Visiting us from Roanoke College, Dr. Gregory Rosenthal, Assistant Professor of Public History, will give a public talk entitled “Digital History and Queer Voices” on Thursday, February 1st, as well as a pedagogy talk on Friday, February 2nd.
Public Talk:
Thursday, February 1, 2018
5pm
IQ Center (Science Addition 202A)
Pedagogy Talk:
Friday, February 2, 2018
12:15pm
IQ Center (Science Addition 202A)
Register here
Digital History and Queer Voices
Dr. Gregory Rosenthal
History Department
Roanoke College
In 2015, Dr. Gregory Rosenthal helped found the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project, a community-based history initiative committed to telling the stories of LGBTQ+ individuals and organizations in our region. Since its inception, the History Project has used an array of digital tools to make queer history more widely accessible to diverse audiences and to place a spotlight on the rich queer history of this Appalachian region. Through community engagement, the History Project seeks to empower queer and trans individuals to tell their stories and take leadership roles in processes of research, interpretation, and historical storytelling. But digital tools have revealed themselves to be both an aid and a hindrance to this work. The internet has simultaneously brought LGBTQ+ peoples together in new and exciting ways while also arguably leading to the loss of physical queer spaces as well as engendering a divide between older and younger LGBTQ+ individuals. As we engage in queer historical research and interpretation in Southwest Virginia in the 2010s, how do we navigate the promises and pitfalls of the digital divide, and the limitations of digital technologies to truly tell our queer stories?
Pre-order Rosenthal’s book Beyond Hawai’i: Native Labor in the Pacific World, coming in May 2018,here.
This event is made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It is co-sponsored by the Washington and Lee History Department.
Hi, hello! My name is Megan Doherty, and I am a junior French major and Elementary Education minor at Washington and Lee University. I recently teamed up with Professor Stephen McCormick and became a Digital Humanities Fellow, which means that I’ll be spending a lot of time working on the Huon d’Auvergne project (http://www.huondauvergne.org/) featured under our handy little “Projects” tab at the top.
My interest in digital humanities work really developed this summer when I stumbled upon a job working with Professor Sarah Horowitz and her project on the Steinheil Affair (https://sarahehorowitz.com/). I went into that project knowing absolutely nothing about how humanities could be integrated with technology. Honestly, it never even dawned on me that the two could merge at all. However, after spending an entire summer learning how my computer can sometimes read texts better than I can, a truly humbling experience, I came to the realization that digital humanities was the future of my own academic career. Now, I sit in all of my classes and think about ways digital humanities could provide a deeper and more complex understanding of the material. Everything I read has suddenly become an opportunity for some sort of text analysis project, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This newly found perspective on humanities work has influenced my ideas for a senior thesis involving medieval literature, LGBTQ relationships, and lots and lots of text analysis. I am so very grateful for the Digital Humanities department here at Washington and Lee for giving me these outstanding opportunities.
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.
In an industry dominated by men, Laura I. Gómez asserts herself as an influential tech whiz and diversity activist. CEO and Founder of venture-backed startup Atipica, Inc. and founding member of Project Include, Gómez has in many ways made it her life’s work to foster and promote equality within the thriving tech companies of Silicon Valley.
Forty years ago, Silicon Valley was filled with privileged white men who took risks to reach the tremendous success they see today. However, the power and opportunities still lie in the same few similar-looking hands. In her talk “Hard-Coded Problems: Sexism, Racism and Inequalities in Tech,” Gómez drew attention to the jarring fact that last year venture capitalists invested far less money in women-led startups ($1.46 billion) than men-led startups ($58.2 billion). Gómez begged the question: Who does this benefit?
The answer: no one.
Through statistics and examples of previous and current leaders in tech, Gómez showed us (an audience of W&L students, faculty and peers from all corners of campus) how hiring people from one’s own network without regard for diversity perpetuates the inequalities that have been there from the start. This perpetuation creates sameness and prevents new perspectives, open-mindedness and innovation, all of which result in well-rounded companies and products that better serve society and the common good. As they are now, many tech companies are not being held accountable for the biases and stereotypes that pervade their board rooms (or garages) due to their lack of diversity.
Atipica, Inc. and Project Include aim to change that. Atipica, Inc., a talent discovery engine that uniquely combines both artificial and human intelligence to help companies unlock the lifetime value of their talent data, builds automated, inclusive intelligence solutions for the modern workforce in an attempt at drawing attention to and ultimately resolving the problem of inequality within industries. Project Include, a non-profit that uses data and advocacy to promote inclusion solutions in the tech industry, creates a framework for combating inequality in the tech industry in a way that does not point fingers or chastise any particular person or group.
Through her work, Gómez emphasizes the importance of change. She works towards adapting the future to fit the changing modern workforce, not only in terms of race, gender and age but in terms of attitudes. She also promotes the idea that when people speak up and advocate for change, it happens.
Finally, Gómez’s talk left me with the impression that this change is hard but necessary. The problems of sexism, racism and inequality are hard-coded, or basically unchangeable. Just as hard-coded features are built into hardware or software in a way that cannot be modified, Gómez believes inequality in tech is unchangeable. Well, almost. While the mistakes, biases and inequalities of the past are so ingrained in the foundation of Silicon Valley that they are difficult to ameliorate in the present, it is time to accept this challenge. We, as members of a diverse society, must go back to the code base, reevaluate previously held beliefs, and make changes to the code and to the processes of hiring employees and evaluating diversity in the future.
To start: everyone should get involved, learn code and have fun!
-Jenny Bagger, DH Undergraduate Fellow
This event was sponsored by the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics at Washington and Lee University. It was part of the 2017-18 Equality and Difference Speaker Series.
Laura I. Gómez on “The Problem is Not in the Code: Racism, Sexism and Inequalities in Tech”
Thursday, November 30, 2017
5pm
Stackhouse Theater
Laura I. Gómez is the founder and CEO of venture-backed startup Atipica, Inc., which is a talent discovery engine that uniquely combines both artificial and human intelligence to help companies unlock the lifetime value of their talent data. She is also a founding member of Project Include, a non-profit that uses data and advocacy to promote inclusion solutions in the tech industry. Gómez will talk about the importance of the diversity and inclusion efforts she has helped foster and why we need them to combat racism, sexism, and discrimination in the technology industry.
This event is sponsored by the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics at Washington and Lee University. It is part of the 2017-18 Equality and Difference speaker series.
Deen Freelon on “Computational Communication Research is a Thing”
Thursday, November 30, 2017
5pm
Northen Auditorium
Deen Freelon is an associate professor in the School of Media and Journalism at the University of North Carolina. He will be giving an introduction into using computational methods to study online communication. He uses computational methods in his own work studying political expression in digital and social media, including movements like the Arab Spring and Black Lives Matter.
This event is hosted by the Washington and Lee University Journalism Department.
Both are on Thursday, November 30, 2017 at 5pm so the choice is yours!
Join us for a talk by Dr. Sarah Bond, Assistant Professor in Classics at the University of Iowa. She will be speaking on “Why We Need to Start Seeing the Classical World in Color.”
Monday, November 13, 2017
5pm
Northen Auditorium
Why We Need to Start Seeing the Classical World in Color
Sarah E. Bond
Department of Classics
University of Iowa
In an essay, Sarah Bond writes, “The equation of white marble with beauty is not an inherent truth of the universe; it’s a dangerous construct that continues to influence white supremacist ideas today.” Bond continues her exploration of color perceptions in the scope of the ancient world with a discussion of polychromy and the technology used to restore the colors of statues and other pieces of ancient Roman art. She prompts us to wonder: what is the relationship between color and our cultural values? Why is white marble considered the epitome of beauty? What influenced this perception, and how can we challenge it? How does this reflect on the status of ourselves? Bond’s talk will raise these questions about cultural values and explore what the absence of color really means.
Dr. Sarah Bond is an assistant professor in Classics at the University of Iowa. She is a digital humanist, who is also interested in late Roman history, epigraphy, late antique law, Roman topography, and the socio-legal experience of ancient marginal peoples. Bond earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her B.A. in Classics and History with a minor in Classical Archaeology from the University of Virginia. During the 2011-2012 academic year, she was a Mellon Junior Faculty Fellow in Classics and History at W&L.
