Objectives and Expectations
By the seminar's end, you will be expected to:
- Via a research log and revision control system, document and share the iterative development of your own research project (this process of documenting and sharing the iterative development of your work should ultimately inform scholarly practices you conduct beyond this seminar, such as writing an MA essay/thesis/dissertation, collaborating on a data-driven or code-based project, and working in a laboratory or memory institution);
- Via seminar discussions and workshops, review the work of other practitioners, provide feedback on that work (in writing and verbally), and evaluate it based on emerging guidelines published by the Modern Language Association and other scholarly organizations;
- Persuasively present your work during a collaborative, public roundtable consisting of at least three people and intended (at least hypothetically) for a specific, forthcoming conference, which you should identify and to which you could submit a proposal;
- Effectively model and prototype a computational approach to literature and culture, and then integrate that approach into a scholarly, web-ready essay intended for a specific academic journal or venue, which you should identify and to which you could eventually submit your work; and,
- Verbally and in writing, articulate the affordances of specific computational approaches to literature and culture (including their benefits and limitations) based on a combination of media theory and technical practice.
In terms of techniques and competencies for conducting digital literary studies, you should gain familiarity with:
- Revision control and versioning;
- Basic encoding and programming;
- Data modelling, curation, provenance, and interoperability;
- Data forensics and emulation;
- Translating media theory and history into technical practice, and vice versa;
- Data visualization, topic modelling, and text analysis;
- Interaction/experience/interface design; and
- Reviewing and assessing digital projects.