By Se-Woong Koo. In all those years I was pursuing a Ph.D. in religious studies, the question of what my profession really stood for rarely came up in conversation with fellow academics, save for occasional moments when the position of the humanities in higher education came under criticism in public discourse. When such moments passed, it was again simply assumed that anyone entering a doctoral program in the humanities knowingly signed on to a traditional career of specialized research and teaching. Read more...
Digital Humanities: Half Machine, Half Human
By Shawn Warren. HASTAC champions digital solutions to the crisis in higher education. In past posts I have presented an alternative model for the provision of this valued service that champions a more human solution to the crisis. This alternative does not rely on traditional instituions (universities and colleges) or the tsunami of digital responses now being floated (from MOOCs to digital badges). In these posts I have also tried to show how digital solutions such as badges are suited to the professional model. The use of digital technology in higher education is being determined by the institutions that possess acceditiation, since under the current model they are the only recognized source of employ for academics and education for students. More...
Draft Syllabus for Introduction to the Digital Humanities at Stockton College, Spring 2014
By Adeline Koh. I thought I'd share my draft syllabus for the Masters of American Studies course I will be teaching in Spring 2014, AMST 5011: Introduction to the Digital Humanities. For the first 6 weeks, we will be taking part in Cathy Davidson's Coursera course, "The History and Future of Higher Education," which will run both as a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) as well as a DOCC (Distributed Online Collaborative Course).
AMST 5011 will be a hybrid course and materials will be made available on our Canvas website. (Note that as of October 11 the course website is still unpublished). More...
Where do we go from here? A comment on 'building' in the digital humanities
By Ernesto Priego. On 14 May 2013 I left a comment on this thread. I have edited and extended it a little bit and tried to correct some of the typos (my original comment is here). --some might remain and some new ones might have added though-- and have posted it again below, hoping it finds a new audience. It's not a proper essay about one single thing, but a series of thoughts I wanted to share.
To properly engage with academic debates online, one needs time and the right setting to sit down and go through the discussions and reply as one would like to. This means replying thoroughly, thoughtfully, including correct references and hyperlinks, engaging respectfully with the different points of view, remembering people’s names, etc.. Sadly, this is becoming increasingly difficult to do (I miss my students days!). The ability to do this is in itself a kind of privilege. More...
2014-2015 Distinguished Fellowships in Digital Humanities at the Graduate Center, City University of New York
By Matthew Gold. The Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC) of the Graduate Center, City University of New York, invites applicants for Distinguished Fellowships in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theoretical Sciences for the 2014 – 2015 academic year. Applicants should have outstanding records of published research and scholarship. For the academic year 2014-2015, preference will be given to scholars working in the areas of Immigration, Inequality and the Digital Humanities but applicants working in the areas listed on our website are also welcome to apply. More...
Merging and collaborating: two very different paths to digital humanities
By Ashleigh Faith. It seems like everyone is trying to come up with a witty introduction to their HASTAC Scholar's 2014 class post, and I admit I thought of doing that too, but I am a realist at heart so here goes.
My main research is: Ontology Visualization: Term search from indexing to retrieval. This encompasses a few themes: ontology is indexing, metadata, search, and content management as well as language, machine learning, and multilingual cognizance and psychology. What a mouthful! Visualization on the surface seems more simplistic –it’s a visual- but that also includes psychology, and a lot of the topics covered in ontology but with the scope of it being produced in a visual form. That in a nutshell, albeit a very large one, is what I am interested in. More...
The (Forgotten) Utility of the Humanities
By Anthony M. Cummings. The current state and future prospects of the humanities are occasioning considerable anxious comment. Many humanists are sadly resigned to a belief that the humanities have irrevocably ceded pride of place to the social sciences and sciences; and, indeed, the social sciences and sciences generate and command much intellectual energy in the 21st-century university, for understandable reasons. Read more...
Arts students harness social media to fight cuts
Universities awarded £19.5 million for overhaul of quantitative social science training
Fifteen universities across the UK will receive £19.5 million to overhaul their social science teaching in an ambitious intervention to address the critical shortage of social scientists with the quantitative skills needed to evaluate evidence and analyse data.
The universities have all been selected to host ‘Q-Step’, a programme designed to promote a step-change in quantitative social science training, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). This is one of the largest partnerships in recent times – between a research council, a funding council and a private foundation – focused on undergraduate social science education in the UK. More...