I am totally new to DH and to THATCamps; still figuring out semantics of workshops, sessions etc. But would like to propose a session or two.

First, I briefly mentioned in a response to the workshops post that one that offered a comparative overview of the potential and limitations of different tools such as drupal and omeka for different types of projects would be helpful. Deb Sarlin commented a similar request here that  is worded more fully and clearly (and appropriately addressed to session topics). I bring it up here to make sure it gets put in the pot with the other session proposals.

I’d also like to propose a session on how DH scholars and practitioners are using sound and music in their projects and/or how sound and music scholars are participating in DH. As a director of a music archives and a jazz scholar with a pretty traditional background, I’d like to learn more about the tools that are available, how are they being put to use, and to what ends.

In discussions about DH in my department, one of the concerns about DH that often surfaces is that digital history is considerably more difficult when the sources are, far from being digitized, not even in print. Where some scholars can grab huge amounts of data from digitized sources to create their networks, for instance, my colleague is building his network one manuscript at a time. Thus, some scholars shy away from DH because it makes research even more complicated rather than simplifying it.

I’d like to discuss how DH can be used for research even when the sources aren’t digital. Perhaps this manifests itself in a different method of using the tools; perhaps it’s merely a different analytical approach. Is there value in doing DH when the data does not fit well into the DH wheelhouse? If there isn’t, what then is the role of DH in researching “older” history?

It’s a little ironic that, despite the sizable quantity of conferencing technology available, we’re all bussing and training and carring and planing in to Providence to meet about the Digital Humanities. The situation illustrates how technology, from GPS’s to projectors to iPads, is located as a supplement to physical space. What happens when we look at it from the opposite angle? How does physicality have the potential to enhance, diminish or otherwise inform a technological experience? For example, consider geographical areas with limited internet access (or conversely, Silicon Valley), or technology that responds to your location and proximity to particular items, or the difference between a book and a Kindle, or an acoustic concert vs. computer music. How does information translate across the divide?

What excludes visual artists + designers from digital humanities discourses? Is it an external view of art + design as a surface activity, applied only after research, development and conceptualization? Is it a lack of interest from within art + design to engage in humanities-based thinking, despite traditional practices’ inherent connections with historical and text-based content? Is computer programming and data-mining too unattractive, despite contemporary art + design’s intimate relationship with the digital media and the web? What are some examples of collaborations within the digital humanities that have included artists + designers? What knowledges can artists + designers bring to the digital humanities? What can the digital humanities bring to art + design practice?

In many ways, my proposal echoes that of my new Northeastern colleague, David Smith. I’m working with David and others to discover and map reprinted texts in the nineteenth-century American press. As we’ve develop this project, I’ve delved more and more into network analysis as a way to make sense of the thousands of texts we’re uncovering.

I’d like to think with the THATCamp NE community about how network analysis—a methodology borrowed from the social sciences—could better serve humanities projects. In some ways I want to turn the typical DH conversation around. Instead of asking how the computation tool of network analysis can shape humanities research, I want to ask What unique perspectives on network analysis might emerge from the humanities. What kinds of networks can we map in literary studies, history, or other humanities fields that might not be apparent to researchers trained in social science methodologies? Are there ways that network analysis tools could better serve humanities research? What changes would we imagine for network analysis software if we could?