Tag Multimodal Scholarship

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THATCamp Theory Presentation

Oct 16, ’12 1:52 AM

Mattern THATCampTheory

This past weekend I led a workshop at THATCamp Theory, at Rutgers, on evaluating and critiquing multimodal projects.I must admit, my talk was kind-of a mash-up of two older projects: my CUNY DHI talk from last October (video here) and this post. Above are my slides, and below are my notes.

I unfortunately was able to attend only Day One of the two-day conference (Rory said Day Two was quite the brain-bender). Yet I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions I was able to take part in!

EVALUATION / CRITIQUE OF DH PROJECTS

This workshop will focus on developing a critical vocabulary for responding to DH and systems for providing meaningful evaluative feedback, including 1) developing critical evaluative criteria for various formats of multimodal work and 2) identifying theoretical frameworks that inform those criteria. We’ll consider both professional and student projects and spend some time considering how to make project evaluation an integral part of the DH classroom. Depending on the interests of the group, our case studies might include data visualizations, map-based projects, crowdsourced archival projects, and other interactive publications.

  • Recognize that there’s a history of considering “multimodal evaluation” in composition

[SLIDE 2] I’m not fully ensconced in the DH community – sympathetic to their interest in different forms, practices, praxes, of scholarship.

  • Craft as a useful model for considering how similar intellectual values and practices span domains – reading, writing, making in various modalities
  • But not all making is scholarship

[SLIDES 3-4] McPherson article: Multimodal Humanist – this term, still a mouthful, resonated more with me

[SLIDE 5] Scrivener on when production is research

[SLIDE 6] Question about Feedback & Evaluation — not simply so I could assign a grade, but so we could provide meaningful feedback

  • Work – particularly technical skills – were sometimes outside my area of expertise
  • How to balance weighting of form and content – “rigor” in concept or execution?
  • Individual vs. Group Accountability

[SLIDE 7] Revisited the list of criteria two years later

[SLIDES 8-10] Fall 2010 / 2011 / 2012 : Urban Media Archaeology

  • [SLIDE 11] Semester Schedule – discuss theories representing each unit
  • [SLIDE 12] PROJECT PROPOSALS – not different from trendy “contracts”
    • Justify choice of “genre” and format – use of media tools as method
  • [SLIDES 13-14] Student Proposed Projects
    • Carrier pigeons, electrification of lower Manhattan, video game arcades, newspaper company headquarters, “media actors” in Atlantic Yards using actor-network theory, etc.
    • I provide individual feedback; students post to blogs and classmates comment
    • This semester’s class hasn’t yet posted their proposals online
  • [SLIDE 15] Learn Data Modeling (interface now looks a bit different)
  • [SLIDE 16] User Scenarios
  • [SLIDE 17] Look inside Black Box – Software Development
  • [SLIDE 18] Pecha Kucha
    • DH projects inherently collaborative – need experts from multiple fields
  • [SLIDE 19] All the while, we’re collectively developing criteria for evaluation:
    • [SLIDE 20] By working in small groups and as a class to evaluate other “multimodal projects” + Hypercities
    • [SLIDE 21] Through individual map critiques
    • Thru Peer Review of one another’s projects
  • [SLIDE 22] Process Blogs – Self-Evaluation
    • Make public their process
      • [SLIDE 23] Discuss work w/ other public/cultural institutions – e.g., archives
    • [SLIDES 24-26] Practice “critical self-consciousness” – about their work processes, choice of methods, media formats, etc.
    • Hold themselves accountable for their choices
  • [SLIDE 27] Peer Evaluation: Paper Prototypes
  • Final Presentation: [SLIDE 28] My Feedback + [SLIDE 29] Students’ Peer Reviews

[SLIDE 30] Where was theory throughout?

  • Underlying the entire project, informing their understanding of the way cities work, informing their understanding of how maps work as media, informing how they design their data models, which are in shaped by how they want their projects to look for users – thus, theories about the visualization of data mix in with their theories about how databases work
  • And in order for students to know how we were going to evaluate success, these theories had to be made an integral part of our development process

[SLIDE 31] Through critique, we’ll reverse-engineer student and professional projects and find the theory that informed it

  • [SLIDE 32] From my list of evaluative criteria – Concept + Content; Concept-/Content-Driven Design + Technique; Documentation and Transparent, Collaborative Development; Academic Integrity and Openness; Review and Critique – are backed by theories: theories central to the project’s content, theories of design, theories of knowledge production, theories of labor, etc.
  • [CLICK] But we’ll focus on the few dimensions that are overtly theoretical, and that we can potentially discern in a quick review, in the short time we have here
  • [SLIDE 33] Break up into groups and assess the Concept + Content and Concept-Content-Driven Design + Technique of a few sample DH project and reverse-engineer that theories that might’ve informed their creation

[SLIDE 34] Case Studies:

  • These are the cases we choose from in my UMA class.
  • Solicit ideas for classes of projects to critique (e.g., data visualizations, map-based projects, crowd-sourced archival project, interactive publications)
  • Solicit ideas for specific projects groups can collaborative assess

Examples:

 

 

 

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IYLSSIF 5: What Media Studies Makes: Forms of Scholarship

Nov 21, ’11 12:29 AM

The fifth in an epic, six-part series of lectures from my intro to graduate studies lecture course, which I’m posting online in the hope that others will find them useful. [Part 1 Here, Part 2 Here, Part 3 Here, Part 4 Here; the lectures are unedited -- hence, you might be a bit confused by a few inexplicable notes and slides about administrative issues]. We started off by describing the premise of the class; then discussed how students could find their own position within the program and the field; then helped students map that field, appreciate its breadth and the various intellectual and create traditions it draws from; then talked about practical methods for maintaining one’s orientation within the field and within one’s own work. Now we talk about the various forms one’s scholarship can take, ranging from traditional academic writing to more experimental writing forms, to “multimodal” scholarship and theoretically informed, research-based media production.

UMS5_Oct3

[SLIDE 1] LOCATION OF SIGN-IN SHEETS!

[SLIDE 2]

  • Academic Sources?
  • Next Week: begin w/ visit from GPIA re: IFP – Deadline: 10/15

[SLIDE 3] WHAT MEDIA STUDIES MAKES: FORMS OF SCHOLARSHIP

In our field, media studies, we take a cross-platform, comparative approach to studying various modes of communication. This comparative approach characterizes not only our subjects of study, but also our methods and our means of presenting the outcomes of our work.

[SLIDE 4] Just as, last week, we talked about different platforms and software for taking notes, organizing projects, etc., we also have to think about what technologies can serve us as research tools – as methods – and what can help us present our work in the most effective way possible. That’s in part what multimodal scholarship is about: thinking about how different media might allow you ask new research questions, engage your subject in new ways, and share your in-progress or finished work in ways that “do justice” to your subject and your argument, that give appropriate form to your content.

As your reading for this week suggested, media studies makes scholarship in traditional written forms and in “multimodal” forms. Film, field recordings, databases, etc. can all function as research tools and as platforms for presenting our research-based, theoretically-informed work. Or course there’s still room for using these media as creative forms – as means of pure artistic expression – but today we’re going to focus on how these technologies might shape the forms of our research and theorization.

[SLIDE 5] Guest: Amir Husak

[SLIDE 6] DIGITAL HUMANITIES

McPherson

  • Researchers are more than “content providers” – they “fully engage with the platforms and tools of the digital era” (120)
    • Computing humanist
    • Blogging humanist
  • “Who better to reimagine the relationship of scholarly form to content than those who have devoted their careers to studying narrative structure, representation and meaning, or the aesthetics of visuality (and aurality)?” (120)
  • [SLIDE 7] Remember Henry Jenkins from our 2nd Lecture, on History of the Field: “New media literacies include the traditional literacy that evolved with print culture as well as the newer forms of literacy within mass and digital media…. [We] must expand [our] required competencies, not push aside old skills to make room for the new.

Beyond core literacy, students need research skills…. Students also need to develop technical skills…. Yet, to reduce the new media literacies to technical skills would be a mistake on the order of confusing penmanship with composition….

  • [SLIDE 8] “The multimodal humanist…brings together databases, scholarly tools, networked writing, and peer-to-peer commentary while also leveraging the potential of visual and aural (and interactive) media that so dominate contemporary life… She aims to produce work that reconfigures the relationships among author, reader, and technology while investigating the computer simultaneously as a platform, a medium, and a visualization device. She thinks carefully about the relationship of form to content, expression to idea” (120)
  • [SLIDE 9]  CommentPress
  • [SLIDE 10] “The multimodal scholar explores new forms of literacy that include authoring and analyzing visual, aural, dynamic, and interactive media….[and imagines] what it would be like to immerse yourself in a scholarly argumentas you might immerse yourself in a movie or a video game. She investigates what happens when scholarship looks and feels differently, requiring new modes of engagement from the reader/user” (120)
    • “’How do you ‘experience’ or feel’ an argument in a more immersive and sensory-rich space?’ ‘Can scholarship show as well as tell?’ ‘Will representing data differently change the ways we understand, collect, or interpret it?’ ‘What happens to argument in a nonlinear environment?’” (121) – AFFECTIVE dimension

     

  • [SLIDE 11] “…hands-on engagement with digital forms reorients the scholarly imagination, not because the tools are cool or new (even if they are) or because the audience for our work might be expanded (even if it is), but because scholars come to realize that they understand their arguments and their objects of study differently, even better, when they approach them through multiple modalities and emergent and interconnected forms of literacy. The ability to deploy new experiential, emotional and even tactile aspects of argument and expression can open up fresh avenues of inquiry and research” (121)
  • [SLIDE 12]Book vs. Database:
    • Book calls for linear organization
    • Database allows for tangents – allows us to “present multiple lines of thought in relation to the materials at hand and to invite others to join us in this process in extended collaboration and convention. Working with databases allows us both to present our arguments differently and to understand our materials differently. Thus, the database might itself be understood das an interpretive platformthat can support and extend the core methodologies of the interpretive humanities…” (121)
    • [SLIDE 13] Wunderkammer: even though it’s organized like a book, it allows for tangents, links etc.: http://www.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/delagrange
    • [SLIDE 14] Thinking/Making
  • [SLIDE 15: Korsakow] New forms of argumentation: “multiple, associative, digressive, even contradictory” (122)
  • “navigating new pathways through scholarly materials that can transform the questions scholarship might ask” (122)
    • [SLIDE 16] John Snow’s 1854 Cholera Map of London

These claims are not unique to the database!

