September 14: Digital Humanities in Practice: Games-Based Learning in Practice at CUNY

Wednesday, September 14^th, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Room C197

The CUNY Games Network connects educators from every campus and discipline at the university who are interested in games, simulations, and other forms of interactive teaching. In this session we’ll share the research behind games-based learning, and explore practical pedagogical applications of both digital and non-digital games. Speakers include:    Joe Bisz is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Borough of Manhattan Community College.   Kathleen Offenholley is an Assistant Professor in the Mathematics Department at Borough of Manhattan Community College.   Leah Potter is Co-Director of Teaching American History Programs in the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the CUNY Graduate Center.   Maura A. Smale is an Assistant Professor and Information Literacy Librarian in the Library Department at New York City College of Technology.

Fall 2011 CUNY Digital Studies/Digital Humanities Seminar Schedule

We’re delighted to announce our schedule of seminar meetings for the Fall 2011 semester, which are centered on the theme of “Digital Humanities in Practice.” We’ll be looking at specific instantiations of DH at CUNY, in libraries, in the classroom, and in graduate education. We hope you can join us!

Fall 2011 CUNY Digital Studies/Digital Humanities Seminar Schedule
Sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center
All events are free and open to the public, and all will take place at the CUNY Graduate Center

Wednesday, September 14, 6:30-8:30pm: Digital Humanities in Practice: Games-Based Digital Learning at CUNY
Speakers from the CUNY Games Network – Joe Bisz (BMCC), Kathleen Offenholley (BMCC), Leah Potter (CUNY Graduate Center), Maura A. Smale (City Tech) 

Tuesday, October 18, 6:30-8:30pm: Digital Humanities in the Classroom
Shannon Mattern (New School), “Beyond the Seminar Paper: Setting New Standards for New Forms of Student Work”
Mark Sample (George Mason), “Building and Sharing When You’re Supposed to be Teaching”

Monday, November 14, 6:30-8:30pm: Digital Humanities in the Library
Ben Vershbow (New York Public Library), (Title TBA)

Monday, December 12, 6:30-8:30pm: Digital Humanities and Graduate Education
Bethany Nowviskie (University of Virginia), “The Praxis Program at the Scholars’ Lab”

Also, please consider attending these related events:

Monday, September 12, 6:30-8:30:: Cathy N. Davidson (Duke), Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn 

Friday, September 30, 4:45-6:30: CUNY Graduate Center Ph.D. Program in English Friday Forum Series: Debates in the Digital Humanities: Issues from the Forthcoming Collection for the University of Minnesota Press featuring Stephen Brier, Charlotte Edwards, David Greetham. Moderated by Matthew K. Gold NOTE: This event has been rescheduled for the Spring 2012 semester.

September 12: Cathy Davidson on “Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn”

This upcoming event at the GC will be of interest to many in our group:

Monday, Sept. 12th, 6:30 -8:30 pm, Martin E. Segal Theater

Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn

CATHY N. DAVIDSON is the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University. She has published more than twenty books including Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory and The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. In December 2010, President Obama nominated Davidson to the National Council on the Humanities and she is currently awaiting confirmation by the Senate. She is the co-founder of HASTAC. JESSE PRINZ, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Graduate Center, will serve as discussant. Cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Women and Society and the Center for Humanities.

Digital Humanities and the Future of Libraries

CUNY DHI members: Please check out this event next week at the New York Public Library:

NYPL Labs presents: Digital Humanities and the Future of Libraries

A conversation in honor of Dr. Paul LeClerc with:

Kari Kraus, Jon Orwant, Dot Porter and Doug Reside

Thursday June 16, 4-6pm at The New York Public Library

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (42nd St. and 5th Ave.), South Court Auditorium

FREE and open to the public

Since the early days of the field, Digital Humanities practitioners have frequently found allies and collaborators in librarians and archivists. Many early digital humanities projects centered around organizing and making accessible information–two activities at the core of the mission of almost every library. Perhaps for this reason,many of the largest digital humanities centers are physically situated in and often at least partially funded by University libraries.

Nonetheless, the field has traditionally been led (with a few notable exceptions) by faculty from humanities departments rather than by library staff, and libraries have tended to isolate digital humanities centers as somewhat quarantined departments separate from the daily work of the institution. However, as both digital humanities and librarianship develop in the 21st century, there are indications that these walls of separation are beginning to erode. In this panel discussion, NYPL Digital Curator for the Performing Arts,Doug Reside, and three digital humanists from very different backgrounds will discuss the future of libraries and the digital humanities and how these two related, but as yet mostly separate fields, may (or may not) finally converge.

