Category Archives: Crystal Alberts

On Becoming a Digital Humanist

Posted on January 27, 2011 by | 2 Comments

I did not attend MLA ‘11, but given that there were around 40 panels focused on Digital Humanities/New Media, I wish that I would have. In particular, I would’ve liked to have been a part of the “standing room only” crowd gathered for the “History and Future of Digital Humanities” panel, which according to various blogs and reports has caused quite a hullabaloo. Since I wasn’t able to jump into the fray in L.A., Bill Caraher asked that, as the faculty member at UND who teaches the course officially named “Digital Humanities” in the NDUS system, I give my two cents on the subject and how I teach my course, so I will.

First, two very brief definitions seem to be in order. Digital humanities is the umbrella term often used to describe the conversion of analog materials (print, photos, audio, video, etc.) to electronic format. Meanwhile, New Media refers to “born digital” objects—works created on a computer meant to be read/viewed on a computer. These terms sometimes seem almost interchangeable, but while related, there is a difference in fields.

That said, live blogging from the conference for The Chronicle of Higher Education, William Pannapacker claims that the Digital Humanities went from being seen as the “next big thing” at MLA ’10 to “the cool-kids’ table” at MLA ’11. I have to admit, describing digital humanists as the “cool kids” made me laugh. On one hand, for a moment, the cafeteria scene from countless teen movies from the 80s and 90s popped into my head. My mind quickly rearranged the universe and rather than have the geeks/nerds and theater/artists tables be the object of ridicule for the jocks and preppies, the jocks and preppies were sneaking wish-filled glances at the promised land of popularity: one filled with books, art, and technology. It’s an alternate reality that I think I could live with.

On the other hand, I thought about my current situation, where, as someone interested in arts and humanities technology, I’m still trying to be acknowledged by the “cool kids:” those in STEM research. Yet, as Stephen Ramsay, associate professor of English and fellow at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, has remarked “the ‘cool kids’ metaphor, honestly, makes [him] worry about [his] career”. Yes, well, it just goes to show that while we may all be years out of high school, we apparently can’t let go of the lunchroom mentality.

Pannapacker forces us to experience this unfortunate high school flashback because he claims that “the digital humanities seem more exclusive, more cliquish.” As he puts it:

The digital humanities have some internal tensions, such as the occasional divide between builders and theorizers, and coders and non-coders. But the field, as a whole, seems to be developing an in-group, out-group dynamic.

In other words, given the growth of digital humanities as a field, as demonstrated by the large number of panels on the subject at MLA ’11, the fear seems to be that at some point one will need to become part of the digital cloud because, if one chooses to remain analog, one will find oneself with a fate similar to Betamax.

Now, do I want to get into the whole print vs. digital debate here? Not particularly, especially as I believe that the 41st Annual UND Writers Conference “Mind the Gap: Print, New Media, Art” discussed that topic and others quite in depth for five days (for those of you who missed it, much of the footage will be streamed as part of the UND Writers Conference Digital Collection. It will be available at http://www.undwritersconference.org/WCVirtual_Library.html shortly, so you can watch it for yourself).

However, I do want to talk a bit about the claim that the digital humanities are “exclusive.” One part of me, at the risk of being quoted out of context, wants to say “yes, of course, the digital humanities are exclusive,” or at least as exclusive as any other academic field. Meaning, I can walk into the chemistry department and declare myself a chemist, but if I don’t know the first thing about how to calculate molarity, I don’t think anyone in the field would agree with my self-identification. But, I could become a chemist, if I learned a few things (okay a lot of things). That said, of all fields, digital humanities is already rather inclusive and one need look no further than the UND Working Group in Digital and New Media for evidence. The Working Group has members from English, History, Languages, Communications, Computer Science, Music, Art & Design, as well as the Chester Fritz Library (and if you’re interested in such things, just let me know). So, as Ramsay notes, “anyone can join,” but you may need to know, or be willing to learn, certain things.

So now a number of questions emerge: 1) “Do I have to code?” 2) “Do I have to build?” 3) “Where do I learn these things?” My short answers are 1) no 2) not necessarily, and 3) here at UND.

And now for the longer answers.

1) “Do I have to code?”

As Ramsey notes, “[o]nly a radical subset of the DH community knows how to code” and by code he means traditional computer programming. So, one does not have to be able to code to be a digital humanist. Yet many have what is called “procedural literacy.” One reductive definition of this term is when an individual understands the structure, logic, and function of a program/programming language, even if that person couldn’t write the application herself (for those who want to read more about procedural literacy, one might start with Ian Bogost’s article with the same title (.pdf)).

