humanities

So I attended the 'Digital Humanities and the Disciplines' Conference a couple of weeks ago and I have just come around to collecting my thoughts about it. Here they are - and they seem to be quite relevant to our discussions on Media History:

 

Two bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software

This week I'll be participating in a panel at the American Studies Association annual convention that will address digital scholarship, pedagogy, and publication ... and I'd love your input. Comment on my blog or take a quick survey to add your insights to our discussion on Friday, Oct 17.

 

From 1680 to 1793, the Comédie-Française, a French theatre troupe founded by Louis XIV, kept meticulous records for each of its performances. At the end of every show, the troupe’s secretary wrote down the cost of tickets, the total sales for each section of the theater, even how much was spent on wine for the rehearsal dinner. In a sense, these registers -- each one recorded on a preprinted one-page form -- acted like a proto-database, collecting metadata for every play ever performed by the Comédie-Française.

Planning is currently underway for the Collaborations: Humanities, Arts & Technology (CHAT) Festival, which will take place in North Carolina in February 2010. The CHAT Festival is designed to jump start a statewide movement into digital arts and humanities and position UNC-Chapel Hill and Research Triangle Park as leaders in the use of new technologies in collaborative scholarly research and education.

Hello! Reading the various discussions that are taking place on the message board & blogs has been a fantastic experience. I have so many thoughts swirling around & I hope soon enough to capture them here in length. As for my own situation - I'm currently in a kind of geographical limbo. I am moving to Bristol, UK for a year to undertake a research project that I hope will be funded by the Worldwide University Network (my application is in process). Here's a very brief abstract of my proposal:

This summer, I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in the University of Washington's Seventh Annual Summer Institute in the Arts & Humanities (SIAH). Now that the SIAH is over, I want to take a minute here to unpack my experiences as they relate, in particular, to emerging forms of collaboration in the arts and humanities, the creative and critical use of technologies, and articulating "expertise" in interdisciplinary contexts. 

Following up on Cathy's course description, I thought I'd post information about the courses I'm teaching this semester and next.

The Global Middle Ages Project (GMAP) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary initiative to show what a broader view of the Middle Ages through deep time looks like. It grew out of a course designed by Geraldine Heng at the University of Texas at Austin, which you can read about here. Some of the goals of the course read:

 

I recently finished reading Structures of Participation in Digital Culture, a collection whose authors explore the ways in which technology enables new forms of cultural connection. One of the most interesting essays in the book was Robert F. Nideffer's "Game Engines as Open Networks." In this essay, Nideffer argues that instead of encouraging passivity--typified by the stereotype of the couch potato--game systems create new means of creativity for gamers, many of whom are active participants in creating and modifying games.