  • [SLIDE 17: Audio/Video] “…imagine very different scholarly ‘outputs’at the surface of the screen – we might create powerful simulations, visualize space and time in compelling ways, or structure data that the user can then play like a video game, richly annotate on the fly, or capture and represent in interesting new ways” (122)
    • [SLIDE 18] Mark Kann’s “Deliberative Democracy and Difference” on Vectors: http://www.vectorsjournal.org/projects/index.php?project=81
  • STILL NEED A METHOD – Topic for next week!

Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0

  • [SLIDE 19] Process (research AND design!) over product! Collaboration, Interdisciplinarity, distributed networks of knowledge production
  • McPherson: “imperative that we be involved in the design and construction of the emerging networked platforms and practices” – design our own tools (123)
    • [SLIDE 20] Manifesto: “…not only to seek to understand and interrogate the cultural and social impact of new technologies, but to be engaged in driving the creation of new technologies, methodologies, and information systems, as well as in their détournement (turnabout, derailment), reinvention, repurposing, via research questions grounded in the Arts and Humanities: questions of meaning, interpretation, history, subjectivity, and culture” (6)
    • [SLIDE 21]: URT + Mapping the Social Life of Zines
  • “determining and designing the interface to information, data, and knowledge becomes just as central as the crafts of writing, curating, and coordinating” (7)
    • [SLIDE 22: Dr. Strangelove] Faden on Media Stylos: “In 1998, on the 50th anniversary of French critic and filmmaker Alexandre Astruc’s inspiring essay “The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: Le Caméra Stylo,” I began making short films and videos in lieu of academic conference papers. Astruc’s essay called for a new film practice that moved beyond both avant-garde abstraction and narrative story telling and embraced a full range of intellectual practicesfrom filming philosophy to emulating the 17th century literary essay.”
      • Would not advocate misrepresenting your presentation in a conference or workshop proposal – or aiming to alienate your fellow panelists
      • Still, Faden has taken cues from Astruc in thinking about film- or video-making as a means of thinking through theory, or creating media that critiques itself or its own process of construction
      • Mix of media formats and rhetorical modes
      • Allows for consideration of form in relation to content– format of argumentation parallels format of its subject
        • [SLIDE 23] Issues of FAIR USE
        • [SLIDE 24] SCMS Fair Use
  • [SLIDE 25] Evaluating Multimodal Work
  • [SLIDE 26] CUNY DHI
  • [SLIDE 27] Communities of Digital Humanities-inspired graduate students: HASTAC: http://www.hastac.org/scholars

WRITING

IMPORTANCE OF WRITING – EVEN IN PRODUCTION WORK

  • Production faculty claim that the biggest problems with students production projects are (1) problematic conceptualization, which is related to weak writing and (2) sound design
  • [SLIDE 28: Book of Hours, 1460] Grad students tend to write in a way that constitutes what they think is “academic” writing
    • Gerald Graff, education historian, author of “Scholars and Sound Bites” in PLMA: “When students write ponderously and evasively, it is often not because they could not do otherwise, but because they are convinced that such writing is what their professors want” (1041)
    • Becker, sociologist well known for his work on “art worlds,” also addresses the compulsion grad students feel to “sound academic,” to put on a particular “writerly persona” – advocates for simplicity

[SLIDE 29] Toor on Orwell:

  • “A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”
  • Toor: 83 comments!

[SLIDE 30-31] Graff’s Tips:

  • “Be dialogical. Begin your text by directly identifying the prior conversation or debate that you are entering” (1050)
  • “Make a claim, the sooner the better, and flag it for the reader”
  • “Remind readers of your claim periodically, especially the more you complicate it”
  • “Summarize the objections that you anticipate can be made (or have been made) against your claim.” (1050)
  • “Say explicitly – or at least imply – why your ideas are important, what difference it makes to the world if you are right or wrong, and so forth” – “So what?” (1051)
  • “Generate a metatext that stands apart from your main text and puts it in perspective” – “I do not mean to suggest that…” “Here you will probably object that…” (1051)
  • “you are probably so eager to prove that you’ve left no thought unconsidered that you find it hard to resist the temptation to say everything at once, and consequence you say nothing that is understood while producing horribly overloaded paragraphs and sentences” (1051)
  • “Be bilingual. It is not necessary to avoid academese – you sometimes need the stuff… [But] try to say it in the vernacular as well” (1051)
  • “If you could not explain it to your [friends], the chances are you don’t understand it yourself” (1051)

[SLIDE 32] Most “tips” focus on the style, and take for granted the “how” – how to start a paper when you’re not given a particular assignment, a paper that might be longer than those you’ve written in the past, a paper that serves a different purpose than those you’ve written as an undergrad or for work…

DIFFERENT WRITERS HAVE DIFFERENT TIPS FOR GRAD-LEVEL WRITING

[SLIDE 33] Moxley, Publish, Don’t Perish:

  • Audience Analysis
  • Purpose Analysis: reporting, critiquing, objecting, investigating, persuading?
  • Voice Analysis
    • Becker on Persona & Authority: speaking in imperatives, passive voice, etc
  • Process Analysis
    • “What are your writing rituals? What is the best time of day for you to write? Where do you like to write?” (Moxley 39)
    • Becker: “you have already made many choices when you sit down to write, but probably don’t know what they were” (17)

[SLIDE 34] DRAFTING MODELS

  • “…some academics believe that they are violating the rules when they write without an outline. Or, more sadly, when they cannot come up with an outline, some academicians fear that their idea is weak and insignificant, that they lack the critical thinking skills necessary to write well. In fact, recommending that one always outline before writing is based on the foolish assumption that thinking and writing are not related, that first one thinks and then one writes” (Moxley 27)
    • Becker: You needn’t work out everything before starting to write; “Writing can…shape your research design” (Moxley 18)
  • [CLICK]Freewrite Drafts: write without hesitation – “try to ignore critical thoughts and focus on generating ideas” (29)
    • Helps you “(1) develop ideas that you otherwise would not develop, (2) overcome the tightness and frustration associated with beginning new writing projects, and (3) create a flow that helps establish a voice in your prose” (29)
    • “…when you let your thoughts about the research flow, they often gain a forcefulness, a sense of directness and insight, that they otherwise might lack” (29)
    • “When reviewing your freewrites, identify the details that seem most significant. Put brackets around the sections that you believe are worth keeping.” (29)
    • Zinsser on Style
  • [CLICK]Dictate Drafts
    • “sometimes dictated drafts have a strong, natural voice” (31)
    • “can speak faster than you can write” (31)
  • [CLICK] Draw a Cluster Diagram
    • “Rather than trying to force your ideas into a formal outline, you can pictorially represent them on the page and then draw lines between ideas that seem somewhat related” (31)
    • Remember discussion on CONCEPT MAPPING
  • [CLICK] Draw a Pie Diagram
    • “…allows you to estimate visually how much tie you should spend addressing each aspect of your / subject” (31, 33)
  • [CLICK] Make a Formal Outline

[SLIDE 35] FORMATS

  • Intro / Methods & Materials / Results / Discussion / Conclusion
  • Intro / Subheaded Sections / Conclusion – with Transitions!

Gregory Colon Semenza, Graduate Study for the 21st Century:

[SLIDE 36] TYPES OF PAPERS

  1. The Controversy Paper: “claim that purports to end a controversy or debate” (93)
  2. The Textual Crux Paper: “for years readers have pondered the meaning of an ambiguous, unclear, or even a missing part of a given text…Your research leads you to a strong conclusion about the meaning of the problematic text or term..” (93)
  3. The Gap in Scholarship Paper: “in reading the scholarship about a particular subject, you are struck that no one has said anything about a related and seemingly important matter. You decide to widen the scope of the conversation” (93)
  4. The Historical Contextualization: “clarify the meaning of a particular work or explain its provenance, immediate reception, of influence on other contemporary texts” (94)
  5. The Pragmatic Proposal: “more interested in praxes than theory for its own sake” (94)
  6. The Theoretical Application
  • The “so what?” question + Situating your argument

MORE INFORMAL DH-INSPIRED FORMS OF ACADEMIC WRITING – Work through some ideas before formal publication

[SLIDE 39] Revision

  • Zinsser’s revised m.s.: pp. 10-11
  • Becker on necessity for writing multiple drafts – “writing need not be a one-shot, all-or-nothing venture. It could have stages, each with its own criteria of excellence” (14)
  • [SLIDE 40] Use of Writing Center

[SLIDE 41] Giving Credit Where It’s Due

  • Plagiarism – Don’t do it; honor the collective thought and creation that inspired your own thoughts – just as you would have others do to your own work
  • [SLIDE 42] Crediting Photos
  • Make sure you’re familiar with what constitutes academic honesty and dishonesty
    • “Piece-mealing” an argument is plagiarism
  • Style Guides

[SLIDE 43] MULTIPLE WAYS TO MAKE SCHOLARSHIP IN MEDIA STUDIES

  • Each has affordances and limitations
  • Choice should be guided by what “tool” is right for the job (must cultivate “material consciousness”) – We’ll talk more next week about methods.
  • In this week’s discussion section, you’ll look at various platforms for multimodal scholarship.
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Library Tech Development Panel @ Mobility Shifts, 10/14

Aug 30, ’11 2:18 AM

I’ve mentioned this before, but it warrants repeating!: I’ve organized a panel [download flyer] on library-led technology development projects for the upcoming Mobility Shifts conference at The New School. Please join us! (but you’ll have to register for the conference first!)

