"Arguing with Computers"

January 6th (Meeting 1): Introduction

Lecture: “Arguing with Computers” and the State of Hermeneutics Today (notes)
Discussion: What Do You Want and Expect from 507?
Workshop: How to Use a Text Editor and Write in Markdown (notes)
Reminder: Tell Me What Computer You Will Be Using, Version Included (note: looks like 10 Macs + 3 PCs)

January 13th (Meeting 2): Keyword

Reading: Sayers, “Technology” | Galloway, “Love of the Middle”
Log: Keyword Statement (Introduce Us to Your Research Interests)
Lecture: What Is Mediation? Why Does It Matter for 507? (notes)
Discussion: Two-Minute Reviews of Your Keyword Entries (notes) | Your Responses to Galloway’s “Fury Mode of Mediation” (notes)
Workshop: How to Use the Command Line, Git, and GitHub (notes)
Reminder: Start a GitHub Account and Email Me Your Handle

January 20th (Meeting 3): Media

Reading: Chun, “The Enduring Ephemeral, or the Future Is a Memory” | Manovich, from The Language of New Media | Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” | Mitchell and Hansen, Introduction to Critical Terms for Media Studies | Bush, "As We May Think" | Liu, "Imagining the New Media Encounter" | Gitelman and Collins, "Medium Light" | McPherson, "Media Studies and the Digital Humanities" | McPherson, "Why Are the Digital Humanities So White?"
Log: Response to “Love of the Middle” (Against Hermes?)
Lecture: New Media as Both Object and Method (notes)
Discussion: Review of Our Discussions Thus Far (notes) | Your Responses to Chun’s Emphasis on “Memory” (notes)
Workshop: Automated Downloading with Wget (by Ian Milligan) (notes) | How to Use Photogrammetry to Stitch New Media Objects (notes)
Reminder: Let Me Know What Questions You Have about Git and GitHub

January 27th (Meeting 4): Model

Reading: McCarty, “Knowing . . .: Modeling in Literary Studies” | Drucker and Nowviskie, "Speculative Computing" | Bowker and Star, from Sorting Things Out | Brown, Clements, and Grundy, “Going Electronic” | Galey and Ruecker, "How a Prototype Argues" | Kirschenbaum, "Bookscapes: Modeling Books in Electronic Space" (with slides) | McGann, "Marking Texts of Many Dimensions" | Lampland and Star, Standards and Their Stories | Star and Griesemer, "Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects" | Besser, "The Past, Present, and Future of Digital Libraries" | Zoran and Buechley, "Hybrid Reassemblage: An Exploration of Craft, Digital Fabrication and Artifact Uniqueness" | Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1
Log: Environmental Scan (Gathering and Structuring Media for Analysis)
Discussion: Your Responses to “Standards" (notes), “Model Of,” “Model For” (notes), and "Speculative Computing" (notes) | Quick Updates on Your Environmental Scans (notes) | Review of Our Discussions Thus Far (notes)
Workshop: How to Use the Twitter API from the Command Line (notes)
Reminder: Let Me Know about Issues Related to Your Environmental Scan

February 3rd (Meeting 5): Procedure

Reading: Bogost, from Persuasive Games | Kirschenbaum, from Mechanisms | Short, "Counterfeit Monkey" | Short, "Bee" | Play the Past | Preserving Virtual Worlds | Kirschenbaum et al., "Digital Materiality: Preserving Access to Computers as Complete Environments" | Bogost, "Cow Clicker: The Making of Obsession" | The Deena Larsen Collection | Electronic Literature Collection, Volumes 1 and 2 | The Agrippa Files
Log: Environmental Scan (Continued)
Lecture: Emulation, Transduction, and the Trace: Doing Media History (notes)
Discussion: Your Responses to “Procedural Rhetoric” (notes) and “Medial Ideology” (notes) | Quick Updates on Your Environmental Scans (notes) | Quick Review of Key Terms Thus Far (notes)
Workshop: How to Use Arduino to Build Circuits or Program Microcontrollers (notes)
Reminder: Your Proposal Is Due March 3rd | Form Feedback Groups and Email Me a List of Group Members

February 10th: Break

We don’t meet this week. It’s reading break.

