Digital Humanities: What It Is, Where We’ve Come, Where We Might Go, March 18-19

Digital Humanities expert Miriam Posner, assistant professor in information studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, visits Ohio University’s Athens Campus March 18 and 19 to give a keynote address, lead workshops and present a graduate student colloquium as part of the University’s  Digital Humanities project .

“We’re at a moment when large swathes of the cultural record are being digitized,” said Posner. “The question now becomes, what do we do with the products of that digitization? Are there specifically humanistic modes of interacting with digital cultural resources, or should that be left to people in other disciplines? This is the point where we have to decide what stance we’ll take to the digitized human record.”

Posner’s keynote address is titled “Digital Humanities: What It Is, Where We’ve Come, and Where We Might Go.” She will discuss how Digital Humanities (DH) has been practiced for the last few decades, how it’s been used in the classroom and unsolved problems with DH and the opportunities they offer scholars.

Posner’s first workshop is titled “Understanding and Evaluating Digital Projects,” where she will discuss how to get started in exploring digital tools and assessing others’ projects. Her second workshop, “Data Visualization and Mapping with Tableau,” is a hands-on session for those who are new to working with data and want to get started with Tableau, a software program that helps people understand data.

• Read Posner’s blog.

Digital Humanities Agenda

March 18

• Keynote address — 10 a.m., 304 Tupper Hall
• Graduate student colloquium — 1:30 – 3 p.m., 319 Alden Library

March 19

• Digital Humanities workshop #1 — 9:30 – 11:30 a.m., 251 Alden Library
• Digital Humanities workshop #2 — 12:30 – 2:30 p.m., 251 Alden Library

Faculty, staff and students are invited to attend the keynote address and both workshops, and graduate students are invited to the graduate student colloquium. Registration for each event is available via the following links:

• Workshop #1: Understanding and Evaluating Digital Projects
• Workshop #2: Data Visualization and Mapping with Tableau
• Graduate student colloquium

Note: The keynote does not require registration.

“I’m new to the Digital Humanities, and I’m eager to learn more from Dr. Posner as she’s a dynamic and engaging voice in the field,” said Dr. Nicole Reynolds, Associate Professor of English and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. “DH is transforming the way humanists create and share knowledge and I think it’s important—especially for our graduate students, as emergent teachers and scholars—to be conversant in DH theories and methods.”

Posner’s visit is supported by the Libraries and the Office of Instructional Innovation, as a component of the Digital Humanities proposal submitted to the  Academic Innovation Accelerator  in 2017. The project has involved a partnership with Marshall University and with faculty and staff participating in multiple instances of The Humanities and Technology Camp (THATCamp).

“I am very eager for Dr. Posner’s visit to OHIO as she offers us multiple perspectives related to Digital Humanities,” said Kelly Broughton, assistant dean for research & education services in the Ohio University Libraries. “As a DH practitioner, she can speak to the very interesting practicalities, tools, ethics, and social justice issues surrounding DH projects. As an academic program coordinator, she also can help us learn how to use DH to frame new modes of inquiry and the impact it is already having on research, teaching, and publication.”