This event is held in honor of outgoing NYPL President Dr. Paul LeClerc, whose vision and passionate advocacy have advanced the frontiers of digital humanities innovation at the Library. The event is sponsored byNYPL Labs, a collaborative team of librarians, curators and technologists developing new ideas and tools for digital research.

Participants

KARI KRAUS is an assistant professor in the College of Information Studies and the Department of English at the University of Maryland. Her research and teaching interests focus on new media and the digital humanities, textual scholarship and print culture, digital preservation, transmedia storytelling, and game studies. Kraus is a local Co-PI on an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant for preserving virtual worlds; a Co-PI on an IMLS Digital Humanities Internship grant; and, with Derek Hansen (iSchool), the Co-Principal Investigator of an NSF grant to study Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) and transmedia storytelling in the service of education and design. In addition to the University of Maryland, she has taught at the University of Rochester and the Eastman School of Music, and in the Art and Visual Technology program at George Mason University.

JON ORWANTis Engineering Manager at Google, where he works on Book Search, Patent Search, visualizations, and the digital humanities, where he recently launched the Google Books Ngram Viewer. He’s the author or co-author of several books on programming, including the bestselling Programming Perl, and published an independent computer magazine. Before joining Google he was the CTO of O’Reilly & Associates and Director of Research for France Telecom. He received his doctorate from MIT’s Electronic Publishing Group in 1999.

DOT PORTER is currently the Associate Director for Content & Services in the Digital Library Program at Indiana University. Ms. Porter holds an MA in Medieval Studies and an MS in Library Science, although after receiving her MSLS rather than going to work in a library, she took a position in a digital humanities center. Over the next seven years she dedicated herself to working with humanities scholars to undertake faculty-driven digital projects. These projects often involved working closely with librarians, and with other scholars, such as computer scientists, as well, but the driving force behind the projects was always the humanities scholar. In June 2010, Ms. Porter came to work in the Digital Library Program at IU and was immediately stuck with a bit of culture shock. Although the technologies used in DL are very similar to those in DH, the aims and goals can be quite different, and working between the two can be an interesting, educational, and engaging experience.

DOUG RESIDE (moderator) became Digital Curator for the Performing Arts at New York Public Library in January of 2011 after serving for four and a half years on the directorial staff of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland in College Park. He holds a BS in Computer Science and a BA, MA, and Ph.D. in English Literature. He has been a PI on three earlier startup grants (The Ajax XML Encoder, Music Theatre Online, and the Collaborative Ajax Modeling Platform) and the co-PI with Tanya Clement on the Off the Tracks workshop. Additionally, he is the original project director of the NEH Preservation and Access funded Text Image Linking Environment (TILE) which is scheduled for release in the summer of 2011.

Jason Kucsma
Acting Interim Director & Emerging Technologies Manager
Metropolitan New York Library Council
212.228.2320 x23
www.metro.org

Tags | digitalhuman, libraries, nypl

Digital Humanities Syllabi

Do you teach a digital humanities course? Let us know by leaving a comment on this post. We’ll add it to the DH Syllabi page of the CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide, which is published on the wiki of the CUNY Academic Commons. I’ve embedded the DH Syllabi wiki page below.

DH Syllabi

Tags | cunydhi, digitalhumanities, syllabi, teaching

CUNY Digital Humanities Initiative Spring 2011 Schedule

Following up on our wonderful inaugural speaker series last Fall, we are very pleased to announce our schedule for the Spring 2011 semester. Our theme this Spring is DIY Digital Humanities.

The events are co-sponsored by the CUNY Digital Studies Group, and presented in partnership with The Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY. We hope you will be able to join us.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011: DIY DH at CUNY
6:30-8:30pm
New Media Lab, CUNY Graduate Center

“DIY DH”

Our theme for this semester is “DIY DH.” In this spirit, group members Lauren Klein, Sarah Ruth Jacobs, Cynthia Tobar, Bronwen Densmore, Amanda Licastro, Charlie Edwards, and Matthew Gold have volunteered to share their experiences using digital technologies in their classrooms and research. On the agenda: using off-the-shelf tools in Macaulay Honors College seminars, WordPress plugins for the paperless and networked classroom, Omeka and the Mina Rees library, and reports from recent THATCamps and the MLA Convention.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011: Patrik Svensson (Umeå University, Sweden) on “Designing the Digital Humanities”
6:30-8:30pm
Room 9205, CUNY Graduate Center

