DCI 102 // Data in the Humanities

Prof. Mackenzie Brooks

September 6, 2018 // Day 1

agenda

  • introductions
  • course overview
  • break?
  • environment setup
  • domain setup

introductions

  • Name
  • Year
  • Major/minor
  • Ice breaker: earliest memory of the internet

survey

Please fill out the student survey if you haven't already!

https://goo.gl/forms/DfldntwbMmspVAur2

Digital Culture and Information minor

https://wlu.edu/digital-culture-and-information

What is data?

What is data?

Wikipedia: "Data is measured, collected and reported, and analyzed, whereupon it can be visualized using graphs, images or other analysis tools. Data as a general concept refers to the fact that some existing information or knowledge is represented or coded in some form suitable for better usage or processing."

What is data?

School of Data: "Data is a value assigned to a thing."

What is data?

Joanna Drucker: "...phenomena are observer-independent and can be characterized as data. Data pass themselves off as mere descriptions of a priori conditions."

Where do you encounter data?

What are the humanities?

What are the humanities?

Wikipedia: "Humanities are academic disciplines that study human culture."

What are the humanities?

WLU Registrar: "Courses in a variety of disciplines focus on aspects of human experience and on methods of addressing the basic questions of meaning in humanistic study. Courses in history, philosophy, religion, or other departments or interdepartmental programs may fulfill this requirement."

What are the humanities?

Joanna Drucker: "Humanistic inquiry acknowledges the situated, partial, and constitutive character of knowledge production, the recognition that knowledge is constructed, taken, not simply given as a natural representation of pre-existing fact."

What is data in the humanities?

What about "digital humanities"?

Why do I care?

course website

https://legacy.gitbook.com/book/mackenziekbrooks/dh-102-data-in-the-humanities/details

Environment setup

See Unit 0 / Environment

  • Box + Box Drive
  • Text editor
  • Browsers

Domain setup

Did you receive an email from Jason Mickel?

Domain setup

Unit 0 / Reclaim Hosting

WordPress installation

Unit 0 / Activities / Activity 2

For Tuesday

  • Get familiar with WordPress. Try changing your theme or adding pages/posts.
  • Complete readings as listed on the schedule.