Dr. Jessica Otis
jotis2@gmu.edu
Class Location & Time: The Safety Of Your Home, W 7:20-10pm and asynchronously
Zoom Office Hours: W 7:20-10pm and by appointment

Course Description:

Digital history encompasses a wide variety of computationally-assisted historical scholarship methods, tools, and publications. As with the larger digital humanities community of practice, it is often–but not always–associated with an ethos of collaborative, iterative, open, and/or public-facing scholarship. This course will introduce the rapidly evolving field of digital history with the goal of enabling students to incorporate digital history into both their current research agendas and their future teaching experiences. Students will learn how to use and critique digital methods; assess and employ digital tools; evaluate the merits and pitfalls of digitally publishing various forms of scholarship; and generally navigate this digital research environment.

Required Course Materials/Expenses:

1. Reclaim Hosting (https://reclaimhosting.com/shared-hosting/) personal website plan ($30)

2. Computer that runs full version of Mac, Windows, or Linux operating system

NOTE: Devices such as ChromeBooks (running ChromeOS), iPads (running iOS), or Microsoft Surface Go (running the “S Mode” of Windows) will not allow you to install the software we will be using in this course. While you can break devices out of “S Mode” into the full version of Windows, you cannot reverse this and return to “S Mode” after the course ends.

If you don’t have and can’t obtain access to an appropriate computer, please contact me ASAP and we’ll find a path forward for you.

Optional Course Materials/Expenses:

The links below will take you to the GMU Libraries website, where you can read the ebooks for free.

1. Ian Milligan, History in the Age of Abundance?: How the Web is Transforming Historical Research (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019)

2. Safiya Umoja Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press, 2018)

3. Trevor Owens, The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018)

4. Claire Battershill and Shawna Ross, Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom: A Practical Introduction for Teachers, Lecturers, and Students (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017)

Technical Assistance:

In addition to asking for help via the class Slack or consulting with me during office hours, students can receive technical assistance at the Digital Scholarship Center (https://dsc.gmu.edu/) in the University Libraries.

Tutorials can also be found on the Programming Historian at http://programminghistorian.org