“Designing the Digital Humanities”

The digital humanities are being built and negotiated at this point in time by universities, departments, scholars, programmers, funding agencies, construction workers and various other people and institutions. Drawing on my four-article series on the digital humanities and my own take on the field, I will talk about understanding, building and designing the digital humanities. I will use HUMlab at Umeå University as a starting point, and will also be showing some material – including photos and film clips – from the lab. The discussion will range from visions and design parameters to material manifestations such as a brand-new led-based ceiling light fixture/screen and a plant wall. Questions raised include: What choices do we need to make? What are the underlying visions? What basic values are important? What cyberinfrastructure do we need? Can there be a no-tent digital humanities? What is the advantage of physical lab or studio spaces? Can the digital humanities change the world (or at least the academy)? I combine analytical work on the digital humanities as a field and project with a strong engagement in the future of the field.

Patrik Svensson is the director of HUMlab at Umeå University, Sweden.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011: David L. Hoover (NYU) on “New-Fangled/Old-Fashioned Digital Literary Studies”
6:30-8:30pm
Room 6417, CUNY Graduate Center

“New-Fangled/Old-Fashioned Digital Literary Studies”

Although computational approaches to literary studies have a relatively long history, dating back to at least the 1960’s, the recent explosive growth in the availability of digital texts and the increasing power of digital tools has encouraged new methods and techniques. David’s talk will take a look at some of the kinds of literary analysis that are possible only with digital texts and digital tools, and then focus in a bit more depth on a relatively new method of extracting the characteristic vocabulary of an author, text, or group.

David L. Hoover is Professor of English at New York University.

Wednesday, March 30 2011: Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Pomona College) on “Peer Review, Open Scholarship, and the Digital Humanities”
6:30-8:30pm
Room 6417, CUNY Graduate Center

“Peer Review, Open Scholarship, and the Digital Humanities”

Peer review is the sine qua non of the academy: we use it in nearly everything we do, and cannot imagine what scholarship would be without it. But for such a crucial component of the ways that we work, none of us are wholly satisfied with it, either. Moreover, conventional forms of peer review are often misaligned with the kinds of open scholarship being produced in the digital humanities. This talk takes a brief look at the history and the present criticism of peer review as a means of exploring its future, particularly as scholarly publishing moves increasingly online: what might peer review that took advantage of the reputation economies developed within networked communities look like, and how might it help scholarly communication flourish?

Kathleen Fitzpatrick is Professor of Media Studies at Pomona College.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011: Douglas Armato (University of Minnesota Press) on “Digital Media’s Prehistory and the Nine Lives of Scholarly Publishing“
6:30-8:30pm
Room C201/202, CUNY Graduate Center

“Digital Media’s Prehistory and the Nine Lives of Scholarly Publishing“

Scholarly publishing has survived through adaptation and economic reinvention and now faces new challenges, and opportunities, as the market for ebooks reaches escape velocity and the emergence of the digital humanities reconfigures academic work. The Director of the University of Minnesota Press and editor of its list in digital culture studies discusses how university presses are adapting both individually and collectively to the digital environment and how presses remain a vital counterforce to the diminished status of of the humanities in higher education.

Douglas Armato is Director of the University of Minnesota Press and Editor of its Digital Culture Studies List.

—

We would also like to let you know about a related event sponsored by the CUNY Digital Studies Group:

Wednesday, March 23, 2011: Jay Rosen, New York University and C.W. Anderson, College of Staten Island/CUNY
6:30-8:30pm
Room C198, CUNY Graduate Center

“The People Formerly Known as the Audience: Five Years Later”

Jay Rosen is Associate Professor NYU, C.W. Anderson, Assistant Professor College of Staten Island/CUNY

Tags | cunydhi, digitalhumanities, meeting

Tom Scheinfeldt, “Stuff Digital Humanists Like” [video]

CUNY DHI is pleased to release a video version of Tom Scheinfeldt’s December 1 talk at the CUNY Graduate Center, “Stuff Digital Humanists Like: Defining Digital Humanities by its Values.” at the CUNY Graduate Center. It was an honor to have Tom with us, and we’re especially excited that his own rough transcript of the talk has already produced some engaging responses.

We regret that we were able to capture only a small portion of the provocative discussion that followed Tom’s presentation. Next time, we’ll make sure that the camera batteries are fully charged!

