Calendar

Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126

Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127

Current Week

PART I – THEORY

WEEK ONE – INTRODUCTIONS

January 13^th – Introduction to the Course/Communication history/Doing history in public

DUE BY NEXT CLASS: Select a domain name – we’re going to be signing you all up for Davidson Domains in class on Thursday.

January 15^th – Doing digital history/Davidson Domains/The ancestor of the blog

• Kathleen Fitzpatrick. “The Humanities, Done Digitally” in Debates in the Digital Humanities – read online and highlight passages of interest to you
• Karin Wulf. “Milcah Martha Moore’s book: Documenting Culture and Connection in the Revolutionary Era” (excerpts)
• Rampolla, Section 1
• Review Dr. Lozada’s introduction to WordPress

BEFORE MIDNIGHT ON JANUARY 18th: Fill out the CATME survey (you should have gotten an e-mail).  This will help me put you into teams for your group work.

 

WEEK TWO – DOING HISTORY – SECONDARY AND PRIMARY SOURCES

DUE AS FIRST BLOG POST (EVERYONE MUST POST BEFORE CLASS ON TUESDAY): Drawing on the descriptions of commonplace books in the Wulf article, write a blog post that simply highlights (and cites) passages of interest from the Fitzpatrick article, with brief (1-2 sentences) commentary on why you found them interesting.

January 20^th – Approaches to the history of information/what is historiography?

• Groups of students will read different excerpts from articles on Mass communication theory, the public sphere, print culture, history of the book and report to the class:
  • Group A: Framing Theory – Robert Entman, “Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm” and Paul D’Angelo, “News Framing as a Multiparadigmatic Research Program: A Response to Entman”
  • Group B: Public Sphere – Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere, an Encyclopedia Article” and Jeremiah Dittmar, “Information technology and economic change: The impact of the printing press”
  • Group C: History of the Book/print culture – Frederick Kilgour, “Dynamics of the Book” from The Evolution of the Book and   David D. Hall, “The History of the Book: New Questions? New Answers?”
• Everyone reads: Alfred D. Chandler Jr.  “The Information Age in Historical Perspective: Introduction” in A Nation Transformed by Information
• Everyone reads: Rampolla Section 2

 

PART II – COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA

January 22^nd –Geographic knowledge/digital approaches to primary sources

•  Martin Brückner.  The Geographic Revolution in Early America, Chapter 1 – Highlight and comment on one passage you liked from Bruckner.
• “Metadata basics” and “History of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative” in Metadata Innovation
•  In preparation for your Topical assignments, read Rampolla sections 4 and 7.  You are expected to conform to historical writing and citation conventions for all formal assignments.

 

WEEK THREE

January 27^th– Overview of information technology in colonial America/deep (historical) reading

•  Richard D. Brown.  “Early American Origins of the Information Age” in A Nation Transformed by Information
• Review discussion of evaluating primary sources from Rampolla

January 29^th – Archives session/Introduction to Omeka – MEET IN THE ARCHIVE ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE LIBRARY

• “Introduction” from Writing with Scissors
• Jeff McClurken. “Teaching and Learning with Omeka: Discomfort, Play, and Creating Public, Online, Digital Collections”
• During class, take a picture of an item or page in one of the Davidson scrapbooks, and note as much metadata as possible.  After class, complete this Omeka tutorial    and upload your image, with metadata, to the class Omeka site (login at omeka.shroutdocs.org/admin username: admin/ password: HIS245)

 

WEEK FOUR

February 3^rd – From physical to digital/doing research at Davidson – MEET IN THE FISHBOWL IN THE LIBRARY

February 5^th– Political communiqués and colonialism/network analysis – MEET DURING COMMON HOUR IN CAROLINA INN 224

• Michael Warner. “Franklin and the Letters of the Republic,” Representations  No. 16 (Autumn, 1986) , pp. 110-130

• Harry S. Stout.  “Religion, Communications, and the Ideological Origins of the American Revolution” in The William & Mary Quarterly.  Vol. 34, No. 4 (Oct., 1977), pp. 519-541 

• Franklin papers (for use in class only)
• Table for Franklin letters (for use in class only)