So, do you have to have “procedural literacy” to be a digital humanist? Well, no. It’s an inherently collaborative field and if you don’t program or don’t even have the faintest idea about how one functions, you just have to know someone who does who is willing to work with you. However, “procedural literacy” does help. And here I can’t help but think of the character Jack Gladney from Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985). Gladney is the founder and chair of Hitler Studies at College-on-the-Hill; he is an internationally renowned scholar on Hitler, yet he cannot read, speak, or write German. So, can one be a digital humanist without understanding the cyberinfrastructure that makes a project possible? Yes, but in my opinion, it would be better if you had at least some familiarity with the nuts and bolts of the underlying structure. In some ways this brings us to the next question:

2) “Do I have to build?”

This question ties back to one of the “internal tensions” pointed out by Pannapacker: the “divide between builders and theorizers.” Before I address that, perhaps a description of “building” is necessary. As Ramsay explains:

All the technai of Digital Humanities — data mining, XML encoding, text analysis, GIS, Web design, visualization, programming, tool design, database design, etc — involve building.

Builders create something that wasn’t there before and then theorizers ponder what was built. It seems somewhat obvious to say that there can’t be theories about the field without digital projects as a foundation, but I’m sure there’s someone who would disagree with me. But to go back to the “divide” and whether or not one has to build to be a digital humanist, in some ways this questions makes me think of any given English department (or Film or Music or Art department for that matter). Inevitably, within those departments, you will have folks who are “creative” —writers, cinematographers, composers, painters, and animators—working alongside those who are “critics” or “theorists.” As such, my identity as an English professor (usually) isn’t questioned because I’m incapable of writing descent Petrarchan sonnet, as I understand its structure and can therefore comment upon it. In my opinion, it’s roughly the same for theorizers of digital humanities. They don’t have to build as long as they have an idea of how the work is put together. Moreover, there are plenty of people who create and also theorize in English, Art, Music, and Film, and the same is true of the digital humanities.

That said, there has been some discussion that the digital humanities is an “under-theorized” field. As Geoffrey Rockwell explains:

The digital humanities, in part because of the need for [practitioners] with extensive skills, tend to look undertheorized, and it is. It is undertheorized the way any craft field that developed to share knowledge that can’t be adequately captured in discourse is. It is undertheorized the way carpentry or computer science are.

I find this intriguing. I have an initial reaction as to why the digital humanities might not be as heavily theorized as other fields: those of us in the middle of building our projects are too immersed in the day to day details of design and functionality to find the time to offer a broader comment on the subject…but that might just be me. I fully intend to have a discussion about this with Geoffrey when he visits UND at the beginning of March (additional information about his visit is at the end of this entry). In the meantime, I direct you to Bill Caraher’s blog, as he has already begun the conversation.

That said, I’m much less concerned about the lack of theorists in the digital humanities (“if you build it they will come”) than I am about the lack of women in the field. As Rockwell points out: “we suffer from being a field in which an old boys (and a few women) network formed because there are few formal ways that people can train.” And this, finally, brings me to the last of the questions I posed earlier.

3) Where can I learn about digital humanities?

Currently, there aren’t many graduate schools in the country that offer degrees in the digital humanities per se. As a result, those who want to focus on the digital humanities sometimes find themselves in Master’s programs in Library Science and Information Technology. Beyond the love of the field, there does seem to be increasing student interest perhaps because, as Rockwell points out: “There are a lot more jobs per capita now in the digital humanities than in traditional fields. This is in part because of all the semi-academic and para-academic jobs in libraries, digital humanities centres, computing observatories and instructional technology centres.” That said, there are a number of institutions that offer undergraduate programs in the field, and many more that offer courses that will get students on their way. UND is one of these institutions.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this meandering entry, I teach “English 428: Digital Humanities.” I guess that I could be classified as one of the “few women” in the field, and I admit that my training came from those who might be part of the “old boys” network (two of my mentors were previously connected to the University of Virginia, a long-time powerhouse in digital humanities). But, my class at UND does not have any prerequisites and is open to all (although currently only approved for undergraduate credit).