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The Library in Your Pocket (I’ll admit: I’ve never been good at titles!)
Theresa Lang Student Center, 2nd Floor, Arnhold Hall, 55 W 13th Street
Friday, October 14, 4 to 6pm

America’s public libraries, as the dominant narrative goes, afforded all people “the means of acquiring knowledge, self-education, [and] culture” (Oscar Bluemner, 1898). Libraries, in their dual – and often precariously balanced – commitments to cultural uplift and cultural outreach, have long been, at least in theory, places of self-directed, DIY learning. As materials once available only in the stacks have become ever more accessible in people’s homes and in their pockets, libraries’ strategies for cultural outreach, and for supporting patrons’ self-education, have evolved. Libraries are developing new ways for patrons to access their collections; drawing attention to underutilized collections; and helping users filter and contextualize material. Meanwhile, international organizations are using technology to bring libraries to regions of the world where they’d been scarce. And many of these initiatives are creating new opportunities for patrons to do things with or contribute to material in libraries’ collections.

Recent library-led technology development projects have attracted attention. As Alexis Madrigal wrote on The Atlantic’s website in June 2011, the New York Public Library “has reevaluated its role within the Internet information ecosystem and found a set of new identities” – as a “social network with three million active users” and as a “media outfit,” a “beacon in the carcass-strewn content landscape.” This panel examines how three different institutions – two public libraries and an academic library research unit – are helping to reshape the information ecosystem and creating new roles for themselves within it. Kim Dulin, Co-Director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, will discuss the Lab’s work in developing a front-end web application, a “virtual front door,” for the proposed Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). As Dulin notes, this interface will allow the DPLA to become more than “just a collection”; it will be “a place users can go to discover works, engage with them, engage with one another, and share what they learn, know, and care about.” Deanna Lee, Vice President of Communications and Marketing at the New York Public Library, will address several recent digital initiatives – the Biblion application, a John Cage “living archive,” a crowdsourced historical menu transcription project, and a new, more interactive library catalogue – that likewise change the ways and places in which patrons can access, experience, organize, and contribute to the collections. Linda E. Johnson, Interim Executive Director of the Brooklyn Public Library, will address the Library’s Broadband Technology and Opportunities Program and other of the library’s digital literacy initiatives. Finally, Shannon Mattern will identify common threads in the panelists’ presentations and offer prompts for discussion, which will address (1) how these projects provide opportunities for self-directed learning in new contexts; (2) how they evidence new thinking about pedagogy and epistemology; and (3) what the challenges and limitations of these projects might be, particularly as we attempt to implement them among traditionally underserviced populations and in the developing world.

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I’ll also be participating on the Urban Research & Mobile Media panel (search for it here) the previous evening:

Thursday, October 13, 7:30-9:30 pm
Urban Research & Mobile Media
Theresa Lang Student and Community Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th St., 2nd floor

This panel discussion plans to articulate the possibilities and challenges of urban research in utilizing mobile formats for participatory engagement both inside and outside the classroom. As Urban Research Toolkit (URT) is being developed to maximize the benefit of two primary interfaces – web and mobile – panelists will present and discuss how information can be gathered, cross-reference and annotated amongst a wide community of citizens and researchers. The panel will showcase a collaborative, interdisciplinary project being developed both on mobile/web platforms to support the urban themed curricular, pedagogical and research at the New School University, as well as specific examples of student engagement and multi-disciplinary application.

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PhDs for Polymaths

Apr 4, ’11 11:06 PM

Gregor Aisch's visualization of plagiarized passages in German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg's dissertation: http://bit.ly/i11dAG

Over the past couple years I’ve taught a few graduate classes that incorporate ideas from the Digital Humanities and emphasize “multimodal scholarship,” and I’ve been conducting research on praxis-based PhD programs. It’s for these reasons, I assume, that the planning committee for our graduate students’ Critical Themes in Media Studies conference asked me earlier this year to organize an opening-night panel on multimodal doctoral work and praxis-based PhDs. So, for the past couple months I’ve contacted graduate directors and colleagues at various local institutions to ask if any of their students are completing non-traditional (i.e., not solely text-based) dissertations on media studies-related topics. Their recommendations have helped me to pull together an impressive panel of three inspired young artist-scholars. Next Friday evening, April 15, at 5:30pm, before Clay Shirky’s opening keynote, we’ll be gathering in the Teresa Lang Center, on the 2nd floor at 55 W 13th Street, to talk about “The Multimodal Dissertation.” Come join us.

Multimodal scholarship, writes USC’s Tara McPherson (2009), deploys “new experiential, emotional, and even tactile aspects of argument and expression” in order to “open up fresh avenues of inquiry and research.” How might we in Media Studies transform the media technologies that have traditionally been our research subjects, into research tools, and thereby “open up fresh avenues” of creative scholarship? This panel examines how these new modes of scholarly practice are informing doctoral education. Our three panelists discuss how they’re infusing media-making into their dissertations, and how they’re navigating the still largely uncharted terrain of multimodal scholarship.

The Sound of America: Sound, Sensation, Sentiment, and Knowledge in American West Tourism

Presenter: Jennifer Heuson

Links between the American West and American identity, memory, and history are well documented. America constructs its uniqueness through the land and people west of the Mississippi. American West tourism is a crucial form of this construction.

Traveling west has become a ritual of citizenship, a pilgrimage to the birthplace of a mythical America. This is the America of cowboys and Indians, of gold mines and train robberies, of wild horses and still wilder people. It is an America of the past, performed in the present, informing the future. While scholars have devoted much energy to unpacking the significance of Wild West mythologies, two important areas remain underdeveloped: tourism and sound. My work engages both as key to the production and circulation of the “Wild” American West and its meanings. Tourist experiences of the American West play a pivotal role in knowledge of American history and identity. Yet, such experiences are neither natural, nor benign. They are mediated, historical, and political. They are actual and imagined. They are also sensual. It is the power of the sensual, living tourist encounter I hope to uncover by engaging its sonic contours. The sound of the American West, as a national soundscape, reveals much about how America is known, remembered, and imagined. It also hints at the future forms of American politics, at home and abroad.

Marquee Survivals: Racialized Urbanism in Cinema’s Recycled Spaces

Presenter: Veronica Paredes

Marquee Survivals is an interactive, digital dissertation that explores contemporary conceptions of the repurposed movie theater. Across the United States, twentieth-century movie theaters have been converted into a variety of different establishments, including churches, swap meets, clothing and electronics stores. This project unravels how discussions surrounding these former movie houses racialize the spatial and historical perceptions of American popular media. In unpacking nostalgia’s place in touring the extant structures of film exhibition, Marquee Survivals highlights the roles race, ethnicity, and nation play in constructing the cultural narrative of cinema’s decline in the American downtown.

Incorporating methodologies from diverse academic disciplines, Marquee Survivals is also a networked digital dissertation that complicates dominant understandings of cinema’s early exhibition spaces by connecting them to present-day media consumption. Working toward an alternative media historiography of the repurposed movie theater, Marquee Survivals marries film theory and history, cultural studies, and digital media production. This presentation will feature documentation of Marquee Survival’s design processes and struggles. What are the challenges of building a distributed dissertation project that has equal investment in achieving rigorous scholarship and an affective user experience?

Hitting Walls (v.XVII): Some Strategies, Several Projections

Presenter: Carlin Wing

Hitting Walls uses the sport of squash to address colonial histories, globalization and the potential for serious play within overdetermined structures. The project exists as a series of iterations made in a variety of media including large format photography, appropriated webgrabs, video, sculpture, performance, participatory activities and academic lectures. The most recent completed iteration took the form of a lecture and workshop on ball-making methods at Machine Project in Los Angeles this past January.

I expect my dissertation to exist as one more iterative element of this larger project. My broad goal is to use my dissertation as an opportunity to experiment with and make a claim for hybrid formats of intellectual work. As this is my first year in a doctoral program, it does not seem particularly helpful to pretend that I already know what form my dissertation will take. I cannot even, at this stage, claim with absolute confidence that it will make sense to me four years from now to consider the project to be part of Hitting Walls. I do expect a large amount of the work to be written but I also intend for there to be play within that writing, as well as essential elements, visual, aural or otherwise, which will work with the written components.

I would like to take the opportunity of this panel to briefly share a few of the Hitting Walls projects and to discuss various ways to experiment with academic, as well as other, forms. I would then like to open up a conversation that I am just beginning to have within my own department about how a dissertation is, can and should be defined. Right now it seems like a matter of shaping some good questions, setting them loose, and seeing how they ricochet.

Supplementary materials: carlinwing.net

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DH: The Name That Does No Favors

Feb 17, ’11 5:56 PM

via ToastyTreat87 @ Flickr: http://bit.ly/f6HVOp

I just returned from a workshop at NYU called “Why Digital Humanities?” I went primarily because Kathleen Fitzpatrick, who’s always fantastic, and Diana Taylor were on the panel — but also, I must admit, because, even though I work just a few blocks away, I often miss my alma mater and its fancy facilities and nice catered lunches.

After the four panelists presented, roughly a half-hour remained for questions — and it became clear after the third or fourth person spoke that most of their questions centered on the issue of definition. “If I show a YouTube clip in my writing class, am I practicing the digital humanities?” “Will history departments ultimately split into traditional and digital camps?” I’ve been working with digital archives for 15 years. I was a digital humanist before there even was such a term!”

Last summer I participated in a think tank organized by our Provost’s office at The New School. The challenge I set for myself was to do an “environmental scan” of “alternative modes of scholarly practice” — focusing in particular on DH, a “field” I’d been curious, but also skeptical, about for a while — and to figure out how to translate some of those findings into my classes in the fall. After several months of research, some skepticism lingered — but I also managed to find a new, more fruitful, less techno-fetishist way to conceive of the really valuable things that DH has to offer.

I came to the conclusion that the “Digital Humanities” name doesn’t do anybody any favors. It prioritizes the digital, implying that the insertion of new media into any endeavor inevitably makes it better — and, conversely, that print and old media are inherently retrograde. This is not the message I need to send to my students, many of whom already assume that the world was reborn — and humanity reached its apotheosis — with the rise of the Internet. What’s more, it singles out the humanities, suggesting that in this evolving educational universe, they can go it alone — with the help of a few technical gadgets. DH (or [insert better name here]) is necessarily interdisciplinary and collaborative.

