DTC/ENGL 560 Critical Theories, Methods, and Practice in Digital Humanities – Fall 2023

Course description:

Critical Theories, Methods, and Practice in Digital Humanities examines the ways in which digital humanities are transforming research, disciplines, and access to knowledge across disciplines. Topics include contrasts and continuities between traditional and digital humanities scholarship in history; tools and techniques used by digital humanists, and artists; the ethics of digital circulation, the use of archives, and its preservation in institutions; the politics of open access and collaborative scholarship; and the crossover between critical theory and digital humanities methods.

Course work:
The course consists of 6 modules, each of which includes assigned weekly readings. Students are expected to co-moderate class conversations twice, present a background and research proposal, submit a final project, and deliver a final presentation.

Module 1: Outlines of Digital Humanities
Module 2: Questions of classification
Module 3: Radical revisionism
Module 4: Subverting the archive/institution
Module 5: Collaborative forms of historicism
Module 6: Speculative futures

Course bibliography:
- The Emergence of the Digital Humanities – Steven E. Jones
- Cybernetic Revolutionaries – Eden Medina
- A Short Guide to the Digital Humanities – Anne Burdick, et al
- Racial Time, Racial Metaphors – Coco Fusco
- The composite portraits – Francis Galton
- Surveillance and capture – Philip E. Agre
- Algorithms of Oppression – Safiya Noble
- Novel and History, Plot and Plantation – Sylvia Winter
- Silencing the past – Michel-Rolph Truillot
- In the Wake – Christina Sharpe
- Contemporary Creative Writing and Ancient Oral Tradition – Ernestine Hayes
- Borderlands / La Frontera, How to Tame a wild tongue – Gloria Anzaldua
- Opening Archives: Respectful Repatriation – Kimberly Christen
- Archives and intervention – Reece Auguiste
- The Grave on the Wall – Brandon Shimoda
- How do we look? – Fatimah Tobing Rony
- Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments – Saidiya Hartman
- This Is Why We Fight: Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities – Lisa Spiro
- Network sovereignty – Marisa Elena Duarte
- Matrix Activism – Michela Ardizzoni
- Acompañamiento in the Borderlands – Enrique Sepulveda
- Barracoon – Zora Neale Hurston
- What’s next: The Radical, Unrealized Potential of Digital Humanities – Miriam Posner
- The man who plugged in – L. Timmel Duchamp
- Bloodchild – Octavia E. Butler
- Don’t let me be lonely – Claudia Rankine
- A Sound of Thunder – Ray Bradbury

Class schedule:

Module 1 Outlines of Digital Humanities

1 (8/23) Class conversation
 Introduction to the syllabi. objectives and expectations. Introductions  Readings:
  - The Emergence of the Digital Humanities – Steven E. Jones

2 (8/30) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - Cybernetic Revolutionaries – Eden Medina
  - A Short Guide to the Digital Humanities – Anne Burdick, et al

3 (9/6) Background presentations and research proposal

Module 2 Questions of classification

4 (9/13) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - Racial Time, Racial Metaphors – Coco Fusco
  - The composite portraits – Francis Galton

5 (9/20) Background presentations and research proposal

6 (9/27) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - Surveillance and capture – Philip E. Agre
  - Algorithms of Oppression – Safiya Noble

Module 3 Radical revisionism

7 (10/4) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - Surveillance and capture – Philip E. Agre
  - Algorithms of Oppression – Safiya Noble

8 (10/11) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - In the Wake – Christina Sharpe
  - Contemporary Creative Writing and Ancient Oral Tradition – Ernestine Hayes
  - Borderlands / La Frontera, How to Tame a wild tongue – Gloria Anzaldua

Module 4 Subverting the archive/institution

9 (10/18) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - Opening Archives: Respectful Repatriation – Kimberly Christen
  - Archives and intervention – Reece Auguiste
  - The Grave on the Wall – Brandon Shimoda

10 (10/25) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - How do we look? – Fatimah Tobing Rony
  - Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments – Saidiya Hartman

Module 5 Collaborative forms of historicism

11 (11/1) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - This Is Why We Fight: Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities – Lisa Spiro
  - Network sovereignty – Marisa Elena Duarte
  - Matrix Activism – Michela Ardizzoni

12 (11/8) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - Acompañamiento in the Borderlands – Enrique Sepulveda
  - Barracoon – Zora Neale Hurston

Module 6 Speculative futures

13 (11/15) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - What’s next: The Radical, Unrealized Potential of Digital Humanities – Miriam Posner
  - The man who plugged in – L. Timmel Duchamp

14 (11/29) Class conversation
 Readings:
  - Bloodchild – Octavia E. Butler
  - Don’t let me be lonely – Claudia Rankine
  - A Sound of Thunder – Ray Bradbury

15 (12/06) Final Presentations

Final exam (12/06) Final Presentations