PART ONE: DOING (IN THE) DIGITAL HUMANITIES, FROM PAST TO PRESENT
Monday August 24th
- Introduction to class
Monday August 31st
- blog post 1
- presentation 1
- C.P. Snow, The Two Cultures (1959)
- Cynthia Selfe, “Computers in English Departments: The Rhetoric of Technopower” (1988)
- John Unsworth, “What is Humanities Computing and What Is Not?” (2002)
- Franco Moretti, “GRAPHS, MAPS, TREES: Abstract Models for Literary History” (2003)
Monday September 7th
- Labor Day – no class
Monday September 14th
- blog post 2
- presentation 2
- Susan Hockey, “The History of Humanities Computing” (2004)
- Matthew Kirschenbaum, “Introduction” and Chapter 1 from Mechanisms (2007)
- Patrik Svensson, “The Landscape of Digital Humanities” (2010)
- pages 123-201 of section in Profession on “Evaluating Digital Scholarship” (2011, link is to epub version in Dropbox)
Monday September 21st
- blog post 3
- presentation 3
- Debates in the Digital Humanities (2012)
Monday September 28th:
- interviewees chosen by today
- blog post 4
- presentation 4
- Stephen Ramsay, “Why I’m In It” (2013)
- Matthew Kirschenbaum, “What is ‘Digital Humanities’ And Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things About It?” (2014)
- Patrik Svensson, “The Humanistiscope – Exploring the Situatedness of Humanities Infrastructure” (2015)
- Amy E. Earhart, “The Digital Humanities As a Laboratory” (2015)
PART TWO: CONSTRUCTION & CRITIQUE OF DOING IN LABS, FROM PAST TO PRESENT
Monday October 5th:
- blog post 5
- presentation 5
- Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (1979)
- Optional further reading: Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (1975); Lorraine Daston and Peter Gallison, Objectivity (2007); Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspectives” (1988)
Monday October 12th:
- blog post 6
- presentation 6
- Stewart Brand, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T. (1987)
Monday October 19th:
- start class late – attend Matthew Jocker’s lecture at 5pm until 6pm
- blog post 7
- presentation 7
- if you have time, Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspectives” (1988)
- Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, & Science (1995)
Monday October 26th:
- blog post 8
- presentation 8
- Wolfgang Ernst, “Media Archaeography: Method and Machine Versus History and Narrative of Media” (2011)
- Jussi Parikka, “Media Theory and New Materialism” (2012)
Monday November 2nd:
- Brian Kane guest lecture/performance in the Media Archaeology Lab
Monday November 9th:
- interviews posted by today
- blog post 9
- presentation 9, 10
- Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman (2013)
Monday November 16th:
- no class – possible reschedule
Monday November 23rd:
- Fall break – no class
PART THREE: DOING AS CRITICAL MAKING, RESEARCH-CREATION, MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY
Monday November 30th:
- blog post 10
- presentations 11 and 12 on specific labs drawn from this directory
- Matt Ratto, “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life” (2011)
- Owen B. Chapman and Kim Sawchuk, “Research-Creation: Intervention, Analyses, and ‘Family Resemblances’” (2012)
- Garnet Hertz and Jussi Parikka, “Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology Into An Art Method” (2012)
- Lori Emerson, “Archives, Materiality and the ‘Agency of the Machine’: An Interview with Wolfgang Ernst” (2013)
- Jentery Sayers, “Make, Not Brand: DIY after Big Data” (2014), “The Relevance of Remaking” (2014), “The MLab: An Infrastructural Disposition” (2015)
Monday December 7th:
- demo day for final projects
Theory & Practice of "Doing" // From Digital Humanities to Posthumanities 
[…] To that end, starting this week, I am teaching a graduate seminar called “Theory & Practice of Doing // From the Digital Humanities to the Posthumanities.” Our course begins with a classic text, C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures from 1959, to make clear the longstanding, perceived gulf between the sciences and the humanities and the resulting anxiety the humanities have had about how to advocate for their worth. Jump ahead fifty years and suddenly we’re in the midst of he digital humanities as well as various other media studies practices that have made their home in the humanities. Now, the anxieties are perhaps more about the displacement of traditional humanities work, not by the sciences but by a new humanities that’s inflected by scientific practice and, at times, a “spirit” of entrepreneurialism that’s particularly associated with the tech/startup world. We then move from Snow’s text to an overview of the state of the profession in the 21st century, focusing specifically on the ramifications of doing collaborative, interdisciplinary, project-based, hands-on work that engages with or relies on digital media in the humanities. This first part of the course then gives way to the second part, in which we explore more deeply a series of interconnected questions. What does it mean when humanists start placing “doing” at the center of their research agendas? What does it mean to do hands-on work in a digital humanities lab versus a media archaeology lab or a makerspace or a hackerspace? Are these scholars or practitioners appropriating the trappings of scientific labs for the sake of cultural capital or are they in a unique position to critique not only the way labs are often hierarchical, closed structures built around single individuals but also the way the data generated by these labs is too often seen as neutral or necessarily, timelessly true? Can 21st century hands-on work actually work not only to finally close the divide between “the two cultures”, science and humanities, but can it also work to displace the longstanding anthropocentrism at the heart of the humanities? You can see our schedule of weekly readings here. […]
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