Instructor: Quinn Warnick, Ph.D.
Course Location: 180 Shanks Hall
Class Hours: T/Th 12:30–1:45
Dr. Warnick’s Office: 427 Shanks Hall
Office Hours: T 2:00–5:00, W 9:00–12:00, or by appointment
Office Phone: 540.231.8321 (Leave a detailed message if I don’t pick up.)
Email: qwarnick@vt.edu (This is the best way to reach me)
ENGL 5074 Overview
This course is designed to introduce you to the history and theoretical foundations of digital humanities, and to provide you with training in the methods and tools used to carry out digital humanities projects. Tracing the development of the digital humanities through humanities computing, computers and writing, hypertext creative writing, and computational linguistics, we will attempt to answer some of the persistent questions surrounding the digital humanities: What qualifies as “digital”? How does the nature of a text change when it becomes digital? What affordances and constraints accompany contemporary digital tools? What is humanistic about the digital humanities? Rather than drawing lines between literature, rhetoric, creative writing, linguistics, and other fields, we will emphasize the connections that emerge among these various specialties when our scholarly and creative work moves online.
Our class sessions will follow two parallel tracks, with one day each week devoted to reading discussions and analysis of mature digital humanities projects, and the other day devoted to hands-on technology workshops. Since everyone comes to this class with different scholarly interests and technological skills, almost every assignment in the course can be adapted to build on your individual strengths and meet your personal goals.
This course has no prerequisites for software skills or programming languages, but you do need to be willing to try out new tools in public venues. (Translation: Much of our work will be published online as we complete it.) You should expect to experiment with unfamiliar technologies every day you come to class, and you should be prepared for some of these experiments to go terribly wrong. Failure and frustration are standard experiences when working with digital media, but they are not valid justifications for giving up. If (OK, when) you encounter technical problems in this class, you can get help from a variety of sources, including your classmates, campus resources like the InnovationSpace, and online resources like Lynda.com. And, of course, I will do whatever I can to help you solve your thorniest digital problems.
Required Textbooks and Materials
- Does Writing Have a Future?, by Vilem Flusser. University of Minnesota Pres, 2011. (Paperback; Kindle)
- Debates in the Digital Humanities, edited by Matthew K. Gold. University of Minnesota Press, 2012. (Paperback; free ebook)
- Comparative Textual Media: Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era, edited by N. Katherine Hayles and Jessica Pressman. University of Minnesota Press, 2013. (Paperback; Kindle)
- Macroanalysis, by Matthew K. Jockers. University of Illinois Press, 2013. (Paperback; Kindle)
- Between Humanities and the Digital, edited by Patrik Svensson and David Theo Goldberg. MIT Press, 2015. (Hardcover)
- A VT Google Apps account, for collaborating with classmates, submitting assignments, and backing up your work.
- A Twitter account, connected to an email address you check regularly.
- A Medium account, for publishing some of your work online.
- A Reclaim Hosting account, for storing finished projects and developing your professional online identity. (Note: The charge for a full year of hosting is $25. Some students may not need to set up an account, so please wait to do so until we discuss this in class.)
Course Objectives
By the end of the semester, you should be able to:
- summarize and synthesize the historical and theoretical foundations underlying the field of digital humanities.
- identify key figures in the field of digital humanities, along with their theoretical and methodological approaches.
- analyze and critique a range of methods and tools used to conduct digital humanities scholarship.
- evaluate the potential of digital methods for use in your individual scholarly pursuits.
- plan, develop, and polish a substantive digital research project.
- confidently employ a variety of digital tools to accomplish all of the objectives listed above.
Class Attendance and Participation
Regular attendance and active participation are essential to your success in this course. Please arrive arrive at our classroom on time and stay until class ends. Conference travel or unforeseen circumstances may prevent you from attending a class or two, but excessive absences (i.e., more than three class sessions) will affect your course grade. If you need to miss a class or arrive late, please let me know in advance.
In any graduate-level course, it should go without saying that we will treat one another with courtesy and respect at all times. Vigorous debate is encouraged; ad hominem attacks are not. Most of our class sessions will be conducted in discussion/workshop format, and many of these workshops cannot be recreated outside of class. Similarly, many of our online activities are time sensitive and cannot be “made up” later on. Please allocate enough time to complete the reading assignments and online exercises before you come to class.
Software and Technology
You will submit all of your work for this course in electronic formats and much of our interaction as a class will occur online. Hence, you will need to check your email, the class website, and Twitter regularly to receive important announcements and to participate in an ongoing dialogue with your classmates.
As you complete assignments for this class, be sure to save all your work, both print and electronic. Do not discard any drafts, notes, papers or research materials until you receive a final grade for the course. In addition, be sure to save your work regularly in multiple formats (print and electronic) and multiple locations (e.g., computer, Google Drive, flash drive). Computer problems are a part of modern life, and a crashed computer or a lost flash drive is not a valid excuse for a late assignment in 2015.
