ENGL 615 DH: Public History, Archives, and Scholarly Communication

“With the migration of cultural materials into networked environments, questions regarding the production, availability, validity, and stewardship of these materials present new challenges and opportunities for humanists” (Burdick 4). It is these new challenges and opportunities that ENGL615 seeks to investigate. Co-taught by a Special Collections Librarian and a faculty member in the English department, this course provides broad training and professional development in curating, archiving, exhibiting, critiquing, and publishing materials across a range of media. The course interrogates the practices associated with the digital humanities as it also probes the intersections of library science and English studies. The course is meant to help graduate students in English broaden their career options, as they consider what is at stake in processes of information creation. This course takes the view that digital humanities is a set of skills and ways of thinking that can prepare you for a range of career opportunities within and beyond the university. The course covers the histories, methodologies, tools, and debates of digital humanities. While no technical background is required as a prerequisite for the course, this course is as technologically intensive as it is writing and reading intensive. That is, the use of technology will be a key aspect of your learning experience in this course. This is apt given that our focus will be on how writers and readers are increasingly reliant on digital tools, and the media we use to share and create information is changing. You can expect this course to equip you with practical tools for theorizing and participating in these processes of information creation, management, and design.