Proposal to establish ASECS Digital Humanities Caucus

Written by George Williams

Submitted and approved at 2010 meeting of ASECS

The ways in which digital technologies are changing the humanities are increasingly visible. These changes arrive not just through the online publication of information that previously had appeared only in print, but also through the proliferation of sophisticated digital tools that allow new ways of thinking about the humanities. And these changes are quite noticeable in eighteenth-century studies: almost any ASECS conference program from the last decade features at least one session devoted to digital resources for teaching or research. This year [2010], in particular, there are 4 such panels:

• Session 17: ECCO, EEBO, and the Burney Collection: Some ‘Noisy Feedback’
• Session 68: The Digital Eighteenth Century 2.0 — I
• Session 110: The Digital Eighteenth Century 2.0 — II
• Session 128: Digital Humanities and the Eighteenth Century: Pros and Cons

Obviously, the participants in these sessions are evidence that scholars, teachers, and students are engaged in exciting work with computational tools. However, many of us are also concerned about the best ways to make use of these tools (see the title of Session 128) as well as the potential problems caused by lack of access to commercial digital projects (see Peter Reill’s 2009 letter to ASECS membership).

Given the extent to which the digital humanities is becoming a part of the “bloodstream” of the humanities, in general, and eighteenth-century studies, in particular, I propose establishing an ASECS Digital Humanities Caucus. Under the auspices of this caucus, a panel or roundtable could be organized around these issues at our annual meeting. Future developments might include affiliation with the Association for Computers in the Humanities <http://www.ach.org>.

This new caucus need not simply celebrate uncritically digitally-enabled approaches to our field. Rather, it would ideally provide a accessible intellectual forum for those scholars and teachers with advanced training and experience in the digital humanities as well as those who are interested in these tools and the new approaches they enable but are perhaps unfamiliar with how best to make use of them.

An ASECS Digital Humanities Caucus would enable our organization to avoid simply responding to the changes brought to our field by digital technologies but instead to take a more active role in shaping those changes.

Some suggested further reading:  ”18th-Century Studies” Meets “Digital Humanities“;  ”A Message from ASECS President, Peter Reill“

Here is a description of  the ASECS Digital Humanities Caucus Roundtable 2 including the participants’ talking points.  Please feel free to add comments on the panel or the issues raised.

“Evaluating Digital Work: Projects, Programs, and Peer Review” Session Description:

As new media projects begin to supplement or in some cases replace the print essay, research paper, scholarly article or monograph, what modes of evaluation should we expect or demand of students (undergrads and graduate students), colleagues, and ourselves? In recent times groups like HASTAC and the MLA begin discussion on evaluating digital work — the latter appropriately enough ona wiki — while the president of the MLA has even advised that more digital dissertations be produced. Similarly, the American Historical Association and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University announced in 2008 a new annual prize for “an innovative and freely available new media project that reflects thoughtful, critical, and rigorous engagement with technology and the practice of history.” Since our students now might ask to produce a YouTube video instead of a paper, and our colleagues go up for tenure with a digital archive instead of a book, it behooves the member of ASECS to join this discussion and reflect on both methods and criteria for judging specifically historical work.

The organizers welcome descriptions of your own or others’ classroom or institutional experiments; policies that you or others have authored; ideas for future criteria, rubrics, methods and standards for evaluation; as well as theoretical examinations of evaluation as a concept. Panelists might reflect on the following, applied to both students and faculty:

• Which standards should we preserve and which reject as we move from evaluating print work to digital projects?
• What are the digital equivalents to (or replacements for) familiar print products such as (for undergrads) the interpretive essay or research paper; (for graduate students) the seminar paper or dissertation; (for faculty) the journal article, chapter or book?
• How do we transfer such criteria as length and depth to innovative projects?
• How do we account for the new skills that may need to be acquired to produce works in new media?
• How do we fairly assess forms requiring multiple team members?
• How can we import crowdsourcing as a method into the classroom or for examining scholarly work?
• How do we allow for citation and account for influence in the digital realm?
• What is the relationship between methods of evaluation for students and that for faculty?
• How do new media projects de- and re-construct print-based concepts we bring to evaluation, such as periodicity, authorship, originality, knowledge, and intellectual property?
• How might digital pedagogy and service be reconceived as valuable and quantifiable forms of scholarly work?

Participants:

The project I will describe arises from my DH work in liberal arts colleges. Over the past two years, I have organized and hosted various activities focused on new media, DH, and undergraduates with my colleague, Katherine Rowe (Bryn Mawr College)—including a Mellon-sponsored national seminar (‘Digital Archives and the Future of the Humanities at Liberal Arts Colleges’), which brought in ODH representatives; and the national liberal arts student conference “Re: Humanities,” which will take place at Haverford this November. Rowe and I are now in the process of spearheading a Trico (Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, Haverford) DH Regional Center.  As we think about the role of DH in the undergraduate intellectual experience, I have created course assignments around the construction of a digital archive in the liberal arts classroom. I will describe the work with reference to an advanced course on Restoration and 18th-Century Print Culture.