In my class, my objective is to make my students builders, not merely users of digital collections. We discuss the nuts and bolts of humanities computing, as well as how to create a workflow for a digital collection. We also discuss project management. And, above all else, my primary goal is to teach them Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) compliant extensible markup language (XML), which is the archival standard for textual encoding. To this end, I give them a file to encode that will ultimately be included in a digital collection that I am currently building. Now, I’m sure someone is already thinking “sure, free labor.” Yes, I admit, I need the help, but I find that if students are given work that will become publicly available, something very interesting happens. First, there is an investment and ownership in the project, as in “I built this. My name is attached to it, and I want it to be as accurate as possible.” Second, because it is the acknowledged work of a student, she is able to put it on her resume/CV and point potential employers/graduate institutions to the site. Third, because I am also working on the same project, I am no longer just that instructor in front of the room, but rather a mentor/colleague sitting next to the student figuring out the issue at hand. When there is a question of what or how a word should be tagged, it gets turned over to the group for discussion. My perennial favorite is “How should I tag God? Is God a person? Is God a name?” And, I think that I am having some success in achieving my objectives, at least based on periodic emails from former students who write to tell me that something that we covered in class just came up during the course of their day and, more importantly, how they were able to explain why one choice was better than another based on their experience.

That said, by the end of the semester, inevitably, one or two students discover that they really like coding and want to know more. When this happens, I encourage them to take other classes at UND that aren’t labeled “digital humanities,” but will help them to become a well-rounded digital humanist. For example, I suggest a number of courses in Computer Science, as well as courses in time-based media in Art & Design, Digital History, GIS, and new media theory. As such, although UND does not have an official program in the digital humanities, I think that there are enough courses and interested faculty on campus that a student might put together an Interdisciplinary Studies Program to that end.

All of which is to say, I don’t believe that the digital humanities is an “exclusive,” “cliquish” field, especially here at UND (particularly as we are really just beginning to have a digital humanities/New Media presence on campus). We are doing our best to get as many interested people as possible involved in the fields of digital humanities/new media. But, I can understand why some people might feel excluded. For example, say that ten faculty members were hanging around having a conversation in Greek. I don’t speak Greek, so I can’t understand their discussion (let alone contribute to it), and therefore, I might feel excluded. The same is true for digital humanists; we might get together and talk about any number of things that might seem like a foreign language, and thus cause people to feel like they can’t participate. However, it goes back to what I said earlier: it’s not that the group is purposefully excluding someone, it’s just that that individual needs to learn some things so that she can participate in the ongoing discourse.

If you would like to learn more about the digital humanities and how to incorporate it into the classroom, join Geoffrey Rockwell at an On Teaching Lunch Seminar on March 1, 2011 from 12:30-1:30 in O’Kelly/Ireland 260. Just make sure to RSVP here http://webapp.und.edu/dept/oid/programsEvents/onTeachingLunchSeminars.php.

If you would like to learn more about the UND Working Group in Digital and New Media, feel free to email me.

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Posted in Crystal Alberts, Digital Humanities

The English Department and Beyond: the UND Writers Conference

Posted on March 4, 2010 by | 4 Comments

Teaching Thursday has invited Crystal Alberts and Deena Larsen, a world renown “hypertext / electronic literature / new media / electronic expression addict” to discuss how to use the University of North Dakota’s Writers Conference in classes across the UND Campus.  Over the next week, we will roll out a series of posts on lesson planning the Writers Conference.  So check back regularly because for the next couple of weeks, Teaching Thursday isn’t just for Thursday’s anymore.

Crystal Alberts, Department of English, University of North Dakota 

In 1970, Professor John Little, a member of the English Department, had an idea: he wanted to bring some of his friends to University of North Dakota for a “Southern Writers Conference on the Arts.” He hoped to create an opportunity for a rigorous exploration of literature, as well as provided a forum for a local and regional conversation about the arts as tied to our everyday lives. In order to achieve this goal, all events were (and continue to be) free and open to the public. His experiment was a success, and so he decided to try it again in 1971. Forty-one years later, the UND Writers Conference has become an institutional tradition, one that has a national reputation for being a unique and engaging experience for authors and audience alike.

At one point in time, at least in the English department, most if not all classes were cancelled during the Conference, and students were instructed to attend as many events as they could. The idea being that whatever one’s major or specialty, EVERYONE could learn something from the visiting authors. Considering that, over the years, approximately 269 authors have graced the halls of UND, including four Nobel laureates, twenty-seven (Art Spiegelman makes twenty-eight) Pulitzer Prize winners, Oscar recipients, and numerous MacArthur Geniuses, this assumption seems quite valid. In fact, talking to people around town and UND alumni, it seems that everyone has a story to share, ranging from “I had dinner with Truman Capote” to “when I was a student, I never missed a Conference,” to “it’s one of the best things about having gone to school at UND.”

However, something seems to have changed. Canceling classes during the Conference is now the exception, not the rule, even in the English Department. Am I advocating that every department on campus cancel classes and make attending the UND Writers Conference mandatory? While a part of me says, “well, actually, yes,” I realize that this isn’t practical or fair. We all have a large amount of material to teach in a short period of time, and so I understand when faculty members are not able to give up class time for the Conference. But, what I ask is that faculty members be willing to consider how the UND Writers Conference might enhance or intersect with their fields.

The UND Writers Conference is committed to fostering interdisciplinary discussion and each year selects a different theme to further that goal, such as “Art & Science” (2003), “The Use of History” (1999), “International Writers” (1982), and this year’s topic “Mind the Gap: Print, New Media, Art.” For example, in 2003, Dr. Rafael Campo, who practices internal medicine at Harvard Medical School, joined Dr. Devra Davis, professor of epidemiology and part of a Nobel prize winning team for her work on the Panel on Climate Change (shared with Al Gore, among others), so that the community could discuss poetry and writing; hence, Art AND Science. Meanwhile, this year’s conference includes graphic artists, a film director, a “new music” group, and professors of computer science whose work uses 3D virtual environments. As such, historically, the intellectual content of UND Writers Conference goes beyond the English department and includes, among others, the School of Medicine, Computer Science, Geology, Biology, Music, as well as Art & Design.

The question becomes “how could I include the Writers Conference in my class?” Well, here are some options:

1. Announce the scheduled events in class and encourage students to attend.

The schedule is available at http://www.undwritersconference.org/wc-schedule.htm.

2. Incorporate readings by visiting authors into your course schedule.

The UND Writers Conference generally knows which authors will be participating before the start of spring semester, giving instructors time to incorporate them into classes. However, sometimes the current year’s writers don’t seem to be a good fit, but that doesn’t mean that faculty members couldn’t include past participants in their classrooms, because what many do not know is that, since 1974, Conference events have been recorded, as such, past footage is available for on campus use.

3. Encourage students to check out the Cecelia Condit exhibit at the North Dakota Museum of Art.

While Gregory Corso (part of the Beat Generation) lamented our lack of an art museum at the 5th Annual UND Writers Conference: “City Lights in North Dakota” in 1974, we most certainly have an art museum now. And, this year’s conference has once again been able to collaborate with the North Dakota Museum of Art. Specifically, Cecelia Condit will not only participate in the 41st nnual UND Writers Conference, but her work will also be on display at the NDMOA from now through the conference. The staff at the Museum is always happy to talk about what they have going on, and we should take advantage of their programming.

4. Offer extra credit to students for attending events.

This could be as simple as asking students to write a paragraph or two about their experiences. Alternatively, it could be a more directed prompt either specific to particular authors or how students think the Writers Conference event has (or hasn’t) enhanced their course of study. Or, one could use the extra credit options that Deena Larsen, one of this year’s visiting authors will provide over the course of the next couple weeks right here on Teaching Thursday.

That said, UND has a national (and international) reputation for a number of things. Generally speaking, at the top of that list are aviation/aerospace and hockey. Yet, many tend to forget “the literary festival on the prairie.” We shouldn’t, because, while we never know exactly what will happen at the UND Writers Conference, whatever it is will be a chance for all of us (faculty, staff, students, and community members) to be a part of history. And, really, don’t we all, at least some part of us, want that?

The 41st Annual UND Writers Conference “Mind the Gap: Print, New Media, Art” will take place from March 23-27, 2010. Most events are in the Memorial Union; all events are free and open to the public. For more information go to www.undwritersconference.org.

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Posted in Crystal Alberts, Writers Conference

Call me Edupunk

Posted on March 12, 2009 by | 9 Comments

Crystal Alberts, Department of English, University of North Dakota

Edupunk: an approach to teaching and learning practices that result from a do it yourself (DIY) attitude.

When Bill sent me the link to EDUPUNK Battle Royale-Part 1 (see here for all 5) and asked me to comment on it, even before finding out what it is, I jokingly said that he should be careful as I might adopt Edupunk as a teaching philosophy. All kidding aside, as it turns out, I’ve been Edupunk for years.

University of Mary Washington Instructional Technologist Jim Groom coined the term “edupunk” on May 25, 2008 in his bavatuesdays blog entry “The Glass Bees.”. In what has been described as a rant, Groom asserts that Blackboard and other Learning Management Systems (LMS) “tak[e] the experiments and innovations of thousands of people and re-packag[e] them as their own, unique contribution to the educational world of Web 2.0.” Groom goes on to state that these companies are not only motivated by money, but that they also supply a means for institutions to monitor faculty and students. After his post, the term took on a life of its own. The Chronicle for Higher Education discussed it on May 30, 2008 and the New York Times added to the conversation in October 17, 2008, defining it as “an approach to teaching that avoids mainstream tools like Powerpoint and Blackboard, and instead aims to bring the rebellious attitude and D.I.Y. ethos of ’70s bands like the Clash to the classroom.”

Groom raises the issue of the cost of Blackboard and their proprietary equivalents. I have not been able to track down exact numbers for UND, but this year Ball State (enrollment approximately 18,000) paid $101,000 ((http://media.www.bsudailynews.com/media/storage/paper849/news/2008/09/16/News/Blackboard.Costs.Bsu.101000-3432621.shtml). Meanwhile, Northern Arizona State with roughly the same enrollment as Ball State paid $160,100 (https://confluence.nau.edu/display/ITSACAD/Blackboard+License). To avoid this price tag, many institutions are thinking about Moodle, an open source (read free) LMS that appears to be more popular among faculty and students alike. As an extra bonus, Moodle also seems to have inspired less ire in the hacker world. Step-by-step hacks for Blackboard and WebCT are all over the Internet. All one has to do is follow the technical documentation. I’ve contacted CILT about this and security updates are installed regularly to protect against hacks. I also learned that UND is looking into Moodle (if you have an opinion on such things, my guess is now would be a good time to share it). That said, I want to thank CILT for answering my questions on these issues.

Leaving the financial issue aside (if one can in this economy), as well as that of information security, I’ll return to the term itself. While the multi-part Battle Royale spends some time focusing on the “punk” portion of the term (and whether “hippie” or some other cultural label would be better), the core discussion revolves around the surprisingly strong reactions that Groom’s post evoked. For the sake of time, I’ll summarize the arguments in the most basic way. In one camp are academics that find Blackboard to be an indispensable tool (even with its quirks) to manage large classes. Closely affiliated to this position are those who assert they don’t have time to “reinvent the wheel” or learn new technology. Still others claim that edupunks are just doing what they did fourteen or so years ago. Finally, there are tech savvy individuals (or those willing to become so) who either feel limited by Blackboard, outright despise the LMS (for various reason), or both.

I will admit (rather proudly) that I do not use Blackboard or any LMS. I should also add I avoid Powerpoint as much as is humanly possible. However, I have watched colleagues, who are very much tech savvy, struggle with the Blackboard software every semester. This battle of human versus LMS frequently ends in innumerable invectives against the inventors of the interface. Rather than subject myself to such frustration, I very happily maintain my own course web site.

To be fair to other viewpoints, I understand that I am lucky enough to have small classes and therefore do not have to track over 200 students each semester. I also realize that I am at an advantage because I can create a web page anytime I feel so moved. But I am perplexed by those who will take the time to be trained in Blackboard, then assert they don’t have an hour to create a web page using a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) composer. Likewise, I am confused by the “we already did this fourteen years ago” position. We acknowledge that we build upon what these tech pioneers did, but we also recognize, to quote that wise twentieth-century pop philosopher Ferris Bueller, that “things move pretty fast.”

While I’ve used a fair amount of space focusing on Blackboard and LMS alternatives, this isn’t really what edupunk is about. It’s not necessarily about dismantling authority, but rather, as Groom states, about “people thinking and working together.” It’s an appeal to academics be active, not apathetic; to be creative and collaborative, not automatic and isolated. It’s about discovering new ways of doing things and learning along the way, rather than waiting for information to revealed to you by someone else.

I guess its clear by now where I fall in the debate. Perhaps edupunk resonates with me because I have worked in corporate America. I laugh uncontrollably at Office Space, mostly because I escaped, what was for me, intellectual confinement, and because I wish that I had taken a power drill to my cubicle. I fled that world to what I thought was the safety of academe, only to discover that institutions of higher learning are increasingly being run as businesses.

But I’ve learned my lesson. I’m a DIY kind of woman. While I can’t build a house from the ground up like my DIY Northern Minnesota family and neighbors, with my pedagogical power drill (my MacBook Pro) in my tool belt and the assistance of students, as well as like-minded colleagues around campus (and the world), I can certainly roll up my sleeves and construct a scholarly knowledge site that we can all point to and say “I helped do that.” I can arrange a field trip to Special Collections and show my students that a little book dust never hurt anyone. I can take my class to the Writers Conference where they can interact with the authors whose works they are reading. Like I said, none of these things are particularly revolutionary and all are available for free on campus, but they all keep things interesting. Perhaps more importantly these outside of the classroom adventures pose interesting questions and challenges not only for me, but also for my students. Because while I can teach them about digital humanities, guide them through a close read of a literary passage, and explain critical theory, the only way I know to spark a true passion for the material and my discipline is by example.

So, call me edupunk. And if you are too, please let me know who you are and why. I’d love to find more of my fellow travelers.

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Posted in Crystal Alberts, EduPunk