Anyway, here’s the summary report I wrote. It’s no masterpiece, since I wrote this while simultaneously finishing the syllabi for two new grad classes. Still, I think it gets at some of these “image” and “self-definition” problems that seem to get some people stuck.

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via LaughingQuid @ Flickr: http://bit.ly/e575FN

In the work I completed in my preliminary literature review[1], and in research I’ve conducted since then, I’ve discovered that a sizable portion of the Digital Humanities literature is dedicated to addressing when the Digital Humanities began, what the Digital Humanities (DH) are, and what counts as a DH project.[2] These identity-negotiation discussions are perhaps to be expected of a “diverse and still emerging” field[3]. Yet I find that the prevalence of these debates, and their focus on self-justification, limit the attention directed toward meaningful applications. In addition, the efforts to define the Digital Humanities as a discipline often mean that a great deal of (liquid and digital) ink is spilt in establishing the particular nature of DH’s relationship to “the humanities” and “the digital.” Patrik Svensson, in his recent article on “the landscape of digital humanities” – the second in a three-part series in Digital Humanities Quarterly – writes:

there is [even] a question of whether “the digital” needs to be specified at all, and it is not uncommon to encounter the argument that technology and the digital are part or will be part of any academic area, and hence the denotation “digital” is not required.[4]

The continued insistence on (and seeming fetishization of) the digital, however, seems to privilege these media at the expense of other, non-digital, yet equally appropriate and effective, media forms. Rather than fetishizing the database, as some “humanities computing” (what some call “Digital Humanities 1.0”) scholars seemed to do, however, I’d prefer that we consider other modes of “processing” a research project – that we apply the valuable lessons that DH has to offer to a broader scope of scholarly modes. I’d prefer that we consider how particular questions or problems might lend themselves to investigation or representation through aural, visual, or interactive media; through maps, audio archives, documentaries, video games – even architecture, designed products, clothing. In some cases, we should remember, a print document – designed so that its material form reinforces its argument – might be the most appropriate means of giving form to an argument.

I have found media scholar Tara McPherson’s approach most similar to my own vision, and her voice most refreshing. McPherson, who is affiliated with USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy, calls such a cross-platform oriented scholar “multimodal”: the multimodal scholar “thinks carefully about the relationship of form to content, expression to idea.” She examines “what happens when scholarship looks and feels differently, requiring new modes of engagement from the reader/user.”[5] She wonders: “How do you ‘experience’ or ‘feel’ an argument in a more immersive and sensory-rich space?” “Can scholarship show as well as tell?” “Will representing data differently change the ways we understand, collect, or interpret it?”

I prefer to use McPherson’s terminology – multimodal scholarship (although I think that there’s still something inelegant in this construction) – so, for the rest of this document I’ll be referring to “MS” instead of “DH.” However, I do think that there are a great many intellectual and ethical parallels between DH and MS, and in some cases we might even be able to use the terms interchangeably. So, although I’ll be using the term (or, rather, acronym) MS in what follows, I’ll be drawing from the literature on both MS and DH.

Rather than get caught up in the debates over labels and territory and disciplinary status, I have found it much more beneficial to focus, like McPherson, on those intellectual practices and values that are central to the new scholarly practices defining MS – values that seem consistent with the new pedagogies and university structures called for by a host of recognizable figures and entitites, including Henry Jenkins, Cathy Davidson, David Theo Goldberg, and the MacArthur Foundation.[6] Those values, which I highlighted in my preliminary literature review, include (1) opening up, laying bare, and critically reflecting on the process of scholarship; (2) collaboration; and (3) a deep concern with epistemological questions (e.g., how is knowledge “made,” who gets to make it, what’s done with it, etc.) I’ll say a few words about each:

First, the practice of chronicling one’s research process, Johanna Drucker says, benefits the researcher him- or herself in that it opens up “occasions for critical self-consciousness.”[7] The practice also benefits academia’s publics – both the limited ones it has now, and the potentially wider and more numerous ones it could have in the future; explaining what we, as researchers/critical-practitioners/critical-educators/etc., do can “illuminate the shadowy process of critical thinking, encouraging readers not only to digest finished works, but also to learn from and evaluate the mechanisms of their creation.”[8] Second, collaboration allows participants to “leverage the increasingly distributed nature of expertise and knowledge and transform this reality into occasions for scholarly innovation, disciplinary cross-fertilization, and the democratization of knowledge.”[9] Collaborators on DH/MS projects increasingly come from outside the university: libraries, museums, archives, historical societies, arts organizations, advocacy groups, non-profits, schools, and local communities all have the potential to participate (as I’ll explain below, I’ve attempted to integrate several outside participants in my fall application). Third, as Stephanie Barish and Elizabeth Daley, also affiliated with USC’s IML, argue, “To be literate today, one must understand how strategically chosen and juxtaposed combinations of media enable the construction and dissemination of meaning in ways that bypass of enrich traditional text and the spoken word. Indeed, one must not only be able to read such media, but also to author it.”[10] Such knowledge work calls into question the distinction between theory and practice. And, through its continual reflection on process, this work also has the potential to raise critical questions about what constitutes knowledge, “who gets to create [it],… how it gets legitimated and authorized, and how it is made accessible to a significantly broader (and potentially global) audience.”[11]

My late-summer research has focused primarily on how these values can be integrated into the classroom. The final section of my preliminary literature review addressed the challenges and opportunities of introducing faculty to DH- or MS-inspired pedagogies, and incentivizing them to make the extra effort to incorporate these new modes of teaching into their courses (and to take some risk in doing so). Much of our online ATT discussion throughout the summer has focused on these issues, too. But my literature review closed by bringing these issues back to bear on the students: I focused on how the collaborative, process-focused, multi-disciplinary, “multiple literacies” approach is central to USC’s IML. While the program is immensely inspiring on paper – and it has no doubt achieved tremendous success during its few years of existence – we heard from Holly Willis recently about the challenges even it, with its generous funding and active fellowship programs, has faced. These types of issues require structural changes and widespread institutional commitment to change – efforts that, as we discussed, are beyond individual faculty members’ purview but within the realm of responsibility of the Provost’s office.

A more small-scale, but no less significant, issue that I then turned my attention to was the issue of assessment. I wrote at the end of my preliminary literature review: “As the rampant DH boosterism and invariably positive commentary on [particular high-profile] projects…reveals, the Digital Humanities community has yet to build a tradition of critique.”[12] But how does one critique a research-based interactive map? Or a theoretically informed performance-installation? The standard processes and rubrics of grading, or of peer review, fail in these cases. So, I spent the final few weeks of my summer investigating models for assessing multimodal student projects. My blog post on this topic, I learned (much to my surprise), was tweeted around a bit. And given the specific multimodal form of my students’ projects – an interactive dabatase-driven map – I’ve begun an effort to integrate criticism sensitive to the medium-specificity of the map, with these multimodal evaluative rubrics. I will continue to work through these issues with my students as the fall progresses. And throughout the semester we will be blogging our design and deliberation and evaluation processes, for the benefit of those who might learn from our experience…..

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[1] See here, here, and here.

[2] Sometimes it seems as if it would be easier to explain what doesn’t count, given the expansive nature of some DH definitions. Todd Presner, for instance, defines DH as “humanistic practice anchored in creation, curation, collaboration, experimentation, and the multi-purposing or multi-channeling of humanistic knowledge.” (“Digital Humanities 2.0: A Report on Knowledge,” May 13, 2010, Module m34246, Connexions.)

[3] Digital Humanities Quarterly, “About DHQ”: http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/about/about.html

[4] Patrick Svensson, “The Landscape of the Digital Humanities” Digital Humanities Quarterly 4:1 (Summer 2010): ¶ 51.

[5] Tara McPherson, “Introduction: Media Studies and the Digital Humanities,” Cinema Journal 48, no. 2 (Winter 2009): 120-1.

[6] Henry Jenkins, “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century” [white paper] (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006); Cathy N. Davidson & David Theo Goldberg, “The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age” (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010).

[7] Johanna Drucker and Bethany Nowviskie, “Speculative Computing: Aesthetic Provocations in Humanities Computing,” in A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Ray Siemens, John Unsworth, and Susan Schreibman, Hardcover., Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004).

[8] Avi Santo and Christopher Lucas, “Engaging Academic and Nonacademic Communities through Online Scholarly Work,” Cinema Journal 48, no. 2 (Winter 2009): 133-134.

[9] Jeffrey Schnapp, Todd Presner, et. al., “The Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0,” n.d.: 5.

[10] Stephanie Barish and Elizabeth Daley, Multimedia Scholarship for the 21st Century, Educause Forum for the Future of Higher Education (Educause, 2005): 39.

[11] Presner, “Digital Humanities 2.0: A Report on Knowledge.”

[12] See Jennifer Howard, “Hot Type: No Reviews of Digital Scholarship = No Respect” Chronicle of Higher Education (May 23, 2010).

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Of Pigeons and Power Plants

Jan 4, ’11 5:35 PM

On the very last night of the fall semester I pulled an all-nighter to finish reviewing my Urban Media Archaeology students’ final projects before my husband and I caught a 6am flight for our Christmas visit to Chicago. Thus, I didn’t get a chance before the break to say anything about the students’ fantastic projects. It was a whirlwind semester: we learned about “urban media” and media archaeology, about maps as media, about the digital humanities and multimodal scholarship, about archival research, about data management, about software development, and loads more stuff. We took a walking tour of Lower Manhattan’s internet infrastructure with Andrew Blum, talked with Jesse Shapins about his own urban media art projects and parallels between our class and his Media Archaeology of Place class at Harvard, did a Pecha Kucha, played with paper prototypes, and did some mad-crazy things with spreadsheets.

The students developed some fantastic projects; their topics included subway symbols; the human labor of newspaper circulation; locative media and food delivery; literary, film- and music-focused walking tours; PacMan and urban navigation; the lost movie theaters of Brooklyn; carrier pigeons; zines’ production and distribution networks; New York media companies’ evolving headquarters; the history of New York radio; speakeasies; cell phone signal strength; screen-based public art; the evolution of New York’s electricity networks; and the history of the city’s coffeehouses. I shared their works-in-progress as part of Parsons’ Streaming Culture series and at the Reimagining the Archive conference at UCLA in November. Rick Prelinger tweeted us some props.

