ARH 8500 Digital Humanities and Visual Culture

Mondays from 1:00pm - 3:30pm in Campbell 108.

Digital tools have completely transformed the questions humanists ask, how they view the world and how they disseminate their scholarship. These new possibilities both open and close possible avenues of investigation. This course will introduce students to tools relevant to the analysis of visual culture and architecture as well as the process of how to learn to use digital tools – critical given the constantly changing array of options-  as well as how to develop a digital project. Together we will critically assess the role of digital humanities in art and architectural history through an analysis of selected digital projects as well as specific tools.  We will consider questions such as: What are the tools that have made this work possible? How have these same tools imposed limits on the project under examination? How can these tools advance on our own work and the dissemination of our scholarship? We will analyze what  these tools make possible in terms of our own research and learn how to apply them. We will work through the process of digital project development from selecting objects of study, to recording those objects, constructing a database to visualizing the data and finally representing it through a digital project. These will include 3-d scanning visualization, GIS mapping tools, project management techniques, and data collection. This course is open to graduate students from any discipline.