Author Archive: Jessica

dSHARP Digital Research and Publishing Seminar

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dSHARP will be offering it’s first for-credit undergraduate course in the fall of 2018.

66224: dSHARP Seminar: Evolution of AI and Ethics of Creation

T/R 10:30-11:50AM
Dr. Rikk Mulligan
 
Isaac Asimov coined the term “Frankenstein Complex” in his 1947 robot stories to not only warn of humanity’s tenuous control over technology, but also to caution against the profit-based replacement of human labor with automation. The humanoid android and the cyborg blend man and machine, evoking some of the most dire variants of warnings of the Frankenstein Complex.
This course will use digital publishing tools and digital humanities techniques including text analysis and data visualization to explore the evolution of AI and the ethics involved in its creation in contemporary science fiction and American culture. Students will use digital research tools to analyze materials and digital publishing platforms to produce and share their scholarship.

THATCamp Pittsburgh 2018 A Great Success

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THATCamp Pittsburgh 2018 met this past weekend and was a great success. Thanks to our organizing team (Jessica Benner, Susan Grunewald, Jessica Otis, Abigail Owen, and Emma Slayton) as well as our awesome sponsors (dSHARP, CMU’s Department of History, the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and the DHRX).

THATCamp Pittsburgh 2018

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Please join us for THATCamp Pittsburgh 2018, with our theme of Mapping and GIS.

When: Sat. March 3rd, 8:30-5pm
Where: Hunt Library
Cost: free!
Registration: required because of space limitations

THATCamp stands for “The Humanities and Technology Camp.” It is an unconference: an open, inexpensive meeting where humanists, artists, and technologists of all skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot.
 

Scholars and citizens have long been interested in using maps and mapping techniques to convey information about the world, with innovative maps dating back centuries. The rise of Geographic Information Systems in the latter half of the 20th century have further provided us with new tools and methods for interpreting spatial information. These techniques and tools can be used for great analytic effect by a range of scholars, from humanists to social scientists to artists and beyond. Therefore, the intended audience for our THATCamp is not just digital humanists but anyone who is interested in the intersection of mapping and GIS with humanistic lines of inquiry.

Examples of this intersection include

  • exploring the history of red-lining in American cities, such as was done by the University of Richmond’s Mapping Inequality project
  • studying how GIS changes our relationship with space and the cities where we live
  • mapping Stonehenge and examining how this activity affects our understanding of neolithic construction processes
  • … and more!

So if you’re interested in mapping, GIS, or broadly technology in the humanities, please register to join us on March 3rd, 2018 for THATCamp Pittsburgh 2018!

Digital Scholarship Summer Internship

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Carnegie Mellon University’s digital scholarship center, dSHARP, is offering an eight week summer internship to occur between May 29th and August 24th, 2018 (exact dates flexible).

The Summer Intern will be expected to work on two to four pre-existing projects during their tenure, with the projects determined based on how their skills and interests best match with current center and faculty projects. Example projects they might work on include the Bridges of Pittsburgh (databases, GIS, graph theory), the Carnegie Mellon Encyclopedia of Science History (history of science, web publishing, editorial work), or Digits (digital preservation). As appropriate, the Summer Intern may also work collaboratively with center faculty to develop digital resources for the dSHARP website (WordPress, digital pedagogy).

Qualifications

  • currently or recently enrolled in a Ph.D. or a terminal master’s degree such as a MLS/MSIS program
  • previous experience in digital scholarship, digital humanities, or digital publishing
  • ability to work both independently and collaboratively in an innovative and interdisciplinary environment
  • excellent communication and interpersonal skills

Salary

  • $4,000

Dates

Applicants should submit the following by February 15, 2018 to jotis@andrew.cmu.edu

  • cover letter
  • C.V.
  • names, emails, and phone numbers for two people who can speak to your previous experience in digital scholarship, digital humanities, or digital publishing

Applicants will be notified by March 31, 2018.

