Digital Humanities (Minor)
Program Guidelines and Mission Statement
The Digital Humanities Program seeks to bridge the human and the digital to provide students with new, exciting pathways through their Denison career and beyond. The minor serves to empower students to develop technological capabilities and humanistic problem-solving skills by creating Digital Humanities projects. The emphasis is on the making, doing, and presenting of Digital Humanities knowledge.
The Digital Humanities minor applies digital tools and methodologies to humanistic problem solving and research design, and it uses digital tools to curate and exhibit humanities research in ways that allow different forms of accessibility, structure, navigability, and engagement. In doing so, it explores the history, forms of representation, networks of information, ethics, and structures of power in our increasingly digital culture, and it explores how new technologies are shaping the human condition in ways so ubiquitous that they have become invisible. In short, DH applies humanistic methodologies to analyze and critique the practical and theoretical challenges of a digitized world.
DH students can use digital tools to create new objects of study for the humanities. For example, social networking algorithms can help humanists understand the complex relationships between historical actors and/or events, or characters within a book/movie. See, for example, these visualizations of the intellectual network of Sir Francis Bacon [Six Degrees of Francis Bacon] or characters from the Star Wars Universe [Star Wars Social Networks].
DH students use digital tools to analyze humanistic data in different ways. For example, textual analysis algorithms allow humanists to “read” large bodies of texts and synthesize the information in those texts differently to make compelling arguments. See, for example, this discussion of a study on Gender Bias in Economics (by an undergraduate) or gender bias in the Harry Potter novels.
DH students can use digital tools to create new narratives out of data. For example, mapping technology enables humanists to locate spatial relationships in an effort to understand social, political, cultural, and historical relationships in different ways. The maps created by mapping technologies are new narratives, new texts, and new objects of study, and they offer non-linear methods of analysis to emerge. See this Interactive map of eighteenth-century Jamaican Slave Revolts.
Faculty
Chair
Professor Frank T. Proctor III
Committee
Associate Professors Regina Martin, Francisco J. López-Martín
Digital Humanities Minor
Digital Humanities (4 courses):
| Code | Title |
|---|---|
| DH 101 | Introduction to Digital Humanities |
| DH 200 | Digital Humanities Practicum (DH Practica (x2) -Cross-listed DH courses offered in Humanities Departments or standalone courses) |
| DH 400 | Senior Seminar - Texts, Maps, and Networks |
Computational Methods (2 courses):
| Code | Title | |
|---|---|---|
| CS 109 | Discovering Computer Science | |
| or CS 111 | Discovering Computer Science: Scientific Data and Dynamics | |
| or CS 112 | Discovering Computer Science: Markets, Polls, and Social Networks | |
| or CS 113 | Discovering Computer Science: Physical Computing | |
| or CS 114 | Discovering Computer Science: Computing for the Social Good | |
| and one of the following: | ||
| DA 101 | Introduction to Data Analytics | |
| or CS 181 | Data Systems | |
| or EESC 215 | Special Topics in Earth & Environmental Sciences | |
| or SES 222 & SES 223 | Geographic Information Systems I and Geographic Information Systems II | |
| or MATH 120 | Elements of Statistics | |
| or MATH 220 | Applied Statistics | |
Experiential Component:
Required DH 050 - Internship/Summer Research Experience.
DH 050 - Internship/Summer Research Experience (0 Credit Hours)
Required Internship or Summer Research Experience for all DH minors.
DH 101 - Introduction to Digital Humanities (4 Credit Hours)
Digital technology increasingly shapes how we communicate; how we form, maintain, and end relationships; how we construct communities; how we store, retrieve, and analyze information; how we organize our time...the list can go on and on. For students in the humanities, these revolutionary changes have made new kinds of study possible by opening up myriad new avenues for creativity, scholarship, and global engagement. This class is an opportunity for students to learn and play in these new spaces between traditional humanities inquiry and the digital.
DH 200 - Digital Humanities Practicum (4 Credit Hours)
These courses are opportunities for students to apply computer-based problem-solving to humanities-based research problems and questions and/or share humanities knowledge in digital forms. Students will make and do digitally-based humanities research projects. These cross-listed classes from departments across the Humanities division will combine high levels of engagement with digital tools and established humanities-based learning modes within a specific disciplinary context.
DH 209 - Old Books in New Media (4 Credit Hours)
This class will recreate three classic pieces of British literature as twenty-first-century stories told in new media. The class will (1) reimagine the medieval pilgrimage narrative, The Canterbury Tales, as a series of podcasts, (2) map out a contemporary picaresque novel inspired by the eighteenth-century novel Moll Flanders, and (3) rewrite and illustrate the early-twentieth-century poem The Waste Land using generative AI. In each case, teams of 3-4 students will study the form and medium of the old book as well as its historical and cultural context, and then use that knowledge to imagine what a parallel story or poem might be in our own time and in new media forms. In doing so, students will learn how history, culture, form, and media shape imaginative storytelling, and they will become better storytellers themselves. They will also develop teamwork and collaboration skills as they learn to distribute work and hold each other accountable for realizing a shared vision. This course fulfills an oral competency (R) general education requirement, so students will offer several presentations over the course of the semester.
Crosslisting: ENGL 209.
DH 215 - Shopping and Markets in Ancient Rome (4 Credit Hours)
Evidence from ancient Rome suggests that a sophisticated retail system developed in urban centers during the Republic so that by the Early Imperial period, many Roman towns were characterized by busy commercial streets and districts where people consumed time and space alongside ready-made goods and services. The shop became a place of leisure and a locus of sociability where status and identity were forged, negotiated, and performed. It also became a potentially subversive space where information was exchanged, and status and power could be challenged and temporarily overturned. This course explores the questions of where, how, and why ancient Romans shopped. focusing on such important aspects as: distribution networks, the evolution of the retail trade, Roman attitudes toward various forms of retailing, analysis of commercial art and architecture, evidence for marketing strategies, shopping behaviors, and consumption practices.
Crosslisting: AGRS 351.
DH 221 - Mapping Piracy and Captivity in the Ottoman Mediterranean (4 Credit Hours)
This course will examine the early modern (16th to 18th century) Ottoman Mediterranean world as one historical landscape with a focus on the issues of identity, conversion, and captivity in the context of sea-based piracy, slavery, and migration. We will ask: What part did loyalty, economic incentives, religious conviction, and coercion play in the decisions that communities, captives, sailors, and commanders made in the pursuit of their interests? By taking a wider view of these historical phenomena and studying them as forms of economic, cultural, and violent exchange, we will have the opportunity to look at the Mediterranean world as a place of both interaction and conflict. This class will have a digital humanities component. As a result, one of the central focuses of this class is using visualizations of historical information as an analytical tool to gain insights about the past and communicate those insights in clear and innovative ways.
DH 229 - Digital History - Runaway Slaves in Ohio (4 Credit Hours)
This course is a hands-on, experimental, learn-as-we-go experience that introduces students to using digital tools and sources to conduct original historical research, formulate historical arguments, and communicate historical ideas in digital formats. To focus our efforts, we will apply what we learn to a particular area of historical study: runaway slave advertisements and runaway slave narratives from nineteenth-century Ohio.
DH 230 - Multimedia Storytelling (4 Credit Hours)
This course explores nonfiction storytelling across multiple platforms. Students will learn how to edit audio and video stories using relevant and up-to-date programs. Most importantly, they will learn which is the most effective vehicle for the story they are telling.
DH 281 - Analyzing Linguistic Data (4 Credit Hours)
Analyzing Linguistic Data is a course for students interested in analytical approaches (both quantitative and qualitative) to language. The goals are effectively twofold: to introduce students to the subdisciplines of Linguistics and to give students the tools to approach the analysis of those subfields. To further these goals, students will become familiar with RStudio, PRAAT (program for phonetic analysis), online syntactic corpora (in the Penn family), and other related programs/web resources. This will be accomplished with a weekly laboratory session, where students will use the aforementioned programs to understand linguistic problems. Part of these laboratory assignments will involve a creative production component in which students will be asked to creatively display the data that they work with. Additionally, with each laboratory assignment, students are expected to reflect on what the laboratory assignment entailed and to express in words how the laboratory assignment provides insight into the study of language and what potential consequences might be for those interested in the study of language.
Crosslisting: DA 281.
DH 283 - Bad Girls in Hispanic Cinema (4 Credit Hours)
This course investigates representations of 'bad girls' in Spanish and Latin American cinema. It examines how these films depict women who defy cultural gender norms, using feminist and queer theory to analyze the complex interplay of gender and power. Students will enhance their film analysis and research skills through presentations, discussions, and multimedia projects that meet the ACTFL intermediate-mid/intermediate-high level standards. Conducted in Spanish. Please note: Fridays will be dedicated only to mandatory film viewings.
Prerequisite(s): SPAN 215 or consent of the instructor.
Crosslisting: SPAN 384.
DH 285 - AI and Society (4 Credit Hours)
This course teaches AI literacy while studying the cultural, economic, environmental, and political impacts of generative AI. Assignments will incorporate AI tools, and they will teach you how to prompt AI, analyze it for bias and inaccuracies, refine AI output, identify the possibilities and limitations for using AI tools for various tasks, and make decisions about which AI tools are best for various tasks. Readings will help you develop a critical awareness of how AI is impacting humans and our world.
DH 361 - Directed Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
A student in good standing may work intensively in areas of special interest under the Directed Study plan. A Directed Study is appropriate when, under the guidance of a faculty member, a student wants to explore a subject more fully than is possible in a regular course or to study a subject not covered in the regular curriculum. A Directed Study should not normally duplicate a course that is regularly offered. Directed Studies are normally taken for 3 or 4 credits. A one-semester Directed Study is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Directed Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
DH 362 - Directed Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
A student in good standing may work intensively in areas of special interest under the Directed Study plan. A Directed Study is appropriate when, under the guidance of a faculty member, a student wants to explore a subject more fully than is possible in a regular course or to study a subject not covered in the regular curriculum. A Directed Study should not normally duplicate a course that is regularly offered. Directed Studies are normally taken for 3 or 4 credits. A one-semester Directed Study is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Directed Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
DH 363 - Independent Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
Independent Study engages a student in the pursuit of clearly defined goals. In this effort, a student may employ skills and information developed in previous course experiences or may develop some mastery of new knowledge or skills. A proposal for an Independent Study project must be approved in advance by the faculty member who agrees to serve as the project advisor. Note: Independent Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
DH 364 - Independent Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
Independent Study engages a student in the pursuit of clearly defined goals. In this effort, a student may employ skills and information developed in previous course experiences or may develop some mastery of new knowledge or skills. A proposal for an Independent Study project must be approved in advance by the faculty member who agrees to serve as the project advisor. Note: Independent Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
DH 400 - Senior Seminar - Texts, Maps, and Networks (4 Credit Hours)
This course serves as the capstone experience for DH minors. It will provide students with a significant design and research experience culminating with a significant, team-based, multinodal, digital humanities project. The public presentation of their work will also be an important element of the course. DH 400 is required for all Digital Humanities minors.
DH 451 - Senior Research (4 Credit Hours)
Students may enroll in Senior Research in their final year at Denison. Normally, Senior Research requires a major thesis, report, or project in the student's field of concentration and carries eight semester-hours of credit for the year. Typically, a final grade for a year-long Senior Research will not be assigned until the completion of the year-long Senior Research at the end of the second semester. In which case, the first semester Senior Research grade will remain "in progress" (PR) until the completion of the second semester Senior Research. Each semester of Senior Research is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Senior Research may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
DH 452 - Senior Research (4 Credit Hours)
Students may enroll in Senior Research in their final year at Denison. Normally, Senior Research requires a major thesis, report, or project in the student's field of concentration and carries eight semester-hours of credit for the year. Typically, a final grade for a year-long Senior Research will not be assigned until the completion of the year-long Senior Research at the end of the second semester. In which case, the first semester Senior Research grade will remain "in progress" (PR) until the completion of the second semester Senior Research. Each semester of Senior Research is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Senior Research may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.