PA #1: In three short polished paragraphs outline three possible topics for your final paper.  You needn’t be specific at this stage but you should have a sense of what you’re broadly interested in and how you might approach it.  Due by 5:00 PM on FRIDAY February 6th

 

WEEK FIVE

February 10^th– Network analysis continued

• Mustafa Emirbayer and Jeff Goodwin. “Network Analysis, Culture and the Problem of History.” in American Journal of Sociology.
• Keiran Healy.  “Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere”
• For class only:
  • Boston Massacre primary source
  • Boston Massacre network analysis table

February 12^th– Revolutionary propaganda/using science to do history

• John Agresto.  “Art and Historical Truth: The Boston Massacre” in The Social Meanings of Art
• Robert W. Smith.  “The Boston Massacre: A Study in Public Relations” in Public Relations Review
• Braxton Boren. “Analysis of Noise Sources in Colonial Philadelphia”

 

WEEK SIX

February 17^th – Colonial and Revolutionary America Presentations

• Group A: Historiography
• Group B: Primary source curation
• Group C: Digital archive assessment
• In preparation for PA#2 read section 5 of Rampolla, paying particular attention to the sections on moving from topics to historical questions.

 

PART III – THE EARLY REPUBLIC

February 19^th – Controlling bodies through print/from source to data

•  David Waldstreicher.  “Reading the Runaways: Self-Fashioning, Print Culture, and Confidence in Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic” in WMQ (1999)
• Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton.  “Visible bodies: Power, subordination and identity in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world” in Journal of Social History (2005)
•  Selected runaway ads
• Introduction to XML for text

PA #2: In 400 to 500 words, write a polished paragraph describing the subject of your final paper proposal.  This paragraph should include a snappy title, an announcement of the topic, two or three historical questions (see Rampolla for a discussion of what makes good historical question), a brief discussion of potential primary sources and a discussion of the form your project will take.  Due by MIDNIGHT on SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22nd

 

WEEK SEVEN

February 24^th– Books, assimilation and Indian Territory /a trip to the printing press

•      Removable Type, chapters 2 and 3

February 26^th – Moving into the Industrial Age

• Richard R. John.  “Recasting the Information Infrastructure for the Industrial Age” in A Nation Transformed by Information
• For class:
  • Elias Boudinot. “Questions about the Cherokees”
  • N.D. Scales. “Missions among the Cherokee”
  • John Ross. “Letter to the Cherokee Phoenix”

 

WEEK EIGHT – SPRING BREAK (NO CLASS)

 

WEEK NINE

March 10^th – The Business of information

• JoAnne Yates.  “Business Use of Information and Technology During the Industrial Age” in A Nation Transformed by Information

March 12^th – Alternative spheres of information II/ African American Newspapers

• Richard Newman, “Protest in Black and White” in Beyond the Founders

To use in class:

• TEI example – A Haytien Tale
• XML for the example
• TEI tutorial
• David Walker’s Appeal (full text)  (pdf)
  • Group A
  • Group B
  • Group C

For additional background: American Stories (on reserve in Little), chapters 10 and 11

WEEK TEN

March 17^th – Collapsing distance/mapping history

•  William Cronon on Railway Time
• Withers.  “Place and the Spatial Turn in History and Geography”

For additional background: American Stories (on reserve in Little), chapters 9 and 13

Before class on Tuesday, go back through our reading and pull out three “things” – e.g. events, people, newspapers – that have something geospatial associated with them (i.e. a letter written in a particular place).  Create metadata for those items in the Google table here .  We will use this information in class – it is required for participation. (Our map)

For use in class only:

• Map example A
• Map example B
• Map example C

 

March 19^th – Presentations on the Early Republic

•      Group B: Historiography
•      Group C: Primary source curation
•      Group A: Digital Archives assessment
•      In preparation for PA #3-#6, review sections 4 and 7 of Rampolla.
• NOTE: Early Republic written assignments due by SUNDAY, MARCH 22nd at MIDNIGHT

 

PA #3: Write an analysis of one primary source for your final project. Due by MIDNIGHT on SUNDAY, MARCH 22nd

PART IV – ANTEBELLUM AMERICA

WEEK ELEVEN

March 24^th – The press moves west/mapping news over time

• Review Journalism’s Journey West
• Bethany Nowviskie. “Neatline and visualization as interpretation”