[vimeo width=”640″ height=”360″]http://vimeo.com/17794842[/vimeo]

Tags | chnm, digitalhumanities, gmu, meeting, tomsheinfeldt

Dec. 1: Tom Scheinfeldt on “Stuff Digital Humanists Like: Defining Digital Humanities by its Values”

Please join us on Wednesday, December 1, when The CUNY Digital Humanities Initiative and The CUNY Digital Studies Group will welcome Tom Scheinfeldt, Managing Director of George Mason University’s Center for History & New Media (CHNM), who will be speaking about “Stuff Digital Humanists Like: Defining Digital Humanities by its Values.”

At a time when the number and scope of digital humanities projects are growing, Tom’s talk represents an effort to step back and attempt to understand what differentiates successful and unsuccessful DH projects. What lessons can be drawn from projects that fly and those that fall flat? What inferences can be made about the DH community itself based on the types of projects it supports?

This will be our last talk of the semester, so please be sure to join us. We will be gathering for a final meal with CUNY Pie on Thursday, December 2 at 6pm, when we’ll visit John’s Pizza on Bleeker Street.

Time & place: December 1st , 6:30pm-8:30pm, CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9207.

—

TOM SCHEINFELDT is Managing Director of the Center for History and New Media and Research Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University.

Tom received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Oxford, where his doctoral thesis examined inter-war interest in science and its history in diverse cultural contexts, including museums, universities, World’s Fairs and the mass media. A research associate at the Smithsonian Institution Archives and a fellow of the Science Museum, London, Tom has lectured and written extensively on the history of popular science, the history of museums, history and new media, and the changing role of history in society, and has worked on traditional exhibitions and digital projects at the Colorado Historical Society, the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, The Louisiana State Museum, the National Museum of American History, and the Library of Congress. In addition to managing general operations at the Center for History and New Media, Tom directs several of its online history projects, including Omeka, THATCamp, One Week | One Tool, the September 11 Digital Archive, the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, the Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800, and Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives.

Along with his blog Found History, Tom co-hosts the podcast Digital Campus with colleagues Dan Cohen and Mills Kelly. You can follow Tom on Twitter, Linkedin, and Zotero.

Eben Moglen, “Before and After IP: Ownership of Ideas in the 21st Century”

Eben Moglen. Photo source: http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/

On November 17, 2010, the CUNY Digital Studies Group and the CUNY Digital Humanities Initiative, in partnership with the The Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY, hosted a talk by Professor Eben Moglen of Columbia Law School.

Professor Moglen’s talk, which was titled “Before and After IP: Ownership of Ideas in the 21st Century,” is now available for download on his website under a Creative Commons BY-SA license. It gives us great pleasure to share this audio version of the talk under the same CC-BY-SA license.

Download (MP3, 128 kbps)

Download higher-quality version from Professor Moglen’s website (MP3, 185 kbps)

Tags | cunydhi, digital, dsg, intellectualproperty, media, moglen

Introducing The CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide

The CUNY Digital Humanities Initiative is delighted to announce the launch of a new collaborative publication: The CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide. Presenting a well-researched and annotated view of the field, the guide will serve as a broad introduction to DH for newcomers by offering a balanced archive of best practices, ongoing projects, and disciplinary debates.

The guide covers a wide range of subjects, including Defining the Digital Humanities, Hot Topics, Sample Projects, DH Syllabi, and Conferences and Events. Check out the Table of Contents for the full range of topics.

The initial version of the guide is just that — a beginning. As you read through the guide, please let us know whether you have corrections or additional information to share with us. As the Using This Guide page shows, the wiki itself is editable only by members of the CUNY Academic Commons, but non-CUNY contributors can add to the guide in the following ways:

* Tag items on delicious with cunydhi
* Tweet us at @cunydhi
* Email your comments to cunydhi@gmail.com
* Leave a comment on this post

We very much hope to have your input, so please do not hesitate to get in touch with suggestions, corrections, and comments.

The initial version of the guide was created by Charlie Edwards, a graduate student in the Ph.D. Program in English and the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Certificate Program at The CUNY Graduate Center, in consultation with ITP faculty member Matthew K. Gold. We are thankful to CUNY Academic Commons Wiki Wrangler Scott Voth for helping format it for the wiki. Future versions of the guide will be produced collaboratively by the members of the CUNY DHI — and the DH community at large.

We hope that the guide will provide a useful starting point for others just entering the DH conversation, and we urge you to help us improve it!

Tags | cunydhi, dhguide, digitalhumanities