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Announcement DH Event on campus Incentive Grants Pedagogy Speaker Series

Day of DH at Fall Academy 2018

DH @ W&L is holding two Fall Academy sessions this year. Don’t forget to register and check out all the other amazing-looking sessions. Join us on Thursday, August 23rd, 2018 in Hillel 101 for the following:

10:45AM-11:45 AM Creating Open Course Websites
Course websites are a great way to increase access to your courses, share your teaching strategies and materials with colleagues, and organize information for your students. Creating a course website is also an opportunity to re-evaluate the structure of your class and imagine how a student will navigate the different parts of the course. Learn about the benefits of making course materials open and accessible to audiences beyond the university, hear how other people in DH are using course websites, and learn strategies for organizing your own course into an easy-to-navigate website.

Presenters: Sydney Bufkin, Mellon Digital Humanities Fellow; Mackenzie Brooks, University Library; Sarah Horowitz, History.

12:00 PM – 1:45 PM DH Incentive Grant Panel
Come learn about DH funding opportunities for research and the classroom. Hear from current grant holders how they incorporate DH tools and methods in their classrooms. Presenters include Paul Youngman, Chair of Digital Humanities; Ricardo Wilson, English; Shikha Silwal, Economics; Stephen Lind, Business Administration; Stephanie Sandberg, Theater.

Come learn about DH funding opportunities for research and the classroom. Hear from current grant holders how they incorporate DH tools and methods in their classrooms. Presenters include Paul Youngman, Chair of Digital Humanities; Ricardo Wilson, English; Shikha Silwal, Economics; Stephen Lind, Business Administration; Stephanie Sandberg, Theater.

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Announcement DH

DH Opportunities: Apply Now!

Check out these two DH opportunities! Apply for an internship with the Center for Hellenic Studies or apply for the Lisa Lena Opas Hänninen Young Scholar Prize:


CHS Summer Internship in Digital Humanities

The Center for Hellenic Studies is looking for interns to work for eight weeks on the Free First Thousand Years of Greek Project, a self-standing subset of the Open Greek and Latin Project in Washington D.C. Find out more information here. Apply now!

Application Deadline: February 14, 2018
Internship Dates: June 1-July 27, 2018


The goal of the Free First Thousand Years of Greek Project is to make freely available the corpus of the first thousand years of Ancient Greek as attested in manuscripts. The project aims to incorporate a modern search engine, the ability to download works, the capacity for including textual variants, and numerous other features.

Interns will work primarily with XML files, editing them to meet the project’s standards, and uploading the corrections to a GitHub repository. Additional tasks will include correcting OCRed texts, as well as contributing to other digital humanities projects as they arise.

Undergraduate students majoring in any field may apply. One semester of ancient Greek is required; intermediate knowledge of ancient Greek is strongly preferred. A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 is required. No prior professional experience is necessary for this internship. Interns will be trained in all necessary technologies. Applicants must demonstrate the internship’s relevance to their studies and future career plans.

The CHS does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status in any of its activities or operations.


 Lisa Lena Opas Hänninen Young Scholar Prize

The Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen Young Scholar Prize is sponsored by the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, awarding $1,829.32 in prize money. Find out more information about the opportunity here.

Deadline: October 1, 2018


A winner of a Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen Young Scholar Prize must be a student, graduate student, or a postdoctoral researcher who has contributed in a significant way to scholarship at a humanities conference using digital technology essentially. She or he cannot be a scholar with an academic position, whether tenured or untenured.

An author may be considered a “young scholar” for purposes of this award by being for example: aged 35 years or less at the start of the conference; in an entry-level academic appointment at a university or junior position in an organization involved with Digital Humanities; and new to Digital Humanities from another discipline or career.

Apply now!

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Announcement

Applications are open for the Post-Baccalaureate Fellow in Digital Humanities

Are you a W&L senior or recent graduate with an interest in the Digital Humanities? Would you like to build technical and professional skills, gain career mentorship, and help make DH programming at W&L even better? Are you excited about expanding opportunities for women in technology? Applications are now open for the one-year Post-Baccalaureate Fellow in Digital Humanities, a full-time job at the University Library starting in June, 2018.

Position description:

The Post-Baccalaureate Fellow in Digital Humanities is a one-year position designed for a recent college graduate who will assist the Washington and Lee Digital Humanities (DH) initiative in preparing undergraduates majoring in the humanities and humanistic social sciences for technology-based careers or graduate education. The position will give particular attention to developing activities, resources and workshops that encourage undergraduate women to expand interest in applying coding, software and digital research methodologies to their studies and careers beyond W&L. The Post-Baccalaureate Fellow will receive significant mentoring and professional development in preparing for future graduate study or career opportunities.