Our semester wasn’t without its hiccups, though. Our collaboration with another class didn’t work out exactly as planned — so we ended up with a mapping tool that didn’t have all the bells and whistles we were (perhaps naively) hoping for. And we don’t yet have an interface design, so the final projects don’t look quite as pretty as we would’ve liked them to. It took me a little while to figure out how to help everyone, including myself, “reframe” these minor disappointments. In thinking through our process over the course of the semester — and marveling at the student’s dedication to their projects, and how thoughtfully they approached their work — I came to realize that all those un-checked-off items on our wish list weren’t signs of failure. Rather, they were an integral — and incredibly meaningful — part of the process. Our class, it became obvious (and should’ve been obvious all along), was way more about process than product. I think we learned some super-valuable lessons about accepting the inevitable frustrations of collaboration and technical snafus, about being comfortable with incompletion, about looking past the gee-whizzery of interactive tools (especially mapping tools — and particularly in regard to research-based projects in the digital humanities) and appreciating the quality of the research and arguments they’re meant to present.

For now, I’ll highlight a few projects that represent not only the great promise of “multimodal” scholarship, but also strong scholarship by any standard, in any format. Again, the interface isn’t yet intuitive (or attractive) — so my advice is to start with the project description, then work through the “Arguments,” which will link you to relevant archival records that have been posted to the map. The system’s still pretty slow, too, so please be patient!

“Architecture of Media” examines the evolving headquarters of the New York Times, Tribune, World, and Herald, and the Wall Street Journal, in an attempt to appreciate how publishers use “their own buildings in New York City as a way of advertising their preeminence and establishing themselves as an integral part of the city’s cultural fabric.”

The objective of “Mapping the Social Life of Zines” is to “both physically and theoretically map the trajectories of self-publishing channels/networks in NYC. The premise is that mapping the social dimensions of zine exchange — the ways in which zines were produced, appropriated, and consumed throughout their histories by different individuals, at different times —  provides valuable insights into how sub-cultural communities were formed and social ties maintained. Moreover,   mapping the geographic circulation routes of exchange allows for a unique spatial analysis of how zines influenced political moments and alliances between movement organizations.”

“Pigeography” examines pigeons as communication conduits and makes use of fantastic sound-based arguments. [The video isn't a part of the project.]

“Walking Tours: The City Underfoot and Over Time“aims to explore “how…three walking tours…offer (or don’t) a new way of exploring the city conceptually, historically and physically” — and “how walking tours offer radically new and enlightening ways of exploring and understanding the city, whether in its current state, its historical incarnations, or its never-ending transformations.” There’s an unfortunate bug here: the sheer volume of data points on this map overtaxed the system,” which means that despite the fact that each record is geotagged, there don’t appear to be any markers on the map. If you navigate via the “Arguments,” you’ll still encounter all the relevant geotagged records and appreciate the richness of this project.

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Process, Collaboration, Epistemology

Aug 31, ’10 12:14 AM

Way back in June I began my epic three-part series (which was recently picked up by Bravo, by the way; I’ll be played by Blake Lively) on “Trying to Wrap My Head Around the Digital Humanities.” This work was completed as part of my service on our Provost’s office’s Applied Think Tank. The first phase of the ATT is now over, so I’ve stopped to reflect on the summer’s thoughts — those that didn’t involve ice cream, that is. This report (also in .doc which may help with some of the embedded links) includes suggestions for how I’ll test some of my ideas re: “multimodal scholarship” through my classes in the fall.

This was my last official act of the summer. It’s all over now. <Sigh>

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From Post Offices to Radiograms: Local Primary Resources on Urban Media History

Jul 20, ’10 2:07 AM

"Newsstand, 32nd Street and Third Avenue, Manhattan. (November 19, 1935)," Berenice Abbott: NYPL Digital Gallery: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?482798

I’ll be asking students in both of my fall grad classes to work with primary resources in local libraries and archives. I’ve been spending a lot of time this summer sifting through everything — figuring out which collections could be especially useful, which contain lots of great graphic or audio-visual material that we could use in our online projects, which are underexposed and deserve a little attention, etc. I’ll keep a list of resources I’ve uncovered that could inspire a student project:

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New York Public Library Manuscripts and Archives

Search the catalogue and finding aids to find appropriate resources, then contact the division to make an appointment. Photography typically isn’t allowed in this division, but each student in our class has been given special permission to take up to 20 photos (you must wait until the end of your research visit, and photograph everyone at once), and to use a limited number of photos in our online project (typically, you have to pay for reproduction). If you plan to use material in this collection, please speak with me first.

Chester F. Carlson Papers: “Chester Floyd Carlson (1906-1968) was an American patent attorney who invented xerography in 1938.” Collection consists of correspondence, technical papers, writings, personal and financial papers, photographs, ephemera, and printed matter. General correspondence reflects Carlson’s philanthropic interests; technical correspondence, laboratory notebooks, patent files, and other papers relate to his invention of xerography and to its commercial development. Other papers include family correspondence, diaries for 1928 to 1968, financial papers,speeches and other writings, scrapbooks of printed ephemera related to xerography, and photographs of trips to the Soviet Union and India. Also, papers relating to parapsychology and to the economic development of Guyana, 1966-1968.

Map of Parisian Pneumatique Network - NYPL SIBL

New York Mail and Newspaper Transportation Company Records: I’ve already combed through this collection. “The New York Mail and Newspaper Transportation Company was the original contractor in 1898 for mail delivery by pneumatic tube between Manhattan and Brooklyn. The company later became a contractor for tube service between post offices within Manhattan. In 1953 pneumatic tube service ended in New York and the company’s contract was canceled.”Collection consists of correspondence and documents pertaining to the New York Mail and Newspaper Transportation Company’s delivery of mail in New York City using pneumatic tubes, and of U.S. government publications concerning mail delivery in New York City and nationwide. Records, 1897-1957, include contracts, Post Office Dept.orders, reports, plans, proposals, photographs, and clippings. Government publications, 1898-1955, are hearings, investigations and reports produced by Congress or the Post Office Dept. ***********************************************

New York World’s Fair 1939-1940 Records: “The New York World’s Fair of 1939 and 1940, was held in Flushing Meadows in the Borough of Queens. The non-profit Fair corporation was formed in 1935 under the guidance of business and civic leaders, and financed through federal, state, municipal and private funds. The Fair commemorated the 150th anniversary of Washington’s inauguration in New York City and took “Building the World of Tomorrow” as its central theme. Participants included close to 60 nations, 33 states and U.S. territories, and over a thousand exhibitors, among them some of the largest corporations in the United States.”…”The records of the New York World’s Fair 1939 and 1940 Incorporated present a comprehensive view of all aspects of the Fair including construction, maintenance and demolition of Fair facilities; planning and development; architecture and landscaping; displays and exhibits; government participation; publicity and public relations; amusements, entertainment and concessions; legal and financial affairs; the import and export of goods; labor relations; and public safety and welfare. In addition to correspondence and memoranda, the collection consists of reports, minutes, financial and legal records, architectural plans, design drawings, sound recordings, brochures, leaflets, press releases and other promotional materials, notably over 12,000 photographs of the Fair, its exhibits and visitors.”

Citizens for a Quieter City Records, 1950-77: “Citizens for a Quieter City, Inc. was founded in New York City in 1966 by Robert Alex Baron (1921-1980) as a non-profit, voluntary organization dedicated to the reduction of urban noise. Its objective was to develop information about the injurious effects of noise, the methods of controlling and reducing it, and the education of the public to the importance of its abatement. Baron, a theatrical manager, founded a predecessor organization, the Upper Sixth Avenue Noise Abatement Association, in 1965.”…”Collection consists of correspondence, minutes, diaries, financial records, photographs, printed matter, audio and video tape recordings pertaining to Citizens for a Quieter City and the Upper Sixth Avenue Noise Abatement Association as well as Baron’s papers as a theatrical manager. Correspondence, 1966-1974, is with officials of city, state and federal agencies, civic and community organizations, and manufacturers of construction equipment and noise abatement devices. Minutes and by-laws section contains minutes of the board of directors and of the technical committee, and by-laws of the organization. Diaries and notebooks, 1970-1973, consists of desk diaries and memoranda by Baron. Complaint center problem reports, 1969-1972, contain complaints received from the public; financial records include invoices, ledgers, balance sheets, audit reports, bank statements, and other items; and noise pollution inquiry, 1970-1972, consists of forms summarizing the nature of inquiries received. Upper Sixth Avenue Association records, 1965-1966, include correspondence, minutes and reports of Baron. Theater papers, ca. 1950-1960s, consist of his records as general manager of Theatre Tours. Also, photographs of Baron and photographic slides; printed matter; audio and video tape recordings of conferences, television shows and public events in which Citizens for a Quieter City participated; and some oversize materials, such as scrapbooks and publicity posters.”

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The Mid-Manhattan Library Picture Collection and the New York Public Library Print Collection and Photography Collection

You’ll find a lot of material online, in the NYPL’s Digital Gallery. The NYPL has kindly given us permission to use this material for our project free of charge.

But there is of course a great deal that hasn’t been digitized — and, unfortunately, because the print and photography collections are organized, for the most part, by printmaker or photographer, it’s difficult to search for specific “content” or subject matter. If you’re interested in searching for non-digitized prints or photos, please contact the appropriate division via its website and speak with its archivist or curator.

Here’s some material from the Digital Gallery:

NY Post Office 1875: NYPL Digital Gallery: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?809398

Morning Start of the NYC Mail Carriers in their New Uniform: NYPL Digital Gallery: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?809391

New York Post Office, 1893: NYPL Digital Gallery: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?809396

"Removal of the postal matter and archives to the new Post-office, Saturday, August 28th, 1875: NYPL Digital Gallery: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?809395

Printing House Square, 1866: NYPL Digital Gallery: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?ps_prn_848

Interior of New York Post Office, 1857

Ladies’ Window at the Post Office, 1871

Loading Up the General Office, New York, 1875

Telegraph Apparatus, Old Fire Headquarters, Mercer Street, 1887: NYPL Digital Gallery: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?804770

Postal Workers Sorting Letters, 1899

Western Union Telegraph Building ([1870?-19]25?)

