Category Archives: Digital Humanities

Catching Up II: Letting Go of the Reins

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Timothy Burke

I bookmarked a blog entry earlier this month by Elijiah Meeks that was endorsing a longer essay by Natalia Cecire about the relationship between theory and tools in digital humanities work, and also the relationship between humanists and technologists. Meeks … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Humanities | 4 Comments

The Social Media Minimums

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Timothy Burke

Grizzled old Internet hands like me, we like to think we’ve seen it all. We were using our modems and marvelling at the strange intimacy of having threaded text conversations about science fiction or politics or woodworking with people you’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Humanities, Politics | Comments Off on The Social Media Minimums

Some Small Ideas About Big Ideas

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Timothy Burke

At first, I thought that Neal Gabler was singing my song in his ode (and eulogy) to the “Big Idea”. Part of his argument turns on a familiar theme at this blog, that overspecialization has its costs, and that one … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Digital Humanities, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Popular Culture, Production of History | 1 Comment

What’s Not in a Datamine

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Timothy Burke

I think that research that involves quantitative studies of extremely large datasets of texts that focuses on word usage, genre classification, spatial mapping of publication and circulation, or other kinds of information that we can now collect and analyze is … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Humanities, Generalist's Work, Oh Not Again He's Going to Tell Us It's a Complex System | 4 Comments

The Evitable Future of the Digital

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Timothy Burke

I don’t think anyone will be surprised that I agree to a large extent with Virginia Heffernan that education needs to prepare contemporary children for the world of work and citizenship as it is and will be rather than as … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Humanities, Information Technology and Information Literacy | 3 Comments

Pictures From an Institution 5 (Training)

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Timothy Burke

Another thing that happens in the summer in most colleges and universities is training with new technologies, pedagogies and subjects. Some faculty and staff go elsewhere for one or two week programs, and some programs happen at home. Today I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Digital Humanities, Pictures from an Institution, Swarthmore | Comments Off on Pictures From an Institution 5 (Training)

Generalist’s Work, Day 5

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Timothy Burke

My colleague Richard Eldridge has written intricately about “the persistence of romanticism”, and defended romanticism in literature and philosophy against some of the more common criticisms. In humanistic writing, I’m struck by the sometimes uncomfortable mixing of a romanticist vision … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Digital Humanities, Generalist's Work, Popular Culture | 2 Comments

The Return of the Phantom Time Menace

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Timothy Burke

Read enough forum threads across a wide enough range of websites and you ought to become fairly expert in predicting the range and distribution of responses and even of anticipating where you’re likely to fall in that picture yourself, should … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Humanities, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Production of History | Comments Off on The Return of the Phantom Time Menace

How I Talk About Searching, Discovery and Research in Courses

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Timothy Burke

I recently boiled down some of the advice I try to give students about how to carry out searches and formulate research questions, which I’ll reproduce here. I start with the basic insight that I’ve picked up from Swarthmore’s library … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Digital Humanities, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Swarthmore | 17 Comments

A Lord Byron in Every Cyberpot

Posted on September 17, 2010 by Timothy Burke

I’m interested in seeing the film Catfish after reading A.O. Scott’s review. Still, Scott’s references to familiar examples of online deception coupled with his welcome awareness that literary and cultural fraud is an old and established part of American life … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Humanities, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Popular Culture | 2 Comments