February 17th (Meeting 6): Pattern

Reading: Moretti, “Conjectures on World Literature” | Best and Marcus, “Surface Reading: An Introduction” | Klein, “The Image of Absence” | McPherson, Jagoda, and Chun, "New Media and American Literature" | Posner, "Very Basic Strategies for Interpreting Results from the Topic Modeling Tool" | Underwood, "Topic Modeling Made Just Simple Enough" | Schmidt, "Compare and Contrast" | Weingart, "Topic Modeling for Humanists: A Guided Tour" | Moretti, "Graphs, Maps, Trees," Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 | Bartolovich, "Humanities of Scale: Marxism, Surface Reading---and Milton" | Straub, "The Suspicious Reader Surprised, Or, What I Learned from 'Surface Reading'"
Discussion: A Quick Workshop Review (notes) | Are Distant and Surface Reading Post-Hermeneutic Modes? | Your Responses to “Distant Reading” (notes), “Surface Reading” (notes), and "Image of Absence" (notes) | A Brief Word about Your Proposals
Workshop: How to Use MALLET to Topic Model Texts (notes)
Reminder: Consider Meeting with Me to Chat about Your Research

February 24th (Meeting 7): Transformation

Reading: Samuels and McGann, “Deformance and Interpretation” | Kraus, “Conjectural Criticism” | Ramsay, “Algorithmic Criticism” | Ramsay, “Algorithms Are Thoughts, Chainsaws Are Tools” | Forster, "With Thanks to Woolf and emacs, Reading The Waves with Stephen Ramsay" | Forster, "(de)Bugging Ramsay—A Last Stab at tfidf and The Waves" | Sample, Hacking the Accident | Sample, "Notes towards a Deformed Humanities" | Collier, "Text Mining the Complete Works of William Shakespeare" | Phillips, A Humument | Henderson, Galerie de Difformité + the online gallery | The N+7 Machine | Oulipo
Log: Topic Modelling a Text: Interpreting the Results
Discussion: Your Responses to “Deformance” (notes), “Conjecture” (notes), and "Algorithmic Criticism" (notes) | Preparing Your Proposal and Presentation
Workshop: How to Use R and Algorithms to Transform Texts (notes)
Reminder: Your Proposal Is Due March 3rd

March 3rd (Meeting 8): Proposal

Log: Proposal (Outline Your Argument with a Computer)
Workshop: How to Use MLA Guidelines to Review Digital Projects | Peer Review of Proposals
Reminder: Your Final Presentation Is March 31st | Your Presentation Group Should Consider Meeting with Me

March 10th (Meeting 9): Translation

Reading: Peruse Posts at maker.uvic.ca
Log: Revised Proposal
Lecture: Roundtable of Presentations from Maker Lab Researchers (notes)
Discussion: Conversations with Maker Lab Researchers (notes)
Reminder: Consider Taking a Break from Your 507 Research

March 17th (Meeting 10): Interface

Reading: Drucker, “Humanities Approaches to Interface Theory” | Drucker, “Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display” | Galloway, from Gaming
Log: Snapshot of Your Web-Ready Essay (Get Started on a Draft)
Lecture: What Are Humanities Interfaces? (notes coming soon)
Discussion: Your Responses to “Capta,” “Machine,” and “Operator” (notes coming soon)
Workshop: Advice for Authoring Web-Ready, Scholarly Essays (notes coming soon)
Reminder: Your Final Essay Is Due April 14th

March 24th (Meeting 11): Labour

Reading: Nakamura, “Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game” | Fitzpatrick, “Beyond Metrics: Community Authorization and Open Peer Review”
Log: Draft Essay
Lecture: Review of the Seminar Thus Far (