Newspaper Row, 1900

Radio Row, Cortlandt Street, Berenice Abbott, 1936

Radiogram Operating Room

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New York Public Library Map Division

Some maps are available in the Digital Gallery (again, we are permitted to use this material for free), and many others are listed in the catalogue, but many maps have been neither digitized nor catalogued online. To find these maps, you’ll want to speak with the Map Room staff and consult the in-room “dictionary” catalogues, which you can search by subject or by location (I recommend searching by borough; vol. 7 is dedicated entirely to NYC).

Here’s how it worked for me: I scanned through the on-site catalogue:

…and found this:

…which I requested via a call slip:

…and, three minutes later, found myself looking at this (my iphone camera cannot fully capture its awesomeness):

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They’ve got lots of City Maps: “Maps and atlases documenting the urban environment throughout the world represent a core strength of the collection, with the historical New York City map holdings among the deepest and most heavily used anywhere. With more than 2,000 sheet maps and 18,000 atlas map sheets illustrating the city and its five boroughs before 1922 (often to the building level), this collection is a critical support to many researchers of the local environment.” The staff recommends the Perris, Bromley,Robinson, Hyde, and Sanborn (on-site only) maps, and the Fire Insurance, Topographic, Zoning and Property Maps of New York City.

Here’s some stuff from the Digital Gallery:

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Map Showing the Telegraph Lines in Operation, under Contract, and Contemplated, to Complete the Circuit of the Globe ([1867)?

New England, New York, New Jersey, Pensilvania (sic) Post Map: NYPL Digital Images

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New York Historical Society

Search the catalogue (NYHS materials are included in Bobcat) and finding aids to identify relevant material, then make an appointment to use any of the special collections. If you plan to take digital photos of your research material, you’ll need to submit a form and pay a $15 fee. The Society has kindly granted us permission us to use our own research photos in our mapping projects.

Andreas Feininger Photograph Collection, 1939-54, 1970-84: Series III: New York in the 1970s and 80s: “Photographs focus on a variety of subjects, the largest of which are Times Square; Graffiti; Signs, Murals, Posters, and Billboards; and Reflections. Many of the photographs of graffiti feature a life-sized black painted figure Feininger refers to as “Shadowman,” painted in a variety of locations and variations on buildings and walls. Photographs of signs, murals, posters and billboards depict everything from hand-painted signs in foreign languages to explicit posters for strip clubs. Photographs on security and vandalism reflect Feininger’s descriptive annotations on his photographs of a security gate and locked and vandalized bicycles. Feininger’s photographs depicting construction, fire escapes, reflections, and water tanks focus on structure and pattern in the architecture of the city. The largest group of photographs depict the Times Square area, especially the signs for sex shops, strip clubs, and theaters of the 1970s and 1980s.”

Feininger Collection, Box 6, Folder 41: Graffiti

Arthur Weindorf Subway Collection, 1903-45, 1973-74: “The Arthur Weindorf Subway Collection spans the period from 1903-1974 and primarily contains photographs and photostats of drawings, models, and maps created by Arthur Weindorf during his tenure at the Public Service Commission. Also included are photographs taken by Public Service Commission photographers during the construction of the New York City subway system. The collection is divided into six series: Drawings and Models; Subway Maps and Posters; Clippings; Subway Construction Photographs; Miscellaneous Materials; and Negatives.”

Weindorf Subway Collection, Box 1, Folder 3

Bella C. Landauer Collection of Business and Advertising Ephemera, ca. 1700-present: “Collection of mainly 19th and 20th century advertising ephemera. Formats in the collection include American trade cards, lottery tickets, handbills, labels, broadsides, calendars, billheads, price lists, advertising fans, and other materials of history and popular culture. Media range from rough woodcuts to chromolithographs.”

Landauer, Box 1, Folder: "Signs & Sign Companies"

Landauer, Box 52(?), Folder: "Electricity: Telephone"

Billboard Photograph Collection, 1918-34: “The photographs appear to have been taken to record which advertisers bought billboard space at 13 sites in Manhattan and two sites in the Bronx, New York City. The views focus on signs but also show surrounding buildings, elevated railroads, and street activity at such heavily traveled intersections as Broadway and Seventh Avenue (Times Square), Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, Sixth Avenue at 27th Street, Eight Avenue at 110th Street, 125th Street in Harlem, and Third Avenue at 166th Street in the Bronx. The same sites appear repeatedly, sometimes monthly,during the 1920s and into the Great Depression. The photographs reveal changes in both the neighborhoods and in the advertising for many products, among them Chesterfield cigarettes, Wrigley’s chewing gum, and Pepsodent toothpaste.”

Browning Photograph Collection, 1918-52: Series I: “The Advertising subseries primarily focuses on billboards and other large signs, many of which were taken around the Times Square area. Several of these advertising photographs also appear in Browning’s photomontages…. Television and Radio consists of photographs of microphones, equipment, studios and broadcasters from the early days of radio and television. Theaters includes a few grand Broadway theaters of the era, but focuses heavily on the great movie palaces of the late 1920s and the 1930s, such as the Earl Carroll and the RKO Roxy Theatre. A heavy focus on interiors, and especially art-deco design elements, is evident. Also included are some views of burlesque and less legitimate venues, such as the Salon des Arts. Several theaters in this subseries were heavily documented by Browning, probably working on commission; some construction progress views are included.”

Browning Photograph Collection, Box 1, Folder 1

Browning Photo Collection, Box 20, Folder 198, "Crowd Listening to Election Results"

James Boyd Collection of New York City Etchings, 1861-1940: Includes etching of NY Telephone Building; it’s worth scanning through the rest!

Etchings, Box 4, Folder 60, NY Telephone Bldg, Woolworth & Tranportation Bldg

Stereograph File, 1855-1964: “Over 800 photographers and publishers created the work represented in theStereograph File…. Another significant amateur was Alfred T. Loonam, whose stereographs of New York in the 1950s and 1960s capture modern skyscrapers, expressways under construction, and the emerging television industry.”

Stereographs, Box 44

Charles Gilbert Hine Photograph Collection, 1883-1908: “Platinum, cyanotype, and albumen prints of various Manhattan locations dating from 1883-1908. Views of streets, buildings, businesses,monuments, theaters, billboards, posters, celebrations, and scenes of everyday life are included.The collection also contains a three volume set of photograph albums which portrays Broadway from north to south and includes historical essays and clippings.”

Lantern Slide Collection, 1860-1942: includes lantern slide photos of libraries, publishing buildings, Printing House Square, others.

Lantern Slides, Box 54, NewYork-NYC-Manhattan-CommercialBuildings-Publishing

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New York University Libraries Special Collections and Archives

Begin by searching the finding aids to identify relevant material, then make an appointment to visit. You’ll need to get permission before using a digital camera to photograph material. Reproducing material is a bit more complicated: you’ll need to obtain the Fales Librarian’s permission and contact the copyright holder (Fales staff can help you determine who this would be) and perhaps pay “rights to use” fees.

Guerilla TV Archive, 1965-97: “The Guerrilla TV Archive contains files, publicity information, audiocassettes, printed materials and photographs relating to Deirdre Boyle’s research for the book Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited and some materials related to her work on other publications and projects including Hong Kong Cinema, Video Classics, and Video Preservation.” Series 1 / Box 5 / Folder 163 contains material on the relationship between cable TV and cities (including some interesting documents on infrastructure at Roosevelt Island). Folders 164 and 165 contain material on public access television and the development of cable in NYC.

I wasn’t able to pre-screen the following, but they might contain some useful material:

Richard Hell Papers, 1944-2003: “The Richard Hell Papers consist of comprehensive documentation of Richard Hell’s career as a poet, novelist, author, publisher, musician, and filmmaker. Materials include personal journals, manuscripts and materials relating to the publication of several works, correspondence, clippings, reviews, posters, photographs, film, video and audio materials and objects and artifacts. In addition the collection contains financial and legal documents pertaining to Hell’s publications, and musical career. The materials span 1944-2003 with the bulk of the material covering 1969-2003.”

Creative Time Archive, 1973-2006: “Founded in 1973, Creative Time is a public art organization based in New York City. The organization has a history of commissioning, producing, and presenting public artworks of all disciplines. The material in the collection document all aspects of the creation, exhibition, and reception of these commissioned artworks, as well as invaluable financial records that reflect how the organization has sustained, promoted, and financially supported its mission.”

David Wojnarowicz Papers, 1954-1992: “David Wojnarowicz was a painter, writer, photographer, filmmaker, performer, and activist. He made super-8 films, created the photographic series “Arthur Rimbaud in New York”, performed in the band Three Teens Kill 4 – No Motive, and exhibited his work in well known East Village galleries. In 1985, he was included in the Whitney Biennial, the so-called “Graffiti Show”. He died of AIDS on July 22, 1992. The David Wojnarowicz Papers includes journals, correspondence, manuscripts, photography, film, video and audio works, source and production materials, objects, and ephemera.”

Martin Wong Papers, 1982-1999: “Born Martin Victor Wong in Portland, Oregon on July 11, 1946, Wong was raised by his Chinese-American parents in San Francisco. Wong was involved in performance art in the 1970′s, but focused almost exclusively on painting after moving to New York in the early 1980′s. The self-taught Wong, whose work showed a distinct gay sensibility, became a respected, renowned and prolific painter in New York’s downtown art scene. He also cultivated both working and personal relationships with graffiti artists and enthusiasts in that scene. His compositions combine gritty social documents, cosmic witticisms, and symbolic languages that chronicle survival in his drug-and-crime-besieged Lower East Side neighborhood. In addition to his painting, Wong also experimented with poetry and prose, much of which he recorded on long paper scrolls.”

Fales also has old issues of Punk and East Village Eye magazines (search Bobcat).