To fulfill the requirements of the course, you will need to create several accounts on a variety of websites. I am sensitive to the fact that some of you carefully guard your online identity and have chosen to minimize your personal exposure on the web, and I don’t want to force you to leave an electronic trail that may be difficult to erase at the end of the semester. As a result, you may choose to use a pseudonym and/or a “throwaway” email address to create these accounts. That’s fine with me; just be consistent (don’t choose a new pseudonym for each site) and let me know what your pseudonym is.
Grading and Evaluation
Your grade in this course will be determined primarily by your performance on four major assignments. In addition, participating in class discussions (both in class and online) and completing various small assignments will influence your final grade. I expect that all major assignments will be submitted on time, but I will grant each student one extension during the semester, provided that it is negotiated with me several days before the due date. Other late assignments will be penalized 10% for every class period they are late.
Weighted Assignments
Major units and shorter assignments will be weighted as follows:
- Analysis of a DH Project: 10%
- Collaborative Class Project: 15%
- Documented Exploration of a DH Tool: 25%
- Individual Final Project: 30%
- Class Participation and Short Exercises: 20%
- TOTAL: 100%
You can read more details about the major assignments on the assignments page.
Grading Scale
All major assignments will be evaluated on a 100-point scale, and final grades will be calculated using the following scale:
- A : 94-100
- A- : 90–93.99
- B+ : 87–89.99
- B : 84–86.99
- B- : 80–83.99
- C+ : 77–79.99
- C : 74–76.99
- C- : 70–73.99
- D+ : 67– 69.99
- D : 64–66.99
- D- : 60-63.99
- F : 0–59.99
Please note that I do not round up when calculating final grades.
Eliminating Distractions
Part of living in the digital age is dealing with a never-ending stream of electronic distractions. Eliminating these distractions in a traditional classroom might be as easy as banning the use of cell phones or laptops, but in a course on the digital humanities that approach is not only too simplistic, it’s counterproductive. We will be spending a lot of time staring at screens — projectors, laptops, tablets, and cell phones — so you will need to develop the discipline to stare productively. Practically speaking, that means no texting family and friends, checking Facebook, or mindlessly surfing the web. Simply put, when you are in class, be in class. I don’t expect that this will be a problem for any of you, but if it becomes an issue, I will gently remind you about this policy. If the problem continues, I will ask you to leave class and mark you absent for that day.
Disability Accommodations
If you need adaptations or accommodations because of a disability (learning disability, attention deficit disorder, psychological, physical, etc.), if you have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible. You will first need to provide documentation of your disability to the Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) office, located in 310 Lavery Hall.
Academic Integrity
The Virginia Tech Honor Code expressly forbids the following:
- Cheating — Cheating includes the actual giving or receiving of any unauthorized aid or assistance or the actual giving or receiving of any unfair advantage on any form of academic work, or attempts thereof.
- Plagiarism — Plagiarism includes the copying of the language, structure, programming, computer code, ideas, and/or thoughts of another and passing off the same as one’s own original work, or attempts thereof.
- Falsification — Falsification includes the statement of any untruth, either verbally or in writing, with respect to any circumstances relevant to one’s academic work, or attempts thereof. Such acts include, but are not limited to, the forgery of official signatures; tampering with official records; fraudulently adding, deleting, or manipulating information on academic work, or fraudulently changing an examination or other academic work after the testing period or due date of the assignment.
In a graduate English course, violations of the Honor Code typically take the form of plagiarism. I do not tolerate plagiarism in any form, and I am exceptionally skilled at identifying plagiarized work. If you submit plagiarized work in this course, I will report it to the Honor System and withhold your grade until the Honor System has concluded its investigation. In most plagiarism cases, you will receive a 0 on the assignment, and you may also fail the entire course, depending on the severity of the plagiarism.
Plagiarism occurs when a writer, speaker, or designer uses someone else’s language, ideas, images, or other material without fully acknowledging its source by quotations marks, in footnotes or endnotes, and in lists of works cited. In this course, we will draw heavily upon text, images, videos, and other electronic materials found online; the fact that such material is online does not lessen our obligation to give credit where credit is due. Occasionally, students will unintentionally plagiarize material because they have failed to keep track of their sources as they acquire them. You can avoid this problem by keeping detailed records of your research activities in this class.
As a professor, my academic integrity obligates me to report all cases of plagiarism (regardless of the circumstances) to the Honor System. If you have any questions about plagiarism and how it relates to your work, please talk to me before you turn in an assignment. Once plagiarized work has been submitted for a grade, I have no choice but to enforce this policy.
Departmental Assessment
Please note that the Department of English may use your written work in its assessment of its teaching and learning goals. In such cases, your name will be removed and your work assessed anonymously. Your work will not be shared with any individual outside of the department. It will be used strictly to help the department offer students the best possible academic experience.