Tag Archives: digital humanities

Forthcoming HGSA Workshops

 “Dissecting an Article: the Writing and Publishing Process”

Wednesday, October 16th,  1:00pm

“Digital Humanities Presentation”

“Siege of Antioch Project” A collaborative project between scholars in the United Kingdom and Fordham’s Center for Medieval Studies. 

Thursday, November 14th, 5:00pm 

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Filed under Digital Resources, Events, Grad Student News

Thinking About the History of the Digital Era at the Society for the History of Technology

Philadelphia was the location on the weekend of October 26-29 for the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). For the conference, Professor Asif Siddiqi organized a panel titled “Democratizing the Technologies of Pop Music: Songs in the Key of Gender, Fandom and Digital Sampling.” The panel forms the basis for a new book project by Professor Siddiqi, a collection of essays provisionally titled One Track Mind. The book will bring together academics and cultural critics to talk about Continue reading

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Filed under Alumni News, Conferences, Department Events, Digital Resources, Essays in History, Events, Faculty News

Upcoming Digital Humanities Workshop with Alisa Beer

Last week was NYCDH Week 2017 — the week each year when the NYC Digital Humanities (DH) community gets together to discuss their projects, run workshops, and bring the NYC DH community together.

One feature of the kick-off meeting on Monday was a series of Lightning Talks: five minute mini-presentations about DH projects in the works. Presentations ranged from personal research to new departmental makerspaces and showed the breadth of DH projects and interests in the greater NYC area!

Fordham History Department Ph.D. student Alisa Beer gave a lightning talk about a DH project she is running at Columbia University as part of her spring 2017 internship with the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia.

The workshop, called “Digital Editing and the Medieval Manuscript Roll” will take place on March 24-25 for Columbia University graduate students. Participants will learn the fundamentals of digital editing while tackling the codicological challenges posed by medieval manuscripts. Practical sessions will inform collective editorial decision-making: participants will undertake the work of transcription and commentary, and tag (according to TEI 5 protocols) the text and images of one medieval manuscript roll from the Columbia collection. The workshop will result in a collaborative digital edition of Plimpton Add. Ms. 04, a roll of the Fifteen Oes of Saint Bridget.

Plimpton Add. Ms. 04

Click here for more information on the workshop and its goals, structure, and outcomes.

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Building A Digital History Archive: A Year With The Bronx African American History Project

BAAHP celebrating uploading of interviews to Digital Commons with professors, students, and members of the community (l-r Morgan Mungerson, Eddie Mikus, Andrea Benintendi, Danielle Rowe, Dr. Jane Edward, Dr. Mark Naison, Robert Gumbs, and Damien Strecker)

BAAHP celebrating uploading of interviews to Digital Commons with professors, students, and members of the community (l-r Morgan Mungerson, Eddie Mikus, Andrea Benintendi, Danielle Rowe, Dr. Jane Edward, Dr. Mark Naison, Robert Gumbs, and Damien Strecker)

As a follow up to the launch of the Bronx African American History Project’s archive of digital recordings, we asked Damien Strecker, a PhD student in History at Fordham, to tell us more about the project. He writes:

Last fall, I began my journey towards a PhD in History under the helpful guidance of Professor Mark Naison. Dr. Naison’s Communists in Harlem During the Great Depression greatly influenced my Master’s research on the nationalist activity of Harry Haywood, an active member of the Communist Party USA during the interwar period. My initial meeting with Dr. Naison to discuss my research assistantship with the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP) provided a window into my new work environment. He passionately described to me the history of the project and the goals for the academic year—and then proceeded to crank up the bass on a Redman hip hop track he told me I had to hear. Entering my second year working on the project, the music is still playing and the important historical work continues to march forward.

Last year, I worked to accomplish a number of goals: 1) organize, label, and safely store the hard copies of all BAAHP files 2) digitize and safely store electronically as many files as possible 3) finish transcribing and summarizing old interviews. With the help of five undergraduate workers, we succeeded in transferring the physical materials of the project to Fordham’s Rare Books and Special Collection, digitizing the interview audio, and finishing nearly all of the transcriptions and summaries.

