How are historians engaging with this new digital age? How can we study the past using computers and data? How can studying the past also help meaningfully critique and engage with these digital technologies? What will the future of historical research look like and how do we build it? All these questions and more will be explored in this introduction to digital history - a course that will explore both the foundations and futures of this field.
This course will survey readings on the origins of digital history, the debates to define this field, and explore selected subfields. This overview will consider both how digital history relates to more established fields and methods in history, as well as to digital humanities broadly.
This course is also about doing digital history research. Working together in small groups, we will experience the process of digital history; from initial research question to collecting data to analyzing and communicating results (and back again). This course will introduce the foundations of coding and the web, as well as exploratory data analysis and visualization. Through weekly assignments and projects, we will debate larger issues in digital history - including data curation and ethics, sustainability of digital projects, the possibilities and limitations of computational methods, and what counts as scholarship in the field.
<aside> 💡 Notes: My main goals for students in this course is to leave with some sense of how historians have engaged with and critiqued digital technologies in their research over the last few decades. Digital history itself is a fairly recent and tactical name for this set of practices and research agendas, and so I want students to understand that this field is an evolving and contested. At the same time, I think it's important for students to get some experience actually doing the work of digital history, and so the course is also intended to provide some introduction to coding and basic statistics. Ideally students would then have the option of taking either more advanced digital history methods courses or advanced courses in the histories of information and data
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Each week you will complete coding and writing assignments. These assignments will help you gain familiarity with coding, collaborative work, and project management. Assignments will be submitted online and graded based on completion and creativity. While graded individually, you will be encouraged to work in pairs or small groups when coding.
<aside> 💡 Notes: While I envision this course as primarily for either undergraduate or graduate students in the humanities that have little experience in coding, I try to design with some flexibility for previous experiences. One of the best ways I have found for managing diverse backgrounds when it comes to programming is having students pair program. I rotate pairs weekly so that students learn how to work together and students with varying backgrounds can help each other learn.
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You will select one digital history project (broadly defined and with instructor approval) and write a review of the project. Drawing from readings in the class, you will situate the project in broader trends in digital history. Your review should answer the following questions:
Ultimately, this review should go beyond summarizing the project to exploring its scholarly contribution to digital history. When selecting which project to review consider which areas of digital humanities interest you and that you might want to include in your research.
You will select two digital history articles from Current Research in Digital History https://crdh.rrchnm.org/ and write a review comparing them. Drawing from readings in the class, you will situate these articles in broader trends in digital history. Your review should answer the following questions:
Ultimately, this review should go beyond summarizing the articles to exploring its scholarly contribution to digital history. When selecting which articles to review consider which areas of digital history interest you and that you might want to include in your research.
<aside> 💡 Notes: Depending on both the students' previous experiences with historical research and how this course fits into the broader digital history curriculum, I would assign either a review of a digital history project or a review of digital history articles. The former would be more suited to students interested in public history and/or more junior students who haven't taken many history courses before. The latter would be more suited to advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
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The goal of this project is to expose you to how digital history research is created and evaluated. Working in groups you will select a historical research question and relevant datasets. Example projects include exploring how textual patterns occur across newspapers or correlation analysis of named entities in historical documents to analyze spatial imaginings. Using your skills in Python and your knowledge of digital history, you will experience the lifecycle of a digital history project, from planning the project and collecting data to analyzing and communicating your results, and finally reflecting and outlining future directions.
The first stage of the project is worth 10% will be completed in small groups. As a group you will collaboratively agree on a project. Together you will research and create an initial project write-up, answering the following:
This write-up should be 2-3 pages and should lay the groundwork for the project, as well as how you plan to divide the work required to make the project
The second stage is worth 15%, and involves building the first iteration of the project to be presented to the instructor. You will demo the project and explain how much you’ve completed from the initial write-up. Then through feedback from the instructor and discussion within the group, you will assess how much progress you’ve made in the plan and whether you need to change directions or revise any goals.
The final stage is worth 20%, with the first 10% allocated to the public presentation of your project. This presentation will be both in person to the class and online through the course website, and will be completed collaboratively a group. The second 10% is an individual reflection piece on the experience of building the project, the successes and failures of the project, and your vision for the future directions of this project.
Guidelines for Readings:
Reading should be completed prior to a course meeting. Questions to consider will reading include:
Don’t focus on detailing everything the author says, but instead try to summarize in a few lines their central points and how they relate to the other readings from that week.
Guidelines for Coding:
Coding assignments should be submitted via Github, unless indicated otherwise. Most coders work collaboratively, often engaging in pair programming, a method of talking through code problems together. This course encourages you to pair program and work together, and learn from each other’s solutions to coding problems. However, be warned. Just copying and pasting code might get you through one week, but the concepts in this course move quickly and build upon each other so do your best to try and complete the assignments each week. Questions are encouraged both in person and online.