See also the Tamiment Library‘s excellent labor history materials, including collections of media industry unions’ records and the NYU Archives’ Washington Square Park Image Collection (1850-1990).

*

The Paley Center for Media

All of these materials are available for viewing/listening at the Center, but none can be used outside the Center. In on other words, we can’t use any of this material in our mapping project, but it’s still worth checking out! Read about the Scholars Room here.

New York Telephone: Business [Commercial] (Dennis Hayes & Associates, Young & Rubicam Historical Reel, 1977-97): “In this commercial for New York Telephone, documentary style footage features businessmen throughout the New York area who stay connected to the business world with New York Telephone. The announcer adds that New York Telephone helps businesses with voice and data networks and offers many additional cost-effective services for businesses big and small. Slogan (supered and in jingle): “We’re all connected. New York Telephone.”"

New York Telephone: Deli Man [Commercial] (32nd Annual Broadcasting Awards, 1991): “In this commercial for NYNEX, a telephone company representative visits Katz’s Deli on New York City’s Lower East Side. In honor of the occasion, deliman Marvin Waldman has created a replica of NYNEX’s regional calling area on a serving platter. “The lox is Long Island,” he explains, “the gefilte fish is Westchester and Rockland, and the pickled herring is the five boroughs.” Slogan (in jingle): “We’re all connected. New York Telephone.”"

New York City Tourism Promotion: I Love New York at Night (I Love New York Campaign, 1977-89): “In this commercial for the New York State Department of Commerce, Beverly Sills explains that “at night in New York, all the stars come out.” She stands beside the fountain in the plaza at Lincoln Center, surrounded by performers from the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, Radio City Music Hall’s Rockettes, and cast members of popular Broadway shows including “They’re Playing Our Song,” “Evita,” “Sweeney Todd,” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” The announcer points out that special discounts are currently available on 23 Broadway Show Tours. In conclusion, Sandy Dennis, as “Peter Pan,” adds that she loves New York at night because “there’s something in the air.” Slogan (in jingle): “I Love New York.” Supered: “I Love New York at Night Show Tours.”"

And of course there are the digital resources available through the Library of Congress and the Internet Archive (see in particular the Prelinger Archives material.

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The Big Dig: Urban Media Archaeology

Jul 19, ’10 1:53 AM

"Pull down art, Friedrich-Ebert-Str., Wuppertal" by Henning on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/muehlinghaus/205245886/

Although this is the first occasion I’ve had to begin mapping out my fall Urban Media Archaeology class, I’ve been mulling over the course content — the relationships between media systems and cities — for a decade or more. And for the past several months — ever since January, when I was asked to finalize the course description for a class that was then only a mirage on a distant horizon — I’ve been thinking about how to translate that content into various forms — the form of a syllabus, the form of an effective collaborative experience for my students, the form of a successful final class project. It’s been like playing Tetris: I’m piecing together pedagogical building blocks representing not only (1) the ostensible course subject matter, “urban media,” but also (2) methodology, including both the macro-level working models of “multimodal scholarship” [*] and the micro-level methodologies through which students will research their case studies; and (3) relevant theoretical frameworks, from media archaeology to science and technology studies to cultural geography.

Our final project will be an interactive map. Rather than adopting existing mapping technologies and having to accept or work around their functional limitations (e.g., most are cartographically based and fail to represent urban systems that exist “beyond the grid”; most can’t capture the x, y, and z dimensions of urban space, which is especially important in a place like New York, a city distinguished by its verticality!) and built-in ideologies, we’ll build our own mapping platform in collaboration with the “URTingNYC” class in Parsons’ MFA program in Design and Technology. We’re not making a map for the sake of making a map — not because “mapping” is a pedagogical buzzword, or because of the popularity of information visualization. We’re making a map because, as I hope we’ll come to see, our subject matter lends itself to exploration through mapping, and mapping might enable us to examine our subject in a new way [again, see * below].

Students’ work will be both individual and collaborative: each student will be responsible for completing an individual research/production project — but he or she must frame and execute his or her project in light of how it might eventually “speak to” the others (in the end, we’re looking for synergies, for convergences and divergences, between the projects, and for a “larger story” that the collective class project can tell), and how it will lend itself to presentation not in a traditional typewritten text, but in a multimodal, online format. We’ll have plenty of group check-ins — both within our class and between our class and the Parsons URT class — throughout the semester, but the formal work of amalgamating individual projects into “clustered” themes with overarching arguments will require a few weeks at the end of the semester. So, unlike most of the classes I — and, I think it’s safe to say, most faculty — teach, which conclude with students handing in their individual projects at the very end of the semester, and perhaps sharing these projects with their classmates during the last class meeting, we’ll ask everyone to complete the bulk of their individual research and to have prepared beta-versions of their online presentation of this work before Thanksgiving, so that we can dedicate the final few weeks of the semester almost exclusively to reflection, making connections, and revision [**]. The presentations on the last day of class, then, will feature a project that has gone through multiple rounds of revision and refinement, and that reflects a great deal of careful thought about how 17 graduate students’ individual contributions, and the work of two graduate classes, coalesce into something greater than the sum of their parts.

So, here’s how the semester might go. I’m still working on plans for a field trip or two; these excursions will likely take place outside of class, since ours is an evening class. The following schedule is still very much subject to change. I welcome feedback!

#1: September 1: Review syllabus and course goals and structure. I introduce my own case study, which will focus on the interrelationships between New York’s telegraph, telephone, and pneumatic tube networks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Students discuss their preliminary case study interests [***]. Examine Manhattan Timeformations (below) and the Stanford Spatial History Project. For next class, read Friedrich Kittler on the “city as a medium,” James Donald and Vyjayanthi Rao on the “city as an archive,” and Erkki Huhtamo and Siegfried Zielinski on media archaeology.

September 8:No Class: Rosh Hashanah

#2: September 15: Inserting the Urban into Media Archaeology. Introduce “media archaeology” and explore what it might mean if we interpreted “archaeology” more literally — if we actually looked for material evidence of the historical media systems that laid the foundation for our city’s contemporary media. For next class read Joel Tarr, Thomas Finholt & David Goodman on urban telegraph networks; Emily Bills on the history of Los Angeles’s telephone networks; Kazys Varnelis on the relationships between historical and new telecom networks; and a few historical documents from the New York Telegraph and Newspaper Transportation Company Records at the NYPL.

#3: September 22: From Tubes to T-1s: Layers of New York’s electronic media infrastructures. Consider how spatial representations might allow us to better understand the relationships among these infrastructures. Possible guest speaker. For next class, read Tara McPherson and Steve Anderson on multimodal scholarship and its genres, UCLA Digital Humanities & Media Studies’ “Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0,” Todd Presner, Tom Elliott and Sean Gillies on digital humanities mapping.

#4: September 29: Multimodal Mapping: Examine the affordances, limitations, and politics of mapping (and data visualization) as a scholarly and pedagogical methodology and mode of presentation. Study a few representative “digital humanities” and “critical art” projects: Commentpress, Pleriplurban, projects on Vectors, “Wunderkammer, Cornell, and the Visual Canon of Arrangement,” Manhattan Timeformations, etc. Experiment with various mapping case studies, from psychogeographical maps to sensory cartographies to scholarly projects like Hypercities, Pleiades, and examples from the Stanford Spatial History Project. Report on utility. For next class, develop proposal for individual projects and mapping tool features needed to support projects. For next class, read Alison Sant on mapping “off the grid,” Jeremy Hight on “rhizomatic cartography,” and Jesse Shapins on mapping in critical art.

#5: October 6: Mapping and Researching in XYZ: Discuss mapping platform’s necessary functionality. Discuss methods for secondary and primary research for students’ projects [****]. Highlight relevant local research collections. For next class, read about media archaeology and urban history methods; archival and other primary research methods. Develop research plan.

#6 – #10: October 13 through November 10: Case Studies: I will design these case studies to support students’ projects. Each week three or four students will present their work-in-progress — both their topical research and their emerging plans for presenting that research on the map. I will have chosen one short text relevant to each project, and we’ll discuss the students’ work in light of these texts, and in relationship to one another. From week to week, we’ll consider potential synergies between students’ individual projects, and how we might use the map to visualize/sonify/textualize those inter-project connections and to present an over-arching argument. For Week 11, all students must have posted a beta version of their projects on the map.

#11: November 17: Networking Nodes: All students will deliver short presentations of their research. Each will receive feedback, and we’ll discuss what we might learn by layering or networking these projects on the map — and what modes of presentation can help us to convey these larger, multi-project arguments.

November 24: No Class: Thanksgiving

#12: December 1: Final Case Study: We’ll consider one final “urban media system” that hasn’t been addressed in students’ projects. Reading TBD. Group Work. Students will have received edits for their individual contributions; these must be addressed by the following class.

#13: December 8: Group Work. Plan for Presentation.

#14: December 15: Mock Final Presentation. Identify Necessary Final Revisions.

#15: December 20 (Make-Up for Previous Holidays): Final Presentation of Project to New School Provosts and Other Administrators

___________________________

[*] As Tara McPherson writes, multimodal scholarship posits that

[a] hands-on engagement with digital forms reorients the scholarly imagination, not because the tools are cool or new (even if they are) or because the audience for our work might be expanded (even if it is), but because scholars come to realize that they understand their arguments and their objects of study differently, even better, when they approach them through multiple modalities and emergent and interconnected forms of literacy. The ability to deploy new experiential, emotional, and even tactile aspects of argument and expression can open up fresh avenues of inquiry and research (121).

We’ll be exploring how this new method might allow us to ask new questions, to learn differently, to share our work with new publics and invite them into our process.

[**] We’ll be thoroughly documenting our process — the dead-ends, the frustrations, the successes. This is in keeping with the digital humanities’ mission to promote transparency and to welcome other publics into the scholarly process. Our class will be pilot-testing the new mapping tool that we’re developing in concert with the Parsons “URTingNYC” class; we intend for this map to serve as a platform for future urban-related faculty and student work  at The New School. Therefore, we need to think of our work as laying a foundation. In our project documentation we can make recommendations for those who come after us, encourage others to conduct new research on specific topics that will bridge existing student projects; encourage others to make use of promising collections we found in local archives, but just didn’t have the time to review; make recommendations for future tech developers to add new features to the platform so that it’s better able to accommodate the methods we want to employ; etc.

