This schedule, like the rest of the syllabus, is a living document and is subject to change. I will update the schedule with specific readings and assignment details as we go.
Monday May 17 — Defining Digital History / Colliding Cultures in the New World
Before class:
- Review syllabus and join class Slack
In class:
- Introductions
- Set up Hypothesis account.
- Sheila Brennan, “Digital History,” June 4, 2019.
- Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, “Introduction: Promises and Perils of Digital History” in Digital History, Center for History and New Media, 2005.
After class:
- Megan O’Neil, “Confronting the Myth of the ‘Digital Native’,” Chronicle of Higher Education, April 21, 2014.
- Miriam Posner, Stewart Varner, and Brian Coxall, “Creating Your Web Presence,” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 14, 2011.
- Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, “Getting Started” in Digital History, Center for History and New Media, 2005.
- Assignment: Set up your website
Wednesday May 19 — Internet and Copyright Basics / Riots and Revolts
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 3, section V. Riot, Rebellion, and Revolt
- Video: History of the Internet
- Video: The Internet: Packets, Routing & Reliability
- Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, “Owning the Past,” in Digital History, Center for History and New Media, 2005.
- Video: Copyright Basics
- George Mason Copyright Office, sections on copyright and fair use.
In class:
- Writing with HTML
- University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center, “Quoting and Paraphrasing”
- Lycoming College, Plagiarism Game
After class:
- Think about an early American history topic for you final project. Make an appointment to meet with the instructor this week on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday to discuss your ideas.
- Start working on your digital history project review and be prepared to talk about it in class on Friday.
Friday May 21 — Security and Sustainability / Slavery and Race
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 3, section II. Slavery and the Making of Race
- Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, “Preserving Digital History,” in Digital History, Center for History and New Media, 2005.
- Library of Congress, “Sustainability of Digital Formats,” Introduction and Sustainability Factors
- Explore: “Valley of the Shadow”
- Jennifer Howard, “Born Digital, Projects Need Attention to Survive,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 6, 2014.
- George Mason University, Security Best Practices
- Wikipedia, “List of the most common passwords”
- Mat Honan, “How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking,” Wired, August 6, 2012 (Posted in Slack)
In class:
- Internet Archive, WayBack Machine
- Quiz: Pew Research Center, “How Much Do You Know About Cybersecurity?” (March 22, 2017)
- Video: Slave Ship in 3D
After class:
- Assignment: Digital history project review, due 5/24 at 8am
Monday May 24 — Digital Sources / Transcription and Text Mining
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 4, section III. Slavery, Anti-Slavery and Atlantic Exchange
- Sign up for account with Zotero
- Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, “Becoming Digital,” in Digital History, Center for History and New Media, 2005.
- Helen Thompson, “The Smithsonian Wants You! (To Help Transcribe Its Collections),” August 12, 2014.
- Ryan Cordell, “Why You (A Humanist) Should Care About Optical Character Recognition,” January 10, 2019.
- Ted Underwood, “Where to Start with Text Mining,” The Stone and the Shell, August 14, 2012.
- Cameron Blevins, “Topic Modeling Martha Ballard’s Diary,” April 1, 2010.
In class:
- Guest Speaker: Dr. George Oberle, GMU Libraries/Department of History and Art History
- Google Books Ngram Viewer
After class:
- Assignment: Primary and secondary sources blog, due 5/26 at 8am
Wednesday May 26 — Metadata / Colonial Conflict
Before class:
- William Cronon, “Getting Ready to Do History,” Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate (2004), pg. 1–6.
- Sam Wineburg, “Thinking Like a Historian,” Teaching with Primary Sources Quarterly 3, 1 (Winter 2010), pg. 2-4.
- Video: What is metadata? (and why does it matter?)
- American Yawp, Ch. 4, section V. Seven Years’ War, and section VI. Pontiac’s War
- Project: Explore the Voices section of the “Voices of Sackville” project. Review all sections of at least four of the eight different perspectives/individuals.
After class:
- Assignment: Study for midterm
Friday May 28 — Historical Thinking / MIDTERM
In class:
- Historical Thinking – “Corroboration”
- Midterm
Monday May 31 — Memorial Day / NO CLASS
Wednesday June 2 — Databases / Consumption and Trade
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 4, section II. Consumption and Trade in the British Atlantic
- Ann Smart Martin, Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. pg. 1–10, 36–41, and 173–186. (E-book access through GMU Libraries)
- Sign up for a Google account (if you don’t already have one) so that you have access to Google Sheets.
- Christof Schöch, “Big? Smart? Clean? Messy? Data in the Humanities,” Journal of the Digital Humanities 2, no. 3 (Summer 2013).
- Robert Kosara, “Spreadsheet Thinking vs Database Thinking,” April 24, 2016.