While the tasks seem straightforward, each week provided new and unforeseen challenges, especially in regards to file formatting. Where on campus can I find a mini-DV player? What audio and video formats are the most common and universal now? Do we format our files for Apples or PCs? The BAAHP began over a decade ago and the archive reflects the monumental changes in technology over that time period. The BAAHP collection includes VHS, DVD, analog audio cassettes, Mini-DVs, and CDs as well as a number of different antiquated electronic file formats. The general trend within history to digitize primary sources is a fantastic development that will bring the tools of history to anyone with internet access. However, the rapidly changing pace of file formats may complicate things as technology changes over time. One can envision a future historian in 20 years trying to unearth Windows Media Player software or QuickTime to read an important file. Despite possible technical difficulties, the digitization of historical archives is an exciting development that will make materials much more accessible to everyone. Don’t throw away your white gloves and microfilm reader just yet, but digitization is happening rapidly and the BAAHP is proud to be a part of this movement.

With the task of general organization and file format uniformity secured last year, we quickly accomplished the long held goal of making the interviews accessible electronically via Fordham’s Digital Commons. Now that the public can access the interview files via the internet, we can concentrate efforts on publicizing the archive’s content. People from 5 different continents accessed the files within the first week of going public. People from all over the world will get to access files covering topics ranging from early jazz, church activism, hip hop, education, and African immigration. Dr. Jane Edward of the African American Studies Department initiated the important work of chronicling the story of recent African immigrants in the Bronx.

The global reach of the BAAHP is promising, but ultimately, it is about the Bronx. In an effort to engage the community, the BAAHP will be creating curriculum materials that local educators can use in their classrooms. As a former middle school and high school social studies teacher, I know the actual process of interpreting and writing history can be intimidating for students and teachers alike. Starting next semester, we will begin giving presentations in local schools about Bronx history, oral history, and the BAAHP collection. Also, we will be disseminating a 3 day model mini unit for teachers. They can use it to get students excited about writing histories of local relevance and familiarity.

In the world of graduate school and academia, it is easy to get lost in our own worlds, reading, teaching, and researching.   In the end, we all should desire to share what we have learned with the world—not just those privileged enough to scan their ID onto campus. I’m proud to work with BAAHP in their efforts to preserve and share the rich cultural history of the borough Fordham calls home. The cultural contours of the Bronx continue to change and the BAAHP will be there to make sure the people’s stories will not be forgotten.

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Filed under Digital Resources, Grad Student News

Bronx African American Oral History Collection Now Online!

OralHistories

This week, the Bronx African American History Project of Fordham celebrates a major milestone with the uploading of more than 200 of its oral history interviews to the BAAHP’s Digital Research Site at Fordham libraries, making them available to scholars around the nation and around the world. More than twelve years in the making, this collection represents an unparalleled resources for scholars in African American and Urban History. Keep reading for further details of the project provided by Professor Mark Naison.

Continue reading

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Filed under Digital Resources, Faculty News, Grad Student News, Publications

Summertime II: Postcards from History Graduate Students

Summertime Blog PictureSummer is also an exciting season for History graduate students. Work on research projects, travel to archives, presenting their papers at conferences: these are just some of the activities that were undertaken by Fordham’s industrious graduate students this past summer. Included below are some postcards detailing their activities. Continue reading

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“The Distinctive Lineage of Digital History”

DigitalHistoryLineageTom Scheinfeldt, nationally known for his leadership role at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University, now serves as an Associate Professor of Digital Media and Design and Director of Digital Humanities at the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Scheinfeldt has been behind such pathbreaking initiatives as the September 11 Digital Archive, Omeka, and THATCamp. He is co-editor (with Dan Cohen) of Hacking the Academy: New Approaches to Scholarship and Teaching from Digital Humanities (University of Michigan Press, 2013) and a contributor to Debates in the Digital Humanities (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). He blogs at Found History and co-hosts the Digital Campus podcast.

This program is organized by Professor Roger Panetta (History) and hosted by the History Department with support from the Dean of Fordham College-Rose Hill through the Innovative Pedagogy Initiative.

Join us at McMahon Hall 109, Lincoln Center Campus, on Friday, April 4th at 4:30pm.

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What is Digital Literacy and Why Does it Matter to History?

Screen Shot 2014-02-25 at 9.43.36 AMThis session will introduce faculty and graduate students to key concepts of digital literacy in the humanities.  Johnathan Pettinato will discuss digital literacy and its relation to a range of literacies, as well as to new information and communication technologies. Alisa Beer will present on the state of digital literacy in library instruction for the humanities. Both presenters will discuss the ways in which developments in the field of digital literacy can be adapted to fit the needs of the History classroom, and participants are strongly encouraged to share their ideas and concerns in this interactive session.

Light refreshments will be provided, and attendees are welcome to bring food of their own.

Thursday February 27, 1:00pm, Dealy 102.

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