Institutional Critiques with Student Collaborators 

On November 13 I attended an online lecture hosted by DefCon featuring Dr. Anelise Shrout. Dr. Shrout discussed her pedagogical approach to her DH class focused on investigating the history of Bates college. She provided an overall framework and design of the course as well as specific examples of class activities that supporter her goals.

Dr. Shrout channelled her expertise in the 19th century origins of philanthropy to design a course that investigates Bates’s namesake whose donations enabled the founding of the institution. Bate’s has traditionally offered an origin story that centers on the abolitionist roots of its founders, yet no one had investigated the origins of the wealth that Bates used to fund the school. Through a variety of hands-on activities related to research, data capture, coding, and collaboration, Dr. Shrout empowers her students to investigate their own institution while gaining valuable insight and skills. Her ultimate goal is that students walk away from the class with a deeper understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of data and refined collaboration skills which can be used in any work they pursue. Specific tactical skills she bakes into the course include: ;

Her course included the following activities and pedagogical approaches: 

• Transcription of 19th Century Records
  (Skills Research and Critical Understanding of Data (how data is constructed, the implications of how they are structured and how this can hinder and help analyses)
  
  Lessons in reading and writing 19th century handwriting, including practicing with fountain pens. In this case, students capture data as recorded in 18th century donation rosters of Bates College as well as purchase orders of Bates textile mill which fabricated cloth using cotton purchased from Southern slave plantations. Students are able to engage with the original data sources before it is scrubbed and tidy, helping them understand the complexity and imperfection of the resulting data. When digitally capturing historical data many educated guesses are baked into what might eventually appear as “clean data.” The fountain pen exercise helped students to connected in a more visceral way to the period the data originated from, and made their own educated guesses…more educated.
  
• Maneuvering the Data
  (Skills: coding, collaboration, data visualization and analysis with an awareness of the subjectivity of the data)
  
  This phase in the course includes learning basic coding through exercises developed in Saturn Notebook, watching videos, and discussing in groups. Pairs then apply the specific functions learned to the data that was collected earlier in the semester—enabling students to put it into practice what they had just learned. Professor Shrout seeks feedback in each pairing session to understand if there are any snags, and invite students to consciously consider what is working, not working, or they could do better to ensure successful collaborations. Professor Shrout emphasizes trying and failing over perfection to remove any barriers to familiarizing ones self to the coding environment.
  
• Asking Questions of the Data
  (Skills: Critical Thinking (Data and History), understanding different approaches to the study of data)
  
  Students are asked to consider what questions can be asked related to the data and beyond and then propose their own personal projects related to their inquiries and findings. In this case students learned that cotton is sold in bales which is equal to 500#—they may then ask why that means in relation to the actual physical labor needed to produce that much cotton. They may ask who else shows up in the data besides Bates (turns out many donors had ties to cotton, some of whom have streets on campus named after them)
  
• Final Projects
  (Skills: Collaboration, Critical thinking, aiming work at informed civic action in pursuit of social justice)
  
  Students then design projects that encapsulate their findings and bring them to life in ways that they deem appropriate. Some amazing examples were infographics related to the founding donors posted around the campus; a student survey investigating if knowing the ties to southern cotton if students would’ve still applied (they would’ve, and in fact claim they would be more eager if the institution was forthcoming with that information—these findings were shared with the schools leadership). Shrout also shared that a student approached her a year after they had taken the course to voice interest in using the skills she had developed in the class to investigate a sensation of feeling less are on campus. This included discussing with a critical lens what types of data could be used to this end and its shortcomings (eg. Campus police records).

Throughout the course Shrout also offers readings that intersect with the issues that arise related to DH and its intersection with feminism and white supremacy. Some of the readings she mentioned include Katie Rawson’s and Trevor Muñoz’s Against Cleaning, D’ignazio’s and Klein’s Data Feminism, Marisa Fuente’s Dispossessed Lives, Jessica Marie Johnson’s Markup Bodies, and Craig Steven Wilder’s Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery and the Trouble History of America’s Universities.

Shrout also generously offered her class outline which she adapts to her specific intentions as the class evolves. She emphasized that she at times had skeptics in the classes—students initially more interested in coding and computer science and those who were intimidated by it. She is careful to emphasize critical thinking skills as the hero of the course to appeal to both coders who think they won’t learn much and allay the fears of the coding-shy.

The lecture was inspiring and inspired, and I fully regret not broadcasting it to our cohort as it aligned perfectly with our current readings and class discussion. Professor Shrout really brings DH to life for her students by putting it to work on a subject that directly impacts them and in a way that empowers them to find their own critical and creative voice within the it.

After spending a large portion of this semester discussing, analyzing, and creating annotations in my Doing Things with Novels course, I approached this assignment with a developed understanding of the approaches to scholarly marginalia that I have most benefitted from as both a reader and as a producer. As I worked through Laurence Scott’s The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World, I sought to provide examples of my typical approach to annotation and its focus on the creation of connections and the expansion of the text’s scope through the inclusion of relevant resources and references to theoretical approaches through which the reader might reinterpret their reading of the annotated text.

My first annotation responded to Scott’s statement:

“Increasingly, the moments of our lives audition for digitisation. A view from the window, a meeting with friends, a thought, an instance of leisure or exasperation – they are all candidates, contestants even, for a dimensional upgrade.”

My annotation:
I’m reminded of Byung-Chul Han’s recent work Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld (2022), specifically his discussions regarding the notion of se produire, or to “play to the gallery” in relation to the production of digital identity through the production and staging of information online (14). He goes on to suggest that “digital images transform the world into available information,” intensifying the production of a world enframed purely through curated imagery and amplifying a sense of the Baudrillardian hyperreal. Not the most novel of thoughts but I love Han’s text because his approach can get a little woo-woo at times with statements like, “The decorative and the ornamental are characteristic of things. They are life’s way of telling us that life is about more than mere functioning. In the baroque age, the ornamental was theatrum dei, the theater of the gods. If we submit life fully to functionality and information, we drive the divine out of life. The smartphone is the symbol of our time… it is not embellished in any way” (23). I imagine his work would be a fun read if one was looking to develop a comparative analysis between a theoretical thinker broaching similar subject matter and Scott’s work in Four-Dimensional Human.

My intention with this annotation was to create connections for the reader and to expand their scope of inquiry as they scrutinize this pivotal point in Scott’s piece. Ideally, by pointing them to texts, concepts, and quotes that allowed me to create connections between Scott’s piece and the greater conversations dealing with technology, the production of identity, and time-and-space as impacted by both the digital and capital, it will encourage them to explore, respond, and even disagree with my connections. Any of these would be a fantastic result, as long as it triggers some exploration of the text through searching outside of the text.

My second annotation responded to Scott’s statement:

“Social media, for example, makes a moment four-dimensional by scaffolding it with simultaneity, such that it exists in multiple places at once.”

My annotation:

Having read a decent amount about David Harvey’s notion of time-space compression (or, the rupturing of our experience of time and space as the flow of capital accelerates) this semester, it would be a fun exercise (though maybe redundant) to dig into Scott’s idea of reality “scaffolded with simultaneity” via social media through the theoretical lens of Harvey’s work (+ maybe Virilio’s idea of speed-space or Han’s work in The Art of Lingering).

Though stylistically similar, I’d like to focus on a different portion of my approach that exists in each annotation. In both, I tried to provide the reader with a prompt of inquiry. In the first annotation, this prompt was advancing the idea that a comparative analysis between Han and Scott’s work might act as an interesting rabbit hole to wander down. In this annotation, I suggest that a worthwhile exercise might be exploring Scott’s suggestion of simultaneity in conjunction with analyses of time and space as affected by capitalism through the work of David Harvey, Paul Virilio, and Byung-Chul Han. My intention here is to provide not just possible connections but a prompt for them to explore if such connections actually exist as suggested and whether or not they are worth investigating further.