This event is made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a Dean of the College Cohort Grant. It is co-sponsored by the Washington and Lee History Department.
So, who was Ada Lovelace? Some people know her as the daughter of Lord Byron, the famed Romantic poet. People should know her as the first computer programmer—not as the first female computer programmer but as the first ever! She is responsible for elaborating on the “Analytical Engine,” an early predecessor of the modern computer. Her impact on the “Analytical Engine” as well as on other machines was groundbreaking and remains extremely relevant as we continue to embrace and improve upon technology.
Today, we celebrate her as well as all women in science, technology, engineering and math around the world on Ada Lovelace Day.
On October 10th, we had our own Ada Lovelace Day at W&L! Sponsored by the University Library, we took to Wikipedia to edit any page we felt needed a little TLC. Specifically, the edit-a-thon was intended to raise awareness about underappreciated women in STEM, like Ada Lovelace, by inviting students and faculty alike to edit Wikipedia articles, create new articles for important people without them, and supply citations for stated facts without references. Emily Cook, our Research and Outreach Librarian, hosted the event and provided attendees with information on how to get started (as well as candy, hot chocolate and Pure Eats donuts). She emphasized the importance of “verifiable accuracy” as Wikipedia puts it in its stated principles and simply getting the facts out there so that innovators like Ada Lovelace can be awarded the appreciation they deserve.
As I enjoyed a Pure Eats donut, I explored the list of women scientists and important figures and quickly became overwhelmed by the number of underrepresented and underappreciated women whose pages required improvement. I wanted to do them all justice by editing their pages and contributing to the culmination of knowledge already on the Internet. Because I couldn’t choose just one, I aided the issue at large by finding references for different statements without citations on various articles. In this way, I felt that I was able to help in a broad yet impactful way. Now that I have dipped my toe into the world of editing Wikipedia articles, I can dive deeper into individual articles in the future, verifying facts and adding biographical information in the hopes of garnering support for and granting credit to women whose achievements should not go unnoticed.
And there are ways for you to get involved too! Although this year’s Ada Lovelace Day has passed, you too can contribute to the cause and engage in the rewarding feeling of spreading knowledge on the Internet by editing one of the 5,490,757 articles (and counting) currently on Wikipedia. There are an infinite number of ways to celebrate important women in STEM and make a difference.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
12:15-1:15pm
Hillel 101 Please register
Megan Hess is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at Washington and Lee University.
Hess will discuss her latest DH ethics research project exploring the relationship between social networks and ethical leadership. We will also look at some examples of how social network concepts such as group cohesion, information diffusion, central connectors, and brokers can be used to enrich studies of literature and history.
This event is made possible by a Dean of the College Cohort Grant.
As an incoming freshman last year, I never imagined I would have the opportunity to work as a research assistant by my second semester at W&L. During orientation week, I met Dr. Stephanie Sandberg and learned about her play, Stories In Blue, which tells the stories of six sex trafficking survivors in Michigan. Through the Digital Humanities Initiative, I was given an opportunity to work with Dr. Sandberg on the adaptation of her play into a website that is a resource for people to learn more about the intricacies of domestic sex trafficking as well as how they can help bring it to an end.
In the first week of August, I traveled with Dr. Sandberg, Associate University Librarian Jeff Barry, Digital Humanities Fellow Sydney Bufkin and Digital Humanities Librarian Mackenzie Brooks to the Institute for Liberal Arts Digital Scholarship (ILiADS) conference at the College of Wooster. As it says on their website, “ILiADS is a project-based and team-based opportunity for focused support of a digital project.” Making this conference unique, is the liaison model where each team is assigned an expert liaison who assists on different digital aspects of the project. Monday through Thursday were devoted to working as a team on our project, where we brainstormed what we wanted the structure of the website to be and then began building it as well as generating content. As a student with limited digital literacy skills, ILiADS provided me with an opportunity to not only take the research I have been collecting and turn it into synthesized articles, but to also learn more about what it takes to build a useable and informational website.