- Mark Merry, Designing Databases for Historical Research, sections B and F.
After class:
- Project: Slave Voyages – For the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, explore the Methodology, Variable List and Database.
- Complete the first part of your dataset assignment and be prepared to talk about it in class on Friday.
Friday June 4 — Databases / Prelude to Revolution
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 5, section II. The Origins of the American Revolution and III. The Causes of the American Revolution
- Gunston Hall, “George Mason and the American Revolution.”
- Sign up for the basic level (free) Airtable account. Make sure to use your gmu.edu email when you sign up.
- Video: Database Tutorial for Beginners, 0:13-3:06.
- Airtable, Setting Up Field Types.
- Airtable, A Beginners Guide to many-to-many relationships.
- Airtable, Linking Between Tables.
- Mark Merry, Designing Databases for Historical Research, sections D and E.
In class:
- Primary Source: Virginia Resolves, 1765
- Database Tutorial
After class:
- Assignment: Finish you dataset assignment and blog, due 6/7 at 8am.
Monday June 7 — Evaluating Sources / Visualizations / Independence
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 5, section IV. Independence, V. The War for Independence, VI. The Consequences of the American Revolution, VII. Conclusion
- Primary Source: Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776
- UC Berkeley Library, “Evaluating web pages.”
- Video: “Who Can You Trust? Crash Course Navigating Digital Information.”
- John Theibault, “Visualizations and Historical Arguments” in Writing History in the Digital Age, ed. Kristen Nawrotzki and Jack Dougherty.
- Abby Mullen, “Visualizations.” (posted in Slack)
After class:
- Assignment: Work on visualization assignment.
Wednesday June 9 — Visualizations / Revolution(s) Continue
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 6, section II. Shays’ Rebellion, section VII. The Whiskey Rebellion and Jay’s Treaty, and section VIII. The French Revolution and the Limits of Liberty
- Kieran Healy, “Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere,” June 9, 2013.
- Caroline Winterer, “Where is America in the Republic of Letters?,” Modern Intellectual History 9, no. 3 (2012). Focus on pages 597–615.
- Joshua Catalano, “Digitally Analyzing the Uneven Ground: Language Borrowing Among Indian Treaties,” Current Research in Digital History 1 (2018).
After class:
- Assignment: Finish visualization assignment and blog, due 6/11 at 8am
Friday June 11 — Mapping / Politics in the New Republic
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 6, section III. The Constitutional Convention, section IV. Ratifying the Constitution, section V. Rights and Compromises, and section X. The Election of 1800
- Rosemarie Zagarri, “What Did Democracy Look Like? Voting in Early America” and “Political Parties in the Early Republic.” Mapping Early American Elections, 2017-2019.
- Project to Explore: Mapping Early American Elections
- Richard White, “What is Spatial History?”, 2010.
After class:
- Assignment: Spatial history/Early American politics blog, due 6/14 at 8am
Monday June 14 — Mapping / Early American Republic
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 7 section III. Jeffersonian Republicanism, section IV. Jefferson as President, and section V. Native American Power and the United States
- Select one episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast that corresponds to the topic you have selected for your final project. Listen to it and take notes. Be ready to talk to the class on Monday for 2 minutes about the podcast you selected. What was the episode about and what was the most important thing you learned about your topic?
- Tim Hitchcock, “Place and the Politics of the Past,” Historyonics (July 11, 2012).
- Todd Presner and David Shepard, “Mapping the Geospatial Turn,” In A New Companion to Digital Humanities, edited by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth (Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2015), 247-256.
- Projects (explore at least 2): Creating the American South, 1790-1860, Photogrammer, Canals: 1820-1890, Forced Migration. Think about how these projects are using maps for analysis and presentation.
In class:
- Lincoln Mullen, “Georectification” from “Spatial Humanities Workshop.”
After class:
- Assignment: Georeferencing assignment and blog, due 6/16 at 8am
Wednesday June 16 — Programing / War of 1812
Before class:
- American Yawp, Ch. 7 section VI. The War of 1812
- Video: Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812, 4:20-21:00 and 32:52-35:30
- Matthew Kirschenbaum, “Hello Worlds,” January 23, 2009.
- Video: Intro to Scratch
- Explore: Scratch
- Practice: Blockly Maze
- Start planning your final project. Come to class on Wednesday with your questions.
In class:
- Video: The Burning of Washington, D.C.
- Create simple project in Scratch using one of their tutorials.
- Video: Machine Learning Basics
After class:
- Assignment: Work on final project. Remember to make an appointment to meet with the instructor this week on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday to discuss your project.
Saturday June 19 — Final Project
- No Final Exam — Final project, due 6/19 at 10:15am