The position is full-time and will start in June, 2018. The application deadline is Feb. 1, 2018. Apply here.

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Announcement DH Event on campus Speaker Series

Days of DH @ Winter Academy 2017

The 2017 Winter Academy is here! Check out the Days of DH events:


Valuing the Digital Humanities at a Liberal Arts Institution

Wednesday, December 13, 2017
12:15pm – 1:45pm
Hillel House 101
Please register here.

Viewed by some as a promising future for traditional humanities teaching and scholarship, the Digital Humanities (DH) is nevertheless difficult to define and often subject to harsh critique. In this presentation, Dr. Seán McCarthy of James Madison University sidesteps the field’s more controversial aspects and instead examines how a DH program might fit with the goals and values of a liberal arts institution. He will also brainstorm different strategies to formalize Washington and Lee’s already vibrant DH presence into a sustainable programmatic and curricular effort.

McCarthy is an assistant professor in the School of Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication at James Madison University, and his teaching and research are situated at the intersection of community engagement and digital literacy studies. He is particularly passionate about better understanding how writing, digital media, and interdisciplinary collaboration serve to build creative university-community partnerships. McCarthy currently serves as a university Entrepreneurship Faculty Fellow at JMU, and he also co-teaches an annual institute for faculty in digital humanities pedagogy. In 2017, he and collaborator Mollie Godfrey won the award for Best Community-University Project at the Conference on Community Writing for their work on “Celebrating Simms: The Story of the Lucy F. Simms School.”


DH Summer Research Panel

Thursday, December 14, 2017
12:00pm – 1:30pm
Hillel House 101
Please register here.

Curious about how “digital humanities”–whatever that means–can fit into your research? What it’s like to work collaboratively with undergraduates working on humanistic questions? What impact the research can have on your pedagogy? Then, you should hear from the Mellon Summer Digital Humanities Faculty Research awardees:

  • Clover Archer, Director of Staniar Gallery
  • Drew Hess, Associate Professor of Business Administration
  • Sarah Horowitz, Associate Professor of History
These events are made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 
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Announcement

We’re hiring a Digital Scholarship Librarian!

Yes that’s right, we’re looking for a Digital Scholarship Librarian to join DH @ WLU. As a member of a library team emphasizing digital humanities, data, and collections in the liberal arts, the Digital Scholarship Librarian will have a role in advancing digital scholarship writ large at Washington and Lee. This is a position for an individual with wide-ranging interests in digital initiatives.

Please share with anyone who might be interested!

Learn more and apply on Interfolio.

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Announcement Event on campus Speaker Series UVA Collaboration

Day of DH @ Fall Academy 2017

While it’s still a little scary to admit that school will be starting in a month, we’re excited about this year’s Day of DH! Join us for a morning of pedagogy and digital scholarship discussion from some of your favorite faculty members. We’re thrilled to have Amanda Visconti (Managing Director of Scholars’ Lab) joining us for the lunch time talk. And don’t forget, there’s the third annual Library/ITS mixer in the afternoon.

Sign up for these sessions and check out all the great offerings in Fall Academy event manager.

9:00-10:00am Breakfast and Mellon and You: Graduate Student Teaching Fellows
Interested in the latest updates on the Digital Humanities grant from Mellon, including pedagogical and research opportunities? Paul Youngman (Professor of German and Chair of the Digital Humanities Committee) explains! Curious about the Graduate Student Teaching Fellows and how you could leverage a UVA graduate student in your class? Hear from Caleb Dance (Assistant Professor of Classics), Suzanne Keen (Dean of the College, Professor of English), and Taylor Walle (Assistant Professor of English) on their experiences with teaching fellows, what worked, what didn’t, and what students and faculty learned.
10:15-11:45am Incentive Grant Winners: WRIT 100
Last year’s Mellon DH incentive grant winners focused on multi-modal composition in their WRIT 100 courses. This group faced unique challenges and opportunities in working with first-year students in a variety of topics. Hear about their experiences, with time to discuss ideas further. Speakers: Sydney Bufkin (Mellon Digital Humanities Fellow, Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Topic: Romantic Comedy), Genelle Gertz (Professor of English, Topic: Faith & Doubt), Sascha Golubuff (Professor of Anthropology, Topic: Terror & Violence), Wan-Chuan Kao (Assistant Professor of English, Topic: The Good Wife), and Kary Smout (Associate Professor of English, Topic: Whole New World).
12:00-1:30pm Digital Humanities Guest Speaker Amanda Visconti: Community Design Takes Time
Amanda Visconti avatar
As we experiment with virtual ways of connecting digital humanities practitioners, what kind of human effort must we invest? I’ll share two recent projects I’ve worked on to explore the (sometimes hidden) work of designing DH communities and supporting the very real humans who make up these groups. Infinite Ulysses is a participatory digital edition of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. A variety of scholarly methods—design, coding, usertesting, blogging, and social science analysis—combined to try out a virtual space for conversations among readers from within and without the academy. The Digital Humanities Slack is an online forum for chatting about all aspects of DH. Over 1,500 people interested in DH from around the world are members, and anyone can join, regardless of experience or affiliation. I’ll use these projects to discuss what has and hasn’t worked for me in audience-nurturing DH projects, and how those experiences are shaping my part in the trajectory of the Scholars’ Lab.
4-5:30pm ITS and Library Mixer for Faculty and Staff
Attend the ITS & library reception for a fun and informative kick-off to the academic year. Meet the librarians and ITS staff and learn about our many resources and services. A wide variety of refreshments will be served. Eat, drink, and be merry with us! Hors d’oeuvres and tea will begin at 4:00. Beer and wine will be served from 4:30-5:30. This event will take place on the main level of Leyburn Library.
Categories
Announcement

