November 9th, 2016 at approximately 2 A.M. I was curled up in my room shocked as I watched state after state turn red. Thoughts raced through my head: what would happen to my undocumented friends who had worked so hard to make it to university, some on full ride scholarship? What would happen to my best friend, who is black and goes to college in Birmingham, Alabama? What would happen to myself and countless other friends of mine who were LGBTQA+? What would happen to another friend of mine who is a Muslim and is the best artist I know, she got a full ride to SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design), and is the kindest and most caring person I have ever met.
I then thought what would happen to my future. All that I had worked for over this summer, all the progress that I have made. What would a career in academia be like in a Trump Administration? More specifically I was terrified that, because of all the misogynistic rhetoric that has been spewed by Trump during the campaign, the progress made by women in military history would be ignored and I would be shut out and laughed at. My greatest fear as I have gone forward in military history, is not being taken seriously. But now is not the time for fear, now is the time to push even harder, to go even further. To inspire women, to fight against the greatest accomplishment that they can achieve under a Trump administration is a size zero.
We can no longer ignore differences, we have to acknowledge them, and work accordingly. I am going to have a harder time getting into the military history community than a white male, and a PoC is going to have a harder time than I am. We must take that into account. Even though I’ve talked about myself a lot in this, this is not just about me, it’s about the people I’ve mentioned in the first paragraph.
I’ve stated in blog posts, in conversation, at conferences, that the field of digital humanities is open and full of possibilities and opportunities that would not be allowed outside of it.
Instead of cowering in fear and resigning ourselves to saying “this is reality there is nothing I can do”, we need to accept what has happened and teach in light of that. We need to teach that in the face of adversity we need to fight for diversity in thought, in character, and in academia as a whole.
Category: Fall 2016
Teaching, Learning, Growing
Something that we digital scholars like to always mention when teaching digital scholarship, is that digital scholarship is very flexible and fluid. We often tell people “Anything can be a digital project”. I think that this one aspect of digital scholarship allows us to teach it “accordingly”. The flexible nature of digital scholarship allows us to mold projects based on the needs of one person or a group of people. The needs of who is in front of us can vary greatly. Sometimes the person in front of us is just one person who needs to know how to use StoryMap JS for a project that their professor assigned them. Other times it is society that is in front of us, needing tolerance and someone to listen and understand them. Digital scholarship molds itself accordingly and addresses the needs of society. I would whole heartedly say the project “What We Did Here” was created out of a campus need for inclusion and understanding. The website was created as a safe space for people to share their voices to what is happening in the world. Digital scholarship provides that safe space for people who want and need to share their voice and opinions. Digital scholarship has no borders and you can truly create a “room of one’s own”.
Being a humanities major, I study the human culture. I try to assess, analyze, and understand the actions of humans throughout time. Digital humanities strives to do the same but for present day audience. We do digital humanities for those in front of us when we are able to listen to those in front of us. We need to listen and address a wide range of issues for those in front of us. And as my co-worker Lauren has pointed out, diversity and inclusion are two things that I think society needs more of today and digital humanities is doing an excellent job of addressing these two issues. The two keynote speakers at the Bucknell Digital conference focused their speeches on the issues of diversity, the need for it, and how digital humanities can play a role in shaping a more diverse society.
I think that the most valuable thing about my experience as a digital scholar this year is to be in an environment where I can grow as a scholar and a person. I absolutely love who I work with and in the words of Julia Wall “I wouldn’t give my cohort up for the world”. Another valuable aspect of my experience is being able to form relationships with the faculty I worked with. Also, it was really neat to be able to see the students’ final projects and see them grow as “digital humanist”. Overall, it has been a great semester and I hope to have another great semester with you all in 2017.
Best Wishes,
Keira
Being Present
In her latest blog post, Teaching Teachers in the Age of Trump, Roopika Risam writes the following: “look at who is in front of you, identify their needs, teach accordingly.”
