This course is an introduction to the Digital Humanities, its methods, theories, and applications in humanistic research. It covers a variety of digital tools and approaches to organize, explore, understand, present and tell stories with data. In this course, you will learn how to reverse engineer DH projects to understand how they were built; identify, use, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different tools and methodologies; develop strong humanistic research questions that can be answered through digital research methods; conduct original research; and build a collaborative digital project. You will also learn how to organize and clean data, develop charts, create spatial and network visualizations, work with a content management system, and use basic text analysis tools to explore qualitative data. Often the best digital humanities projects are the result of collaboration, so you will learn how to work effectively and efficiently in teams as you build project management skills.
Each unit will guide you through the development, analysis, and application of the skills listed under the course learning goals. In each unit, you will also critique examples of research projects that employ the methods and/or tools that you are learning. This class meets twice a week for interactive lectures and once a week in smaller lab sections; additional group work outside of the allocated class time will be necessary. We will discuss ways to organize in-person meetings, as well as ways to stay on track through virtual simultaneous and asynchronous group work. No prior experience is necessary, and there are no prerequisites.