[***] Students are welcome to join me in researching the history of New York’s telegraph and telephone networks. Others might focus on the history of the city’s publishing centers, its neighborhood newspapers, its low-powered radio stations, its recording studios, its tv cable networks, its telco hotels, its mail delivery routes, its movie palaces, its significant spaces of public address and debate, etc.

[****] I’ll encourage everyone to begin by consulting published works on their topics and, in the process, to note particular libraries, archives, special collections, and other primary sources the authors have used in conducting their research. We’ll be emphasizing primary research; all students will be asked to work in local archives, make use of local experts, visit local sites, etc., and to use our map to feature and contextualize these primary documents. I’m making arrangements with the New York Public Library, the New York Historical Society, and other local collections to allow us special access and/or reproduction privileges; we’re especially encouraged to draw attention to underused collections. I’ll help individual students to identify other collections (public, private, and corporate) that might prove useful for their own work. We’ll need to keep in mind, though, that our purpose in posting this primary material is not simply to throw it all up online and say, “Hey, check out all this cool stuff I found in the archives!” Rather, we’re using these materials to help us build new, uniquely local arguments and New York’s historical media systems. An added benefit is that we draw attention to the offers of these local institutions’ collections.

Students will also be encouraged to interview local experts — not only scholars, but also people wh0 have hands-on experience with their research topics. I, for instance, might record an interview with a postal service worker who used to man the pneumatic tubes at the General Post Office on 8th Avenue. A student focusing on cable television infrastructure might tour a particular neighborhood with a cable company technician and record the experience.  A student focusing on immigrant newspapers might interview former publishers, or someone examining low-powered radio might talk with former DJ’s.

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TWMHADH, Part 3

Jun 23, ’10 12:43 AM

Digital Humanities and New Ways of Knowing. UCLA’s (Center for?) Digital Humanities and Media Studies recently released a “Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0,” which explains that DH is “not a unified field but an “array of convergent practices” that have the potential to profoundly transform the “production and dissemination of knowledge.”[1] A well-designed DH project fosters “attention to complexity, medium specificity, [and] historical context” and promotes “analytical depth, critique and interpretation.” It accepts that knowledge might exist in many forms: “it inhabits the interstices and criss‐crossings between words, sounds, smells, maps, diagrams, installations, environments, data repositories, tables, and objects.” The process of knowledge production is “anchored in making: making in the poetic sense of poeisis, but also in the sense of design carried out in action.” Digital humanists “make” knowledge, they build theory, by building things, designing websites, plotting maps, producing video and audio and, as always, writing cogently. Although one need not have expertise in all modes of production or communication – DH projects are necessarily collaborative in part because of the need to tap into others’ specialized skills – one should have basic literacy in these various modes. DH thus has a stake in the recent discussions about expanded “21st-century literacies.” As Stephanie Barish and Elizabeth Daley, who are affiliated with USC’s Institute for Mutimedia Literacy, argue, “To be literate today, one must understand how strategically chosen and juxtaposed combinations of media enable the construction and dissemination of meaning in ways that bypass or enrich traditional text and the spoken word. Indeed, one must not only be able to read such media, but also to author it.”[2]

Such knowledge work calls into question the distinction between theory and practice. And, through its continual reflection on process, this work also has the potential to raise critical questions about what constitutes knowledge, “who gets to create [it],… how it gets legitimated and authorized, and how it is made accessible to a significantly broader (and potentially global) audience.”[3]

Teaching Through the Digital Humanities. All this talk about scholarship might suggest that DH is primarily a field, or practice, for advanced scholars – for people who, as our traditional research models suggest, are specially trained and have been authorized to participate. In other words, DH seems like a faculty affair. Yet the critical skills and values that DH promotes – critical examination of methods, multiple “literacies,” collaboration, internationalization, interdisciplinarity, careful consideration of research presentation, making research accessible to wider publics – are also central to the 21st-century university’s pedagogical mission. DH might not be right for all types of classes, or for all faculty and students – the literacy of print-based reading and writing and research skills required for individual study are still an integral part of any contemporary curriculum – but there is significant opportunity for greater integration of DH into the classroom.

One impediment to that integration is the way many teachers have been trained to think about technology in the classroom. As Barish and Daley note, “To date, much of the support for university faculty to use media is directed toward technical services and basic pedagogical applications.”[4] Faculty are encouraged to use audiovisual materials in the classroom, to integrate social media, etc., “but the implications of their use, as well as the formal components and theoretical basis of multimedia, are not addressed.” Nor is “teaching with technology” instruction tailored to address specific intellectual content. If faculty become more aware of how technology might enhance their own scholarship, they are likely to approach classroom technology as something more than mere illustration or ornamentation. Possible means of introducing faculty to the potential of the Digital Humanities – or at least helping them to develop rudimentary technological literacy so they can more meaningfully integrate technology into their classes and perhaps encourage “multimodal” student projects – include sending faculty to the regularly occurring THATCamps or the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, or, given the number of talented, technologically adept faculty at The New School, hosting a summer “digital humanities boot camp” (much like the camp Parsons’ MFADT organizes for its incoming students each summer) on campus during the semester breaks.

 

As we encourage faculty to change the way they think about technology in the classroom, we must also reconsider how we ask our students to use these learning tools, and to what ends. “Although many students are involved in the creation of their own expressive media presence through personal webpages and social networking,” Presner and Johanson write, “they are infrequently engaged in either interrogating or applying these technologies in their learning and scholarship.”[5] Faculty should be helping students to develop both traditional and new (media) literacies and “the technical skills related to this literacy,” as well as…

tools for critical analysis, the ability to navigate across, reconfigure, and evaluate different media forms, the ability to negotiate and work across diverse cultures and communities, the ability to synthesize material and bring together different methodologies to solve complex problems, the ability to interpret and construct models for responding to real-world situations, the ability to critically evaluate the potentials and limitations of new technologies, and the cultivation of a broad understanding of the social, historical, linguistic, and cultural context in which they are learning and working.[6]

A well-organized DH project has the potential to reinforce all of these skills and promote critical thinking that is transferable to any kind of problem in any context, inside the classroom or out.

Presner and several colleagues have involved their students in the development of HyperCities, a well-funded, frequently lauded interactive map – or, as described on the website, a “a collaborative research and educational platform for traveling back in time to explore the historical layers of city spaces in an interactive, hypermedia environment.” On HyperCities, “student projects exist side-by-side with scholarly research and community collections and can be seen and evaluated by peers.”[7] He finds that his students “demonstrate a high degrees of skill in articulating a multi-dimensional argument in a hypermedia environment and bring together a wide range of media resources,’ including 2D maps, 3D models, photos, videos, audio, text, etc. Their success can likely be attributed to the fact that the existing content on HyperCities models for the students what a successful submission looks like – and because the public nature of the site, and the stature of some of their co-contributors, motivates students to take the challenge seriously. Through their work on HyperCities, the students come to appreciate the distributed, “processural, iterative, and exploratory” nature of digital scholarship.

USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy is based on offering many such experiences for undergraduates. The IML’s Steve Anderson and Anne Balsamo explain the program’s philosophy:

Participants in IML programs learn to “write” multimedia by first learning to critically read it. Students develop proficiency with the modes of formal analysis required for the critical evaluation of a wide range of multimedia artifacts—including images, video, sound design, information visualization, typography, interface design, and interactivity. In addition, students become familiar with the major theoretical frameworks guiding the development of contemporary multimedia applications and interactive experiences. One of the key concerns of multimedia pedagogy is ensuring that students avoid the uncritical adoption of conventions of commercial or entertainment media. The IML curriculum addresses this concern by exposing students to a broad range of multimedia genres—such as argumentative, documentary, essayistic, experiential, game-based, narrative, and archival forms—and by teaching the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. In their own projects, students are required to justify their authoring and design decisions to demonstrate that their use of media and techniques are appropriate to their overall communicative goal.

As students become critical readers of multimedia, they also learn to produce it in a scholarly way. Students gain experience in both individual and collaborative forms of multimedia authorship. Rather than positioning “multimedia literacy” or “scholarly multimedia” as an emerging field, the IML focuses on developing strategies of integration with existing disciplines and academic practices. The strength of the IML methodology is its modeling of pedagogical practices that are highly mutable, scalable, and flexible in implementation.

Wherever and however (in individual productions or group projects) these practices are implemented, that implementation must be followed up with critique. While students might learn to engage in a form of social or cultural critique through their multimedia creations, they must also learn how to critique their own multimodal productions – how to assess their success in serving their intended purpose, effectively making an argument, meaningfully (and not gratuitously) employing various modes of presentation, etc. As the rampant DH boosterism and invariably positive commentary on projects like HyperCities (despite its limitations) reveals, the Digital Humanities community has yet to build a tradition of critique.[8] In the DH classroom, a project isn’t complete when it “goes live” online, or when the video is screened; a period of reflection and critique must follow.

_____________________________________

[1] Schnapp, Presner, et. al, 2. Presner writes elsewhere: “I consider ‘Digital Humanities’ to be an umbrella term for a wide array of practices for creating, applying, interpreting, interrogating, and hacking both new and old information technologies” (“Digital Humanities 2.0: A Report on Knowledge”).

[2] Stephanie Barish and Elizabeth Daley, Multimedia Scholarship for the 21st Century, Educause Forum for the Future of Higher Education (Educause, 2005): 39.

[3] Presner, “Digital Humanities 2.0: A Report on Knowledge.”

[4] Barish & Daley, 40.

[5] Presner & Johanson, 4.

[6] Ibid. For more on new “literacies,” see Henry Jenkins, “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century” Occasional Paper on Digital Media and Learning (MacArthur Foundation).

[7] Presner, “Digital Humanities 2.0: A Report on Knowledge.”

[8] See Jennifer Howard, “Hot Type: No Reviews of Digital Scholarship = No Respect” Chronicle of Higher Education (May 23, 2010). USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy has developed a list of criteria for evaluating multimedia student work.

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