Spring 2018 Office Hours

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Our Spring 2018 semester office hours will be held every Wednesday, 12:30-2:50pm in Hunt Library Studio B. Have questions about digital research or publishing? Feel free to drop in.

Visiting Speaker: Shannon Mattern, Feb. 1-2

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Shannon Mattern will be giving a talk on Thursday, February 1st at 4-5:30pm at CMU’s Sorrel Library Den (Wean Hall, 4th floor).
Ether/Ore: An Atlas of Urban Media
Studded with sensors, optimized by algorithms, interfaced via dashboards and apps, cities are imagined as computers writ large, planned “from the Internet up.” Yet this new age of sentient urbanism — in which place-based intelligence is reduced to “smartness” — has a long and deep lineage. This talk, drawing on my new book, Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: 5000 Years of Urban Media, will take us on a world tour of cities that embody various materialities of intelligence: both code and clay, data and dirt, ether and ore.
She will also be giving a workshop, in Pitt’s Digital Scholarship Services on Friday February 2nd at 10am.
Willful Transgressions: Transdisciplinary Teaching
In this workshop, we’ll look at the various motivations and ambitions behind campaigns for transdisciplinarity — and we’ll explore the opportunities and challenges of transforming trans- or post-disciplinary aspirations into program building, curricular design, and pedagogical practice.

DH Reading Group: September

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Who: anyone interested in reading analytical articles encompassing the digital humanities, including but not limited to digital history
 
What: read some stuff of interest to the group members, get together over food or drinks and discuss the readings
 
When: September 27th, 5pm-6:30pm and repeated on the last Wednesday of every month, August-May (no meeting in June or July)
 
Where: If you know of a quieter place with food/drink in the Oakland area where we can meet, please let me know and I’ll check it out!  In the meantime, we’ll stick to Hemingway’s Cafe (3911 Forbes Ave).
Our readings this month will be from the Viral Texts project:

Fall 2017 Workshops

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dSHARP offers a series of workshops through the University Libraries. Our Fall 2017 workshops will be 
Sept: Nuts and Bolts of Project Management
Whether you’re working by yourself or part of a larger team, managing an academic project can take a lot of time and effort, especially when that project involves digital scholarship.  This workshop will introduce you to the basics of formal project management including requirements and scoping projects, risk assessment and data management, team communications, managing time and budgets, reviews and exit criteria, and project preservation.
Oct: Network Analysis for Humanists
Networks are simple formal representations for how the world intermingles with itself. The humanities can make good use of this formalization to study anything from social interactions, to similarities between literary genres, to the trade routes between ancient cities. This workshop will cover the conceptual foundations of network analysis, and the steps to prepare data for, analyze, and visualize humanities networks. Participants will learn on Google Sheets, Palladio, and potentially Gephi.

Nov: Introduction to Basic Web Design

 
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the the standard markup language used to create web pages and web-based applications. This workshop will cover the basics of creating web pages and simple websites using HTML syntax to structure pages, format content, add lists, tables, links, images, and media, and style their presentation using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This workshop will also include an overview of client-server interaction, HTTP, and touch on JavaScript for interactivity.

Fall 2017 Office Hours

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Our Fall 2017 semester office hours will be held every Wednesday, 1:30-4:30pm in Hunt Library Studio B. Have questions about digital research or publishing? Feel free to drop in.

PGH|DH Fall Social Gathering

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Hope everyone had a productive and/or relaxing summer!  To celebrate our return to campus, dSHARP would like to invite Pittsburgh digital humanists to a social gathering at CMU’s Hunt Library Studio B on Tuesday September 12th, 4:30-6pm.  Light refreshments will be served.
Meet like-minded researchers, catch up with what’s going on in our city, and welcome any new members to our PGH|DH community.  All faculty, staff, and 21+ students interested in DH are welcome to attend, so please feel free to forward this invitation to other members of your departments (especially new faculty and graduate students) who are not on the CMU or Pitt listservs.