This mandate is especially important in the digital humanities, which is a developing field and thus has the potential to teach in a more inclusive and revolutionary way. Obviously, this is not an easy task, as an event as big as the election affects students and teachers alike. But, as Risam points out in her blog post, we have to actually go teach, even if that’s difficult. Teachers are sources of leadership–their students look up to and rely on them. If we do not make ourselves present and available in difficult times, the student loses that locus of support and guidance. Leading in this context also means allowing time and space for students to express their emotions. To distance or try to separate what is happening in a student’s life from their expectations in the classroom is impossible. Teaching holistically means acknowledging the lived experiences of students and recognizing the impact their lives have on their scholarship. Even though devoting time to emotions may seem like a waste of time, allowing room for processing can help to enhance a student’s scholarship by making sure that their personal investment in a project or course is channeled healthily.
It is also especially important that digital scholarship devote time to integrative and intersectional projects that explore and give attention and space to a variety of identities. Documenting the lived experiences of people of color, LGBT+ individuals, immigrants and their families, people without class privilege, or other people who are at risk for worsened marginalization is especially important now. We also have to make sure that the digital humanities expand to those to aren’t literally in front of us–in other words, it is easy to look at DH through the lens of a small, predominantly white liberal arts institutions, but what are we doing to include community colleges, historically black colleges, or tribal colleges? Those colleges may have populations even more affected by recent changes caused by the election. As such, it is critical that they are given the tools so they can take advantage of their education to the fullest extent possible and express their experience.
Our boss, R.C., asked us to finish this blog post by reflecting on what has been valuable about our experience this semester both as students, and peer mentor/teachers. First, I want to re-emphasize the importance of the digital scholarship cohort. On the morning following the election, I was lucky to be surrounded by people who were willing to offer support and discussion about everything that had taken place. The cohort also helped to create What We Did Here, a project meant to document activism at Gettysburg and give every student a voice. In general, this semester helped me realize the need for change, and I am thankful that I have been able to bring it about in some regards, especially through What We Did Here, and in emphasizing the need for the dissemination and sharing of knowledge to the students I’ve worked with.
Digital Tool Review: Google Tour Builder
What are the key features of this digital tool? How is this digital tool distinct from other ones similar to it?
Google Tour Builder uses Google Earth to allow people to chart their own journeys, or the journeys of others. Similar to StoryMap JS, Tour Builder uses a powerpoint-esque layout where each location and event is the equivalent of a slide. Events are connected linearly so that the user follows a line that connects the first event to the second, the second to the third, and so on.
What kinds of research questions might this digital tool help you answer?
This tool is most useful in complementing a journey with narrative. The “slides” provide ample space to contextualize each location and explain its significance.
What kind of documentation is available for this tool?
The site provides the user with an about page that answers many frequently asked questions about Tour Builder. There is also a gallery of previously made projects, and a place where users can submit feedback about their experience.
Is the digital tool free, or is there a cost to use it?
Google Tour Builder is free.
What kinds of data/input does the tool require?
The three main data concerns for Tour Builder are a location, and text and media that pertain to that location. One of the benefits of the tool is that a user can include up to twenty five photos or videos per slide. Tour Builder also allows the user to use google image search within the program, and any photos results are labelled commercial for reuse.
Are there any privacy concerns?
To use Google Tour Builder, a user has to sign in with their google account.
How difficult will this tool be to master? Does it require an outside expert or special technical skills, or can it be learned with practice?
Learning Tour Builder is easy to do and something that someone can learn without consulting an expert. The program itself provides some help for people who have not made a map before.
Could you use this digital tool for your project? Why or why not?
This sees like a good tool for more casual projects. However, if a project involved a high number of locations, or locations that were not connected linearly, Tour Builder may not be the best way to represent that data.
What We Did Here
So sometimes DH just happens.
What We Did Here: Activism at Gettysburg College didn’t even exist until last Wednesday. During our weekly catch-up with the fellows, we discussed the Preserve the Baltimore Uprising 2015 Archive Project and how we should probably find a way to collect digital materials related to activism on campus, especially in light of the recent election. Lauren’s research hit some roadblocks over the summer when trying to find relevant materials about student activism and social justice movements at Gettysburg, in part because there just weren’t primary source materials available to her. A site that allowed for crowd-sourced contributions of stories and media would be a good first step in making sure materials related to student activism would be collected in a central location. After the meeting, I created an Omeka site with a few plugins and figured it would be something to tinker with until I had some time to do some actual project management and work on the interface, you know, the responsible things you do when planning and implementing a project.