ILiADS is a great opportunity for students and faculty from different universities to come together for a week, work on digital humanities projects and compare what each of their institutions are doing to promote digital scholarship as technology becomes a necessity in higher learning. To be able to have this experience as a student was amazing for me because I not only got to see how important digital humanities is to our project at W&L, but how it is being used at other universities. Digital humanities is allowing the research done by students and faculty, that may otherwise get lost to the ages, to live on through easily accessible platforms.
Coming out of ILiADS, I will continue to work on research, but will also be writing more content for the website and entering my research into our hidden database structure that will make finding information easier.
It’s my first blog post for DH @ W&L! Hi, everyone! I’m Sydney Bufkin, the new Mellon Digital Humanties Fellow. I have been—and will continue to be—a Visiting Assistant Professor in the English Department, so if I look familiar when you drop by my office, that’s likely why, especially if you’ve taken WRIT 100 in the past two years.
The Vassar campus isn’t terrible in June
I moved over to the library last week and immediately hit the road for the Liberal Arts Consortium for Online Learning (LACOL) workshop at Vassar College. LACOL is a consortium of nine liberal arts colleges formed to share resources about online learning, blended learning and digital pedagogy, and to collaborate on projects across the consortium campuses. The consortium has held three workshops since beginning in 2014, as well as a number of hack-a-thons and mini-workshops on topics such as adaptive learning, language instruction, social annotation and others.
Washington and Lee joined LACOL this year, so this was the first workshop not only for me, but for the other W&L folks, as well. I was particularly excited about the workshop because I’m all about digital pedagogy, especially using technology to make the liberal arts classroom even more active and engaged than it traditionally is. I’m also interested in the future of higher education (for both professional and philosophical reasons), and I’ve watched with some trepidation as for-profit tech startups like Udacity and EdX have shifted the trajectory of higher ed in recent years. I like that the folks at LACOL are thinking about smaller educational units like the SPOC (small, private online course) rather than the MOOC (massive, open online course), while still exploring ways to make higher education more equitable and more accessible.
One of the highlights of the workshop was a keynote by Bryan Alexander, an “internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of how technology transforms education.” Bryan opened his talk with an image from Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” just in case there was any confusion about his assessment of the direction higher ed is heading. His talk raced through a long list of hard truths, from the growing inequality in the United States to decreased enrollments and increased financial pressures on nonprofit, four-year colleges. He noted that small liberal arts colleges represent just 5% of college students in the US, but have an outsized profile and visibility relative to that market share. He called on those colleges to meet the changing landscape of higher education by adapting in ways that improve access to education not just for students from privileged backgrounds, but for everyone.
Bryan’s fire and brimstone was set in opposition to the beautiful Vassar campus, especially the breath-taking library. I only had a little bit of time there, but I spent several minutes taking in the arches and stained glass.
I’m a sucker for a pretty library
Also a sucker for tapestries
I attended working group sessions for LACOL’s Active and Engaged Reading group and came away with lots of ideas about what reading looks like in our screen-saturated moment. Once question the group considered was why we don’t generally teach the reading process in the way we teach the writing process. We often think of reading as something you either can do or you can’t, sort of like riding a bicycle, but it’s much more akin to writing—you have to identify different disciplines, genres and situations and know how best to read for each case. And like writing well, reading effectively is neither magic nor something you soak up through intuition; it’s a set of steps and processes you learn to apply and adapt.
The working group surveyed some tools and technologies that can help us be better readers, from low-tech approaches like group read-ins in the library and professors modeling their own reading practices to annotating tools like Lacuna and Hypothes.is. I was excited share the Critical Reader’s Toolkit, a project I worked on when I was at the University of Texas that helps demystify the reading process for literature students.
We had opportunities to hear from other people, both formally and informally, who are working on digital pedagogy at colleges around the country. Bryn Mawr just introduced a new digital competencies framework that emphasizes a number of key skills, including “Digital Survival Skills.” Lots of people were interested in questions of digital citizenship and digital competencies, and we had a lively brainstorming session about how we might collaborate across institutions to address digital fluency.
I always come back from conferences and workshops with my brain buzzing, and this was no exception. I’m excited to see what LACOL does next.
