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Exploratory text analytics concerns the application of computational and statistical methods to the interpretation of large collections of digitized written documents. The field is motivated by the research of scholars from the humanities and human sciences interested in understanding the semantic, cultural, and social dimensions of texts from historical and contemporary sources, such as novels, newspapers, and social media. The course comprises three main sections: (1) an overview of text interpretation theory combined with information theory to introduce the domain knowledge required for making inferences in this area; (2) a hands-on introduction to methods for converting unstructured textual content into both graph and vector-space representations; and (3) the application and discussion of algorithms from natural language processing and text mining approaches, including term frequency measures, topic models, and sentiment analyses, to address the classic problems of text classification and clustering as well as new areas, such as social event detection, computational narratology, and data-driven approaches to structuralist poetics. There are no hard prerequisites for the course, but students should be comfortable with combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, have some experience programming in Python, and be familiar with basic statistics and probability theory.

Thursdays 2:00-4:30 p.m. in New Cabell Hall 038

This workshop introduces advanced undergraduate and graduate students to a variety of methods and platforms for digital research featuring geospatial data.  Students will contribute to a series of common research projects as they learn geospatial visualization methods using using ArcMap, ArcGIS Online, Story Map, MapScholar, and VisualEyes.  We will read historical scholarship as well as primary sources with an eye firmly fixed on how to visualize spatial ideas and experiences and spend time debating the value of doing so.  We will also read about visualization more generally as we think creatively about how digital tools might enable us to make our own research more innovative and compelling.  This course counts as an elective for the Graduate Digital Humanities Certificate program.

Increasingly, we access, share, and create information in digital forms, and this has been referred to as a digital revolution. But how does — or how should — this revolution in the way we teach, learn, and conduct research also change the way we do scholarly work in the classroom? The digital humanities investigates how new media and digital tools are changing the way we produce knowledge in the humanities, by enabling us to share not only information, but sound, visualizations, and even performances using new platforms. This class will provide an introduction to some of these formats and tools, along with immediate critical reflection and discussion about their value to the academy. Since information technology has become one of the key ways in which the peoples of the Caribbean and its diasporas both communicate with one another and gain access to global conversations, alongside this exploration of digital tools, in general, this class will likewise study how the internet can help people in marginalized spaces to engage with crucial social problems and to express their political ideals and aspirations. As the creators of the Digital Caribbean website have attested, “the Internet is analogous in important ways to the Caribbean itself as dynamic and fluid cultural space: it is generated from disparate places and by disparate peoples; it challenges fundamentally the geographical and physical barriers that disrupt or disallow connection; and it places others in relentless relation.” This class will therefore both introduce students to the digital humanities and to the Caribbean as an apt space for exploring the potential of the internet to confront and disrupt many of the more traditional structures of dominance that have traditionally silenced marginalized voices.

This course is designed to increase the digital literacy of advanced undergraduate and graduate art & architectural history students. Class meetings will combine discussion of readings and analysis of sites and tools with hands on instruction in a spectrum of digital tools relevant for art and architectural history.  Discussions will  focus on  questions such as what avenues for research does this tool or site open up?  What ones does it close off? Does this technology enable us to ask new questions that would not be possible?  Students will critically read and discuss a cross section of works ranging from spatial and temporal theory in art history to debates about the integration of computers with the humanities. Workshops will include hands-on demonstrations of digital tools for capturing and analyzing art and architectural history data. Several of these processes will include the creation of 3D models from laser scan and photogrammetry data, viewshed and network analysis in ArcGIS, and temporal & spatial database creation in Omeka-Neatline. Students will apply a selection of these tools to a research topic they develop with the instructor with the support of  the Scholars Lab. Through the discussion, readings and hands on application, students will develop a methodology for analyzing and applying digital tools to their humanities research.

This is a new course that combines hands-on textual analysis with broader philosophical and cultural issues concerning the epistemology of data, the relations between the digital humanities and data science, and the tensions between traditional methods of the humanities and contemporary computational techniques. The course text is Text Analysis with R for Students of Literature by Matthew Jockers. The course is self-contained and is aimed at undergraduates in the humanities and social sciences who would like to acquire skills in these new areas. The course is restricted to third and fourth year students. We shall learn and use enough of the R programming language to write basic programs to analyze text. No previous knowledge of R is required but some familiarity with the basics of programming is expected, as is openness to discussions of interpretation. The class is interactive and you are expected to keep up with the assigned reading and exercises. Because discussing coding techniques with others is helpful, when possible, we shall pair students having a lower level of exposure to programming with students having a higher level. We hope this will benefit both students

From the colonial period to the present day, the Popol Vuh, sometimes called the Maya book of creation, has been translated, edited, paraphrased, and glossed in more than 25 languages. WorldCat suggests that there are over 1,200 known editions of the work, published in verse, scholarly editions, and illustrated volumes. In addition to differences in form and genre, Spanish-language volumes offer very different interpretations of the K’iche’ source text. The opening line of Adrián Recinos’s translation is, “Este es el principio de las antiguas historias de este lugar llamado Quiché,” while Emilio Abreu Gómez renders it as, “Entonces no había ni gente, ni animales, ni árboles, ni piedras, ni nada.” Readers’ interpretations of the text, and of Maya cultural and spiritual traditions conveyed in translation, thus depend upon the editions they consult, and these editions vary widely.

In this class, we will design a thematic research collection of the Popol Vuh, housed at the Newberry Library and digitally hosted by the Ohio State University Library. By encoding the manuscript with tools that show the graphic and narrative complexity of the Popol Vuh, this project will allow readers to engage deeply with questions of historical, spiritual, and cultural translation. Such tools will ideally include images (glyphs, vases, figures from codices), maps, and alternative translations. Primary readings include translations and editions of the Popol Vuh; secondary sources will address key topics in Classic and Post-Classic Maya Studies (archaeology, art history, linguistics), as well as critical paradigms in DH scholarship (evaluation, methodology, pedagogy).

On seminar days (Tuesdays, led by professor Bigelow), we will analyze primary and secondary readings and identify features we want to encode in our digital critical edition. On studio days (Thursdays, led by professor Alvarado), we will learn how to encode textual variants and graphic forms using Drupal software. We will work in small teams (2-3 people) to encode a section of the manuscript (about 6 folios per person). In this way, we’ll build skills in literary/translation analysis and DH research, thinking critically about the problems that DH platforms do and do not resolve in Latin American, Mesoamerican, and Indigenous Studies.

This course is offered in the spring of 2017 so that students can present work at the 2018 DH conference in Mexico City, the first time that the conference will be held in Latin America.

This course will introduce you to the theory and practice of database application design in the context of the digital liberal arts.  Beginning with the premise that the database is the defining symbolic form of the postmodern era, you will review critical and practical literature about databases, study examples of their use in projects from a variety of humanities disciplines, and engage in the actual design of a database application as a course project.  Topics to be covered will include data models, web-based database development using PHP and MySQL, interface design, data visualization, and the rold of databases in scholarship.  Students will write code, keep a journal on the course blog, and collaborate to produce a final product.

What you will learn:

1. Basic programming skills in HTML, PHP, and SQL
2. Knowledge of common data formats such as CSV and RSS and techniques for working with them.
3. Design principles at the levels of data modeling and interface design.
4. A theoretical framework within which to conceptualize the structure and function of database driven applications
5. Familiarity with the data and design goals of Digital Humanities projects.