Then, Thursday evening, students crashed the faculty meeting and began a sit-in on Penn Hall steps. Something was happening.
To hell with a plan.
Friday morning, Lauren and Julia began their normal shifts. I showed them the skeleton site I had pulled together and they set to work on writing copy for it. Pulling from the Baltimore Uprising site for inspiration and some legalese, and drawing from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to find an appropriate title, by noon we had a vaguely working site that could collect digital assets from the campus community. Over our monthly fellows lunch, Keira, Lauren, Clint, Catherine, and I kept at it; we edited the copy and did some refining of the interface. That afternoon, we worked out some bugs and had something to show to the dean of the library, who gave the project her blessing and encouraged us further. By the end of the day Friday, we were handing out the URL and asking people to contribute.
Phew.
The immediacy of the events surrounding us, and sometimes involving us, inspired us to move quickly on this. In order to capture the energy of the moment, we had to have something in place now, not a month or two from now when finals were over and break was in full swing. So this is certainly a work in progress, but it does what we need it to do for now. And sometimes that’s good enough for the moment. We can plan later.
It’s amazing what this group can do.
Digital Tool Review: StoryMap JS
What are the key features of this digital tool? How is this digital tool distinct from other ones similar to it?
StoryMap JS is another interactive mapping tool that is extremely versatile. One of the key features of StoryMap JS is its gigapixel option. The gigapixel option allows the user to customize the background image. You now have to option to upload paintings, personalized maps, and images. This is a really cool feature because many other mapping digital tools do not allow the user to upload their own background image. This feature gives the user much more control on how they want their map to look and function. Some other cool features of StoryMap JS is its ability tell a narrative. The tool is set up to jump to different locations on the image then has a slide of text to go with the point. You can either create a nice path where the reader can follow a linear narrative or the reader can choose to jump from point to point.
What kinds of research questions might this digital tool help you answer?
It can give background and geographical context to your audience when they explore your digital project. Also, because of the gigapixel feature and its ability to blow up images, you sometimes end up noticing small details about the image that you may not have seen previously. This can lead to an explanation to a research question or more research questions.
What kind of documentation is available for this tool?
The website provides extensive information on its data format that can be accessed on the Advanced tab. There is also a Help page where frequently asked questions are answered and certain features explained.
Is the digital tool free, or is there a cost to use it?
This tool is 100% FREE. All you need is a Google account.
What kinds of data/input does the tool require?
The tool does require you to add map/image points and text on the slides but it can hold as little or as much information that is needed.
Are there any privacy concerns?
As of now, none that I know of. You can choose when you want to publish your map and you are the only one able to make changes.
How difficult will this tool be to master? Does it require an outside expert or special technical skills, or can it be learned with practice?
This tool is extremely user-friendly! In one sitting you are able to get the gist of how to upload images and text. It has text and icons that tell you where to add text or upload images. All you need to do is read and follow the directions provided.
Could you use this digital tool for your project? Why or why not?
I did end up using this tool in my project. It was extremely easy to learn how to use the tool and it was able to do everything I wanted it to do. I was able to create a narrative of women at Gettysburg College by structuring the map as a day in the life of a 1950s Gettysburg College women. What really attracted me to this tool was its gigapixel feature. I had found an old 1950 Gettysburg College map and need a tool that allowed me to customize the background. I would definitely use the map for future projects. It is extremely user-friendly and has a lot of cool features that make your map unique.
Digital Tool Review: FabulaMaps
Digital Tool Review #1: FabulaMaps
What are the key features of this digital tool? How is this digital tool distinct from other ones similar to it?
FabulaMaps is an interactive mapping tool with a narrative element. It’s different because it has many more mapping features than something like StoryMapJS but has the narrative element that is lacking in Google TourBuilder, ZeeMaps, etc. It also differentiates from tools like Neatline, CartoDB, and ArcGIS in that it is user friendly and can be learned with minimal frustration. It also has many more interactive features that differentiate it from any mapping tool that I have had experience with, like animated markers and polygons.
What kinds of research questions might this digital tool help you answer?