Now Hiring: Director of Data Education

We’re hiring a Director of Data Education! Please see the complete job ad for more details. Review of applications will begin July 5 and continue until the position is filled.


Washington and Lee University Library invites applications for Director of Data Education, a non-tenure track faculty appointment, to establish a program to:

• engage faculty and students in incorporating statistical and computational data analysis methods (data science) into the undergraduate curriculum and scholarship;
• provide guidance for students in finding data sets as well as teaching students how to clean and manipulate data for use in analytical and statistical applications;
• offer peer tutoring to students who need assistance with data and statistical applications.

The program will make a significant contribution toward meeting the increasing demand for data-intensive courses as well as promoting data and statistical literacy across the curriculum. We are interested in candidates from all areas of statistical sciences and analytics, in the broadest possible sense, to teach skills with broad, real-world application.

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Announcement DH

Announcing Our New Mellon DH Fellow: Sydney Bufkin

Sydney Bufkin Headshot
We are happy to announce our new Mellon DH Fellow, Sydney Bufkin. Sydney is a familiar face for many of us at W&L as she’s been teaching in the English Department for the last few years. Sydney received her PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin with a specialization in nineteenth-century American literature and reception studies. At W&L, Sydney has taught a range of courses in the English Department and Writing Program. She specializes in digital approaches to pedagogy and has received a DH incentive grant for her multi-modal writing assignments. Her interest in computational approaches to literature manifests itself in her own research on a corpus of reviews of nineteenth-century purpose fiction and hopefully in future DH courses!

Sydney will being on June 12. Please welcome her to her new role in Leyburn Library.

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Announcement Project Update Undergraduate Fellows

Work in Progress: Updates from Our DH Fellows

Join us on April 4th from 2-4pm to hear project updates from our current Mellon DH Undergraduate Fellows. If you’re interested in becoming a fellow next year, this is the perfect chance to learn what it’s all about!

Applications are now open for the 2017-2018 academic year.

We’ll be in the DH Workspace (Leyburn 218). There will be snacks.

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Announcement DH

DH Courses Coming This Fall

Though most of us can’t see beyond winter term, fall registration is almost here! We have two DH courses on offer this fall. Check them out!


DH 102: Data in the Humanities

This course introduces students to the creation and visualization of data in humanities research. The course is predicated on the fact that the digital turn of the last several decades has drastically changed the nature of knowledge production and distribution. The community and set of practices that is digital humanities (DH) encourages fluency in media beyond the printed word such as text mining, digital curation, data visualization, and spatial analysis. Readings and discussions of theory complement hands-on application of digital methods and computational thinking. While the objects of our study come primarily from the humanities, the methods of analysis are widely applicable to the social and natural sciences. Three unit-long collaborative projects explore the creation, structure, and visualization of humanities data. This course meets in two-hour blocks to accommodate a lab component.

Prof. Mackenzie Brooks // TR 2:30-4:30pm // SC FDR // course website

DH 110: Programming for Non-Programmers

Computer science and IT graduates are no longer the only people expected to have some knowledge of how to program. Humanities and social science majors can greatly increase their job prospects by understanding the fundamentals of writing computer code, not only through the ability itself but also being better able to communicate with programming professionals and comprehending the software development and design process as a whole. The most centralized and simple platform for learning is the Web. This course starts with a brief introduction to/review of HTML and CSS and then focuses on using JavaScript to write basic code and implement preexisting libraries to analyze and visualize data. Students become familiar with building a complete Web page that showcases all three languages.

Prof. Jason Mickel // MW 2:30p-3:55p, R 8:35a-10:00a // SC FDR // course website