Essentially, my primary goal for the reader (and for myself) is to encourage a more comprehensive consideration of the text and to enjoy the search that comes with creating and developing intertextual connections.

This is a short thought experiment I’m cross-posting from my Digital Pedagogy class for consideration. Context: assessment/evaluation of digital products in the humanities.

Within nonprofit and other sectors, an organization generally has a set of programs based on their mission and for which they’re funded. Within each of these programs are products to be delivered. Each of these products involve one or more projects. These program, products, and projects, are based on meeting the needs of the people they serve. Identifying products to build include data analysis and engaging a range of research methods such as a needs assessment or a human-centered design outreach effort, which are then evaluated later on using outcome and impact metrics. How about if we fashion Digital Humanities curriculum similarly? The course is the program, the product(s) to be delivered are identified in the syllabus, and each week represents a project to achieve the goal of delivering the product(s). This ensures that every class serves as a milestone in the development of a stated goal: building a product. So, instead of seemingly disparate readings and topics from class to class, there’s a roadmap with transparency into the process and learning critical project management skills along the way. The final project could be the evaluation of the program, product, and/or projects.

This week’s reading and discussion introduced some interesting thought-starters for me. Highlighting a few to share here:

1. Per “How Not to Teach Digital Humanities”, DH is not suitable for undergrad students due to the theoretical component. I thought this was interesting and was wondering if I were to take this class in undergrad, what would that be like? I am still navigating my perception of the DH field as this is my first DH class. It is indeed more theoretical, and less technical than I expected. I do enjoy the critical components of it but do crave more resolutions/ applications.
   
2. During the last class, it was discussed that “humanities studies don’t solve problems, but rather post questions to those problems”. This jumped out to me and definitely got me thinking. I studied BBA (business) during my undergrad studies and have always been in a “problem-solving” role since I joined the workforce (management consulting, corporate finance, data science, etc). This was definitely a shocking and liberating revelation that I was not expecting. In the professional context, I operate from a problem-driven mindset (as opposed to a solution-driven mindset). While it is still a problem-space operating mindset, the goal is simply to ensure we are working on the right problem before we dive into solution-ing. “Posting/ asking questions without the intent of solving the problem” is definitely something I have never considered before. I am not sure how I feel about it yet, but this is definitely an interesting mental experiment.

This week, the class provided the opportunity to see social annotation in action. Here is my effort toward social annotation.

I want the student to focus on the rationale behind the existence of the fourth dimension in social media where we create our picture-perfect world to escape reality. The author mentioned in the text, nowadays, untweeted, uninstagrammed moments might feel somehow cubic perhaps trapped within the perfect four-sided wall box and just about to sneak out if and only if the walls are contorted. I want the students to justify the psychological motivation behind sharing each and every moment on social media. What is it like to be trapped in a fictitious self-made reality full of expectations? Contextualize and address the tension to figure out just the perfect balance.

The author mentioned you dabble in other realities, then you should not expect to remain unchanged. I want the student to figure out What’s the effect of the four dimensions that inherently change human psychology and what is its impact on the community and society?  Trapped within Doll House, how does it impact the ability to recognize real problems like climate change? Contextualize real-world problems and how can you utilize social media and the fourth dimension to bring positive change to the shipwrecked world.

ANNOTATION 1:

We know that new technology always causes a stir—with champions and detractors rightly debating its implications. The internet is a newer technology, prompting heated discussion as we witness its effect real time. Being more connected and therefore able to share our observations, we also have an opportunity to investigate other institutions and the philosophies behind them to consider how they have also shaped us. We have been born into many longstanding institutions, (ex. public policy, cultural and social hierarchies, family, religions etc.) and have not felt the shock or dissonance of their arrival or evolution so we are not always conscious of their impact on our intellectual and emotional development. I wanted to invite students to look at other places in their lives where they may have been influence in highly impactful but “invisible” ways. 

