Complete assigned readings before coming to class. Please keep in mind that reading assignments are subject to change. This website is the canonical version of the schedule.

–Week 1–

What are the Digital Humanists Doing?

Jan. 10 T

• Introductions. Syllabus.

Jan. 12 Th

• John Unsworth. “Scholarly Primitives: what methods do humanities researchers have in common, and how might our tools reflect this?” 13 May 2000.
  • Read for the question: what is a “scholarly primitive.” Don’t read the boxes at the end.
• Tom Scheinfeldt. “Where’s the Beef? Does Digital Humanities Have to Answer Questions?” Debates in the Digital Humanities. 2012.
• David Parry. “The Digital Humanities or a Digital Humanism.” Debates in the Digital Humanities. 2012.
  • Read just the final 8 paragraphs, starting with “I have become convinced over the last few years that Benjamin’s…”

–Week 2–

Jan. 17 T

• Miriam Posner. “How Did They Make That? The Video!” 17 April 2014.
• Stephen Ramsay. “Humane Computation.” Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016.

Considering Comics

Jan. 19 Th

• Charles M. Schulz. The Complete Peanuts, 1950-1952, October – December 1950.

–Week 3–

Jan. 24 T

• Scott McCloud. Understanding Comics, chapter 1, pp 2-23.
• David Michaelis. “The Life and Times of Charles M. Schulz” from The Complete Peanuts, 1950-1952.

Jan. 26 Th

• Charles M. Schulz, The Complete Peanuts, 1961-1962, January – June 1961, pp 1-78.

–Week 4–

Jan. 31 T

• DH Project Presentations

Feb. 2 Th

• DH Project Presentations, continued
• McCloud, Understanding Comics, chapter 2, pp 24-59.

–Week 5–

Feb. 7 T

• Schulz, 1961-1962, July – December 1961, pp 78-157.
• McCloud, Understanding Comics, chapter 3, pp 60-93.

Feb. 9 Th

• Schulz, 1961-1962, January – June 1962, pp 158-234.
• Christopher Pizzino. “Gutter.” Keywords for Comic Studies (2021).

–Week 6–

Encoding Comics

Feb. 14 T

• Kevin S. Hawkins. “Introduction to XML for Text.” 11 Jan. 2015.
• TEI by Example. “Module 0: Introduction.”
  • Just read sections 1, 3.1, and 8.

Feb. 16 Th

• John A. Walsh. “Comic Book Markup Language: An Introduction and Rationale.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 6.1 (2012).
  • Don’t sweat all the specifics about encoding comics. Instead, read for the broad ideas about what encoding allows us to do.
  • You can skip the following paragraphs (which are on the right side of the text): 38-47; 52-59.
• Sign up for GitHub.
• Download and install GitHub Desktop.

–Week 7–

Feb. 21 T

• Monday schedule. No class. 

Feb. 23 Th

• Brian Croxall et al. “Peanuts Encoding Editorial Decisions 2.0.”

–Week 8–

Feb. 28 T 

• Schulz, 1961-1962, July – December 1962, pp 235-314.

Computing Comics

Mar. 2 Th       

• Megan R. Brett. “Topic Modeling: A Basic Introduction.” Journal of Digital Humanities 2.1 (2012).
• Robert K. Nelson. “Introduction.” Mining the Dispatch. Nov. 2020.
• Ian Milligan and James Baker. “Introduction to the Bash Command Line.” Programming Historian. 20 September 2014.        

–Week 9–

Mar. 7 T

• Ted Underwood. “Topic modeling made just simple enough.” The Stone and the Shell. 7 April 2012.
  • Stop reading at “Where to go next”

Mar. 9 Th

• Charles M. Schulz. The Complete Peanuts, 1981-1982, January – June 1981, pp 1-78.

–Week 10–

Mar. 14 T

• Individual topic modeling meetings
  • 12:30, Washington
  • 12:45, Will
  • 1:00, Winthrop
  • 1:15, Rachel
  • 1:30, Lillian

Mar. 16 Th

• Research Review Presentations
• Encoding

–Week 11–

Mar. 21 T        

• Topic modeling presentations
• Encoding

Mar. 23 Th

• Amy Schulz Johnson visit
• Schulz, 1981-1982, July – December 1981, pp 79-157.

 

–Week 12–

Mar. 28 T

• Schulz, 1981-1982, January – June 1982, pp 157-234.

Mar. 30 Th

• David I. Holmes and Judit Kardos. “Who was the Author? An Introduction to Stylometry.” Chance vol 16.2 (2003). CR.
  • Read for background. Don’t sweat the details.
• Patrick Juola. “How a Computer Program Helped Show J.K. Rowling write [sic] A Cuckoo’s Calling.” Scientific American. 20 August 2013.

–Week 13–

Apr. 4 T

• Matthew Roper et al. “Stylometric Analyses of the Book of Mormon: A Short History.” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 21.1 (2012).
• Choose one of the following, depending on whether you want PCA explained via text or video. You’re trying to get the gist more than the details. 
  • Linh Ngo. “Principal component analysis explained simply.” BioTuring’s Blog. 14 June 2018.
  • Josh Starmer. “Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Step by step.” StatQuest (YouTube). 2 April 2018.

Apr. 6 Th         

• Schulz, 1981-1982, July – December 1982, pp 235-313.

–Week 14–

Apr. 11 T

• Juniper Johnson, with Julia Flanders and Sarah Connell. “Introduction to Word Embedding Models.” Women Writers Vector Toolkit. 2021.
• Ben Schmidt, “Gendered Language in Teacher Reviews,” parts 1 and 2

Apr. 13 Th

• Ryan Heuser. “Word Vectors in the Eighteenth Century, Episode 2: Methods.” RyanHeuser.org. 1 June 2016.

–Week 15–

Apr. 18 T         

• Franco Moretti. “Network Theory, Plot Analysis.” New Left Review 68 (2011).
• Ted Underwood. “Digital Humanities as a Semi-Normal Thing.” The Stone and the Shell. 30 March 2017.

–Week 16–

Apr. 25 T

• Final Exam, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm