THATCamp Philadelphia 2016: Intersectional Feminism & The Digital Humanities

Here are my notes from this session. I was really tired by this part of the day, so I mostly sat back and listened to others lead the discussion.

  • Discussion of Wikipediathons and the work of people like Adeline Koh.
  • Wikipedia editing is a good way for students to see how inefficient representation of women and people of color is online.
  • Wikipedia not allowing primary sources can frustrate students.
  • Discussion of archiving early queer websites and a code of conduct for archiving.
  • I also brought up fanzine archiving issues and the ethics surrounding them.

Worth Reading Recently

ThatCamp Philadelphia 2014: Social Media In The Classroom

  • Lists of accounts to follow for each classmate

  • Many of my students seem to be locking their accounts after events of this summer like #yesallwomen, #gamergate, Gaza, Ferguson, etc

  • Adeline Koh does a Twitter role play assignment

  • How to set limits on contact

  • I think giving students options for how to contact you where they are comfortable is important

ThatCamp Digital Pedagogy: An Overview

I had a great time at ThatCamp Digital Pedagogy last week. It was nice to go home to Stockton for the day (in fact, the main room we were in was where I had a class with Scott Rettberg back in 2005!). I will post my notes from various sessions, including the one I ran on the differences between art and craft in the writing classroom, in the coming weeks. Big thanks to Adeline Koh for organizing this ThatCamp! I was able to do some promotion for ThatCamp Community College next year and I believe a handful of campers will be coming.

Update: Here are the shared Google Docs from the unconference.

Adeline Koh beginning the day.

Adeline Koh beginning the day.

The Lit Bash 2014

I had a great time at this year's Lit Bash down at Stockton. It was nice to come home for an afternoon and, especially, for the first time, get to see some former students of mine down there. I spent time with a handful of those, attended The Bash, where I caught up with a lot of former professors, and then headed to dinner with my parents down the shore before going home late in the evening. This is always one of my favorite days of the year.

ThatCamp Philadelphia: DHThis A Thon

Over Twitter the morning of ThatCamp Philadelphia, John Theibault and I decided to propose a session on Adeline Koh and Roopika Risam's new project DHThis, which is an aggregation website with Reddit/Digg style commenting and up/down voting. DHThis is a promising project that I think can be useful to introduce people to the digital humanities.

As I worked the computer while John did much of the explaining to campers in the room, I do not really have notes for this session. A handful of campers attended this session and we had a great discussion of not only DHThis, but web apps like this in general.

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After this post, I will be taking my yearly holiday hiatus. Our semester is winding down right now as papers and projects slowly trickle in to be graded. See you early in 2014 when the rest of my notes from conferences attended in the fall and summer will be posted and I will have some thrilling announcements about upcoming publications.

ThatCamp Philadelphia: Small Scale Publications & Digital Editions

The Stockton family ran a number of sessions at ThatCamp Philadelphia, including Deb Gussman’s session on small scale publications and digital editions.

  • Gussman is doing a digital edition of the works of Catharine Maria Sedgwick.
  • Deb’s steps of a digital project: Strategy and Approach, Scope, Content, Design, Development, Testing, Support.
  • Collaboration is very important. Need to find others who have skills you don’t have.
  • There are no guarantees that apps, websites, etc will work in a year.
  • I suggested the use of emulators ala what is done in modern times with classic interactive fiction.
  • Deciding on what app/website/cms to use can often come from other colleagues/friends.
  • I brought up the work of Cory Doctorow and how, by releasing his work under a Creative Commons license, readers can create versions of his works for different platforms.
  • It is helpful to be familiar with remix culture in general.
  • A great idea from John Theibault: in grant applications, include money for development of emulators for later editions when platforms become obsolete.
  • Creative Commons licensing allows others to care more about the preservation of your work than you do.
  • A lot of Gussman’s work with Sedgwick is coming from Google Books.
  • Theibault’s students digitized Philadelphia’s directories.
  • Back in 2003, I worked on the digitization of the American Weekly Mercury in one of Tom Kinsella’s classes.

Deb leading the discussion.

Adeline Koh, John Thebault, and Rebecca Goldman listen to the discussion.