“I was being freshly coded with certain expectations of the world, one of which seemed to be an unflagging belief in the responsiveness of others and which never seemed to learn from its disappointments. Digital technology was reshaping my responses, collaborating with my instincts acts, creating in me, its subject, all kinds of new sensitivities. In that sideways glance at the postcard, I could feel my place in history by the peculiar register of my uneasiness.”

Possible annotations:

• What other structures and institutions shape our “expectations of the world?”
• How much control over our experience within these spaces do we have? 
• What other sensations or experiences beyond the dissonance the author describes have made you aware of your “place in history.”

An interesting extension of this reading could be to write a similarly toned exploration imagining the arrival of technologies and modes of communication of the past (telegraph, phone, tv, novel, printing press etc.). 

ANNOTATION 2: 

The author uses most of the text to discuss the emotional and intellectual changes induced by interaction with the internet, only suggesting its physical impact. There’s a feeling of awe, inevitability, and distress all wrapped up in his witnessing the internets draw and impact. Building on his realization of his impossible expectation that the unsent postcard should garner a response, I am curious what other ways the rewiring of our expectations impact our relationship with the “analogue” world.  

“Going online can feel like a step on a homeward journey, where it is the abstract promise of home, rather than any real sense of the home itself, which matters”

Possible annotations:

• How do you think an intellectual and emotional construct of “home” compares to the experience of “home” rooted in physical time and place? Is one more desirable than the other? 
• What implications, if any, do you think the internet’s emphasis on mental engagement says about the future of our relationships to our physical selves and others?

Annotation/ Discussion :

• What are some other terms that are related to the “reverse peephole” concept described above? (e.g. digital surveillance)
• How have/ will these “reverse peepholes” manifest under different social structures? (e.g. capitalism vs. Political paradigm) 
• What are some key issues and concerns around these “reverse peepholes”? What are the pros and cons, and trade-offs of it?  
• What conditions/forces enabled the expansion of this “reverse peephole” landscape, under the age of digital surveillance? Who/what was fueling it? Who is pushing back and how? 

[Bonus] Check out these books if you’ve enjoyed this reading:

• Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (written by Yuval Noah Harari) 
• The Three-Body Problem (science fiction novel written by Liu Cixin) 

Comment

I have really enjoyed this reading as it is beautifully written and touched on some interesting ideas with a solid yet palatable perspective. Considering we only read a small part of the book, I did not feel 100% ready to annotate for this Praxis Assignment as I feared the rest of the book might go in other directions which would make the annotation confusing/irrelevant for the students in the other class.

However, keeping that thought aside, my immediate thoughts were books that this reading reminded me of. I added their titles in the bonus section because I didn’t think it’d be fair for all students to research/ read these not-so-short books. I do however want to share them as I find them relevant and interesting.

I ended up annotating around one key phrase (“reverse peephole”), as it really captured my attention during my reading. I offered some discussion questions for the students to engage with this particular idea in the text.

For my annotations, I first chose the phrase

“In retrospect it seemed as though, in that deranged moment, I
had wakened to a process that had been quietly rewiring my life
for- a decade, more or less since I chose my first, cryptic email
address (imagine broadcasting my real name on ‘the internet’).”

• Here we see the author’s tone shift. How does it shift? What purpose does this serve for either the narrative or the reader? Explain.
• How do you think this tone shift changes how you read this passage if you were to read it a second time?
• How would you characterize the author based on this? Describe them using both literary terms and personal descriptors (for example, “unreliable narrator” and “pleasant”, respectively).

The second idea I had wasn’t a full annotation per se:

• How is The Reverse Peephole related to The Fourth Dimension? How is this introduction related to the primary text? Why are they juxtaposed? How does this change how you view either section of the work? Discuss.

The purpose of these annotations is to have students think more about how texts relate to not only other texts but also to their readers and authors. It was something that I really enjoyed (and still enjoy) observing!