For additional background: American Stories (on reserve in Little), chapters 10 and 11

For use in class only:

• William Still journal

March 26^th – New technologies: Telegraph

• Carolyn Marvin.  When Old Technologies Were New (introduction and chapter 1)
• Neal Stephenson on the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph

 

WEEK TWELVE

March 31^st – New technologies: Photography

•      Adam Frank.  “Emily Dickinson and Photography” in The Emily Dickinson Journal v. 10 no. 2 (2001)

For use in class only:

• http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/dag/search/?co=dag&sp=1&st=grid

April 2^nd – Cultural critique/bringing the class to bear on the past – NO CLASS

• Pierre Sorlin.  “How to Look at an “Historical” Film“
• Pick a film or television program that has, as its subject, something technological and antebellum (for the purposes of this exercise, colonial era to the Civil War).  Before the normal END OF CLASS (4:20 pm) post a blog post discussing the film/tv episode you chose in light both of what you’ve learned in this class and in light of the Sorlin reading.  You MUST cite a colleague (likely an earlier post) and you MUST cite Sorlin.

WEEK THIRTEEN

April 7^th –  EASTER BREAK – NO CLASS

April 9^th –Transnational news in the antebellum era

• Aileen Fyfe.  “Business and Reading Across the Atlantic: W. & R. Chambers and the United States Market, 1840-1860” in Books Between Europe and the Americas
•  R. J. Scholnick.  “The Power of Steam: Antislavery and Reform in Britain and America, 1844-1860” in Books Between Europe and the Americas

PA #4: Historiography Review. (750 to 1000 words) Write an essay in which you explore the scholarship that has been done on your chosen research proposal topic. Place the writings of different scholars in conversation with each other and to your historical question. Be sure to articulate a clear argument for what you see as successful or unsuccessful approaches to the topic.  Remember, this will be a part of your final project, and should be written for an informed but not expert audience. Due at 5 pm on FRIDAY, April 10th.

WEEK FOURTEEN

April 14^th – Project design

• BEFORE CLASS – find a digital project that is similar (in form, rather than content) to what you would like to do for the final project for this class.  Be prepared to discuss what you like/would like to mimic about it.

April 16^th –Military technology

•      Ruin Nation. Introduction and chapter 1

WEEK FIFTEEN

April 21^st –

Letters and other affective technologies of Civil War death/a return to mapping

•      Drew Gilpin Faust.  “The Civil War Soldier and the Art of Dying” in The Journal of Southern History.  Vol. 67, No. 1 (2001)
• For use in class only: Civil War Photographs

April 23^rd – Antebellum America presentations

•      Group C: Historiography
•      Group A: Primary source curation
•      Group B: Digital archives assessment

PART V – WRAPPING UP

WEEK SIXTEEN – FINAL PROJECT WORK

Rough Draft  Complete a rough draft or detailed outline of your final project. DRAFT Due at 5 pm on MONDAY, APRIL 27th.

 

April 28^th – NO CLASS – Schedule a meeting with me to talk about your draft sometime on TUESDAY APRIL 28th, OR WEDNESDAY APRIL 29th

April 30^th – States of the Field

• Introduction and first two bibliographic essays in A Nation Transformed by Information
• Richard D. Brown, “Conclusion” in Knowledge is Power
  
• Guidelines for the Professional Evaluation of Digital Scholarship in History

WEEK SEVENTEEN

May 5th – Final Presentations and Pizza

PA #5: Rough Draft/Peer Review/beta testing.  First, complete a rough draft or detailed outline of your final project.Then, come up with a list of questions you’d like answered about your project (i.e. did you like the way X feature worked?  What did you think about the argument? – NOT just “did you like it?”)  Look at these guidelines for designing beta tests if you need help with this step. Then find three different colleagues, family members, friends who are NOT in the class, show them your project or project plan, and solicit comments. Write up your questions, your reviewers’ thoughts, and your thoughts about their comments as a public blog post. Also be prepared to discuss those comments in class. PEER REVIEW Due at 5 pm on WEDNESDAY, MAY 6th

 

FINAL PROJECTS DUE BY THE END OF FINALS WEEK – URL for your project posted to the PUBLIC course writing site