, December 28, 2002.
Week 7
* Thacker, Andrew. Moving Through Modernity: Space and Geography in Modernism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Introduction and Chapter One, pp. 1-45.
Week 8: No Reading / Project Week
Week 9
* Estrada, Ernesto et al. 'Complex Networks: An Invitation' in Network Science. Complexity in Nature and Technology. Estrada, Fox, Higham & Oppo (Eds.) London: Springer, 2010. Pp. 1 - 12.
Week 10
* Beal, Wesley and Lanvin, Stacy. 'Theorizing Connectivity: Modernism and the Network Narrative' Special Issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly. 5.2 (2011).
Week 11
* Davidson, Cathy N., 'Humanities 2.0: Promise, Perils, Predictions.' Debates in the Digital Humanities. M. Gold (Ed.) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Pp.476-489.
* Kirschenbaum, Matthew. 'The .txtual Condition: Digital Humanities, Born-Digital Archives, and the Future Literary.' Digital Humanities Quarterly, 7.1 (2013). «http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/7/1/000151/000151.html»
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The ability to critically evaluate projects, resources and texts
Critical reading across scales (from close reading to analysing big data sets)
Digitally literacy and IT skills including basic coding, writing for the web and using a range of software and applications
Team-work and collaboration in online and offline environments
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| Keywords | DM |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Lisa Otty
Tel:
Email: Lisa.Otty@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Kara McCormack
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: Kara.McCormack@ed.ac.uk |
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