It can tell an interactive story over time with its narrative features, document a growth or event, or map locations with giving background. This is especially helpful for historic projects because of its narrative elements you can map changes over time.
What kind of documentation is available for this tool?
The site has an about page and a blog in which popular questions and features are explained and the elements of FabulaMaps are discussed.
Is the digital tool free, or is there a cost to use it?
For students it’s free, there are versions that are paid but FabulaMaps is perfectly functional at a basic level without the extra features.
What kinds of data/input does the tool require?
The tool requires points on the map and information in the slides. It is possible to ditch the narrative element altogether by skipping the slides and simply having an interactive map. It can hold multitudes of text, media, and animations.
Are there any privacy concerns?
None that I know of. Once you start the map it is public facing, but only the creator of the map can edit it.
How difficult will this tool be to master? Does it require an outside expert or special technical skills, or can it be learned with practice?
This tool is incredibly user friendly, it has labels on the different icons and explanation tabs of what they do. It does require a bit of experimenting with the tool to fully understand it, but that is with any tool. If there are problems or questions FabulaMaps has many official tutorials on its site and many outside tutorials online.
Could you use this digital tool for your project? Why or why not?
I am trying to use this in my project because it has both the narrative element I need and the mapping features that I believe my project could benefit from. I have a StoryMapJS right now but FabulaMaps would allow me to follow every cadet individually which is incredibly important to me. With the many colors and options of markers it gives me the ability to differentiate between cadets and battles. Also FabulaMaps has an amazing feature that allows markers to travel along lines that could show how far the individual cadet travelled and how many of the cadets travelled together. The problem is that I have so much data and information and FabulaMaps has so many possibilities that I am unsure how exactly to format the narrative element.
Apparently Undergrad Research is Pretty Nifty
Okay so Bucknell.
I enjoyed people being interested in my project and laughing at my jokes. Above all I have to say I did enjoy the Twitter attention, being quoted and retweeted made me feel like my voice was being heard and my words were taken to heart.
What we had with DSSF was incredibly unique and independent. All the undergraduate research that was presented at BUDSC16 was either in relation to a professor’s work or highly regulated with papers and essays that accompanied their project. We had the opportunity and privilege to conduct truly independent research that was guided by workshops to give us the tools to work with. The opportunity that DSSF gave us was absolutely priceless.
“Tell me all about your project. I want to know all about the Civil War.” One man said while Lauren snorted in the background because she knew what was coming. This man was a speaker that teaches at UMass at Amherst in the Latin American Literature Department. I happen to know another professor that studies Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst, Ilan Stavans who was a mentor to me at the Great Books Summer Program hosted through Amherst College. He had a daughter interested in the Civil War as well and we talked at length about both interest in the Civil War, my time with Dr. Stavans, and my project.
Since my cadets came from everywhere I made connections with a lot of libraries that have something or another on at least one of them. For example: the librarians from Rochester didn’t know that O’Rorke bridge, a prominent bridge in Rochester I’m guessing, was named after my cadet Patrick O’Rorke and that they had papers in their collections from Patrick O’Rorke and from his wife as well and invited me to visit some time. This happened many times over.
The Digital Humanities community is way more open and casual than I expected. I stated in my presentation that in Digital Humanities that I could be judged by my work and not by who I was, even though I got a tweet that disagreed with me I largely found that anyone could do research on anything. However, digital humanities need funds. Yale put together a huge project based on crowd-sourcing and student’s stories that they collected in a view months and Lauren and I were in awe in how they could pull something together that fast and have it be so organized and nice. We quickly were reminded that it was Yale and they had money for DH. Yale quality DH requires funds, time, and tons of manpower. But with that said, DH is still a community of practice. At panels Q&A there were many suggestions of new tools or platforms to use, constructive criticisms and comments that were taken into account. Because new tools are always evolving creating new possibilities for everyone no matter how experienced or inexperienced someone is.
Bucknell was an incredible, yet exhausting, experience that I believe was helpful for all of us and gave us insight to the DH community outside of our little library space.
-Julia
Thoughts on Bucknell
People love to sort things into binaries. Digital is traditionally the opposite of the humanities, failure the opposite of success, and student the opposite of professor. At the Bucknell University Digital Scholarship conference, whose theme was “Negotiating Borders Through Digital Collaboration”, I witnessed the dissolution and blending of all of these binaries.
Throughout the summer, we discussed the ways that digital tools can be used to present traditional humanities materials in new ways, and that this started to dissolve the binary between the two. This conference continued to bring the two closer to one another in my mind because I was able to see how digital tools can also be used to inform the humanities. A number of projects presented at the conference used some form of crowdsourcing to gather information, form narratives, and complement or enhance humanities materials that already existed. Dr. Safiya Noble’s keynote was especially important in recognizing the way that search engines influence our perceptions of humanity and reinforce hegemonic narratives. Much as people may like to think of them as being two separate spheres, it is clear that digital tools, including those that are common knowledge, are continually influencing the material that influences the humanities.
Similar to the way that the conference showed digital and humanities as being complements to one another, failure and success were also posited as being congruent. A number of panels discussed the struggles they encountered with regard to their work, but each used it as an opportunity to reevaluate their projects and methods or shift their focus. The conference emphasized that failure allows for greater discovery; it is not an endpoint, but rather a beginning.
Most striking to me though was the erasure of a student/faculty binary at the conference. In the beginning of the digital scholarship summer fellowship in May, the conference seemed like a very abstract concept. To me, conferences always seemed like lofty places, reserved for a select group of scholars that I could hope to accompany,and only become after years of education and having published a substantial amount of published material. Bucknell smashed this expectation to pieces. Not only was my and my cohort’s undergraduate research regarded as being significant, but the conference affirmed and included the work of scholars at all levels, and proved that the people doing work on the digital humanities aren’t on a binary, but really function as a community of practice, where students, professors, librarians, educators, and technologists all rely on and influence one another. The implicit task after this conference seems to be to expand the community of practice even further. As dictated in Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom’s keynote, it is incredibly important to introduce and establish the digital humanities at those institutions, such as community colleges, tribal colleges, and historically black colleges, that have often and unjustly been left at the margins of academic communities. The community of practice cannot function if it only features the voices of an elite some, while denying access to the voices of an inclusive many.
#BUDSC2016
The Bucknell Digital Scholarship Conference proved to be a great experience for all. The digital scholars were able to meet a lot of great people and learn more about the community of digital scholarship. Reflecting back on my experience, I really enjoyed being able to interact with other digital scholars. Since I am new to digital scholarship, it was nice to be able to talk with people about their experiences with digital tools and workshops. I also enjoyed many of the presentations I went to. It was nice to see other undergraduate students engaging with digital scholarship, creating these impressive and diverse projects. One presentation about digital storytelling as a tool to preserve the history of the Williamsport Black Community made me want to do a similar project at Gettysburg College. Other projects included a neat Art History archive that three Bucknell students created and an interesting History Harvest project at Susquehanna University. And it was nice see the Lafayette Digital Scholars again.
I made a couple interesting connections. N. C. Christopher Couchgave a presentation about the circulation and use of Indigenous language texts in New England. Being interested in Indigenous studies I decided to go to his presentation to see what he was doing. It turns out that the project is in its early stages of planning but after the presentation I went up to him and had a nice discussion about his project. I told in about my interest in Native American Studies and he was able to give me more information about what he is planning to do with his project and the Indigenous scholars he is planning on contacting. He gave me his card and told me to update him on my career plans.
What was probably my favorite thing about this conference is the twitter feed. I have never been so popular on twitter before this conference. It was really interesting to see people tweeting about our presentation and quoting us. All the positive tweets about presentations and panel discussion really allowed me to see that digital humanities is a community of practice. The cohort discussed this value of DH throughout the summer but I was able to really see it at the conference. Everyone was so supportive and enthusiastic about our projects and other presenter’s projects. Even before my presentation on women saw how nervous I was and told me that I was “among a community of friends” and was going to do a great job. We were getting continuous complements throughout the day and were mobbed during our poster presentations. The presentations themselves focused on diversity and inclusion. The keynote speakers all focused their speeches around how to diversify the DH community and many other presentations were about how DH includes many different voices.
Overall, I am glad that I was able to go to digital conference and present. It was a great experience and I learned a lot about digital humanities and the community of DH.