The following sessions are explicitly or implicitly related to digital scholarship, online pedagogy, or the use of new media/technologies in eighteenth-century studies.  Please let me know if I have made errors, missed any, or if you would prefer your session not to be included here.  See you in Vancouver!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

SESSIONS I:  8:00 – 9:30 a.m.
9. “Media Technologies and Mediation in Intercultural Contact”
(Roundtable) Pavilion Ballroom D
Chair: Scarlet BOWEN, University of Colorado, Boulder
1. Mary Helen MCMURRAN, University of Western Ontario
2. Neil CHUDGAR, Macalester College
3. Jordan STEIN, University of Colorado, Boulder

SESSIONS II: 9:45 – 11:15 a.m.
19. “Scholarship and Digital Humanities, Part I: Editing and
Publishing” (Roundtable) Grand Ballroom BC
Chair: Lorna CLYMER, California State University, Bakersfield
1. Timothy ERWIN, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
2. Christopher MOUNSEY, University of Winchester
3. Eleanor SHEVLIN, West Chester University
4. Christopher VILMAR, Salisbury University

26. “Eighteenth-Century Reception Studies” – I Port Hardy
Chair: Marta KVANDE, Texas Tech University
1. Alise JAMESON, Ghent University, “The Influence of Gerard
Langbaine’s Seventeeth-Century Play Catalogues on Eighteenth-
Century Criticism and Authorship Ideals”
2. Diana SOLOMON, Simon Fraser University, “Sex and Solidarity:
Restoration Actresses and Female Audiences”
3. Jennifer BATT, University of Oxford, “The Digital Miscellanies Index
and the Reception of Eighteenth-Century Poetry”
4. Michael EDSON, University of Delaware, “From Rural Retreat to Grub
Street: The Audiences of Retirement Poetry”

SESSIONS III: 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
38. “Scholarship and Digital Humanities, Part II: Authoritative
Sources” (Roundtable) Grand Ballroom BC
Chair: Christopher VILMAR, Salisbury State University
1. Katherine ELLISON, Illinois State University
2. Ben PAULEY, Eastern Connecticut State University
3. Adam ROUNCE, Manchester Metropolitan University
4. Brian GEIGER, University of California, Riverside
5. Lorna CLYMER, California State University, Bakersfield

SESSIONS IV 2:30 – 4 P.M.
56. “Scholarship and Digital Humanities, Part III: Materials for
Research and Teaching” (Roundtable) Grand Ballroom BC
Chair: Bridget KEEGAN, Creighton University
1. Mark ALGEE-HEWITT, McGill University
2. Anna BATTIGELLI, State University of New York, Plattsburgh
3. Ingrid HORROCKS, Massey University
4. John O’BRIEN AND Brad PASANEK, University of Virginia

66. “Editing the Eighteenth Century for the Twenty-First Century
Classroom” (Roundtable) Junior Ballroom B
Chair: Evan DAVIS, Hampden-Sydney College
1. Joseph BARTOLOMEO, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
2. Linda BREE, Cambridge University Press
3. Anna LOTT, University of North Alabama
4. Marjorie MATHER, Broadview Press
5. Laura RUNGE, University of South Florida

Friday, March 18, 2011

SESSIONS VII 9:45 – 11:15 a.m.
102. “The Eighteenth Century in the Twenty-First: The Impact of the Digital Humanities” (Digital Humanities Caucus) (Roundtable)
Grand Ballroom BC
Chair: George H. WILLIAMS, University of South Carolina, Upstate
1. Katherine ELLISON, Illinois State University
2. Michael SIMEONE, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
3. Elizabeth Franklin LEWIS, University of Mary Washington
4. Kelley ROWLEY, Cayuga Community College

SESSIONS IX 4:15 – 5:45 p.m.
146. “New Media In the Eighteenth Century” (New Lights Forum:
Contemporary Perspectives on the Enlightenment) Port Alberni
Chair: Jennifer VANDERHEYDEN, Marquette University
1. Lisa MARUCA, Wayne State University, “From Body to Book: Media
Representations in Eighteenth-Century Education”
2. Caroline STONE, University of Florida, “Publick Occurences and the
Digital Divide: The Influence of Technological Borders on Emergent
Forms of Media”
3. George H. WILLAMS, University of South Carolina, Upstate,
“Creating Our Own Tools? Leadership and Independence in
Eighteenth-Century Digital Scholarship”

Saturday, March 19, 2011

SESSIONS XI 9:45 – 11:15 a.m.
177. “Crowding-sourcing and Collaboration: Community-Based
Projects in Eighteenth-Century Studies” Grand Ballroom D
Chair: Bridget DRAXLER, University of Iowa
1. Margaret WYE, Rockhurst University, “The Challenge and
Exhilaration of Collaboration: From Post Grad to Undergrad, It’s All
Research, All the Time”
2. Victoria Marrs FLADUNG, Rockhurst University, “Undergraduate
Research: How I Learned to Love Irony in Jane Austen’s Mansfield
Park”
3. Laura MANDELL, Miami University, “Crowd-sourcing the Archive:
18thConnect.org”
Respondent: Elizabeth GOODHUE, University of California, Los Angeles

SESSIONS XII 2 – 3:30 p.m.
181. Evaluating Digital Work: Projects, Programs and Peer Review”
(Digital Humanities Caucus) (Roundtable) Grand Ballroom BC
Chair: Lisa MARUCA, Wayne State University
1. Holly Faith NELSON, Trinity Western University
2. Bill BLAKE, University of Wisconsin, Madison
3. Allison MURI, University of Saskatchewan
4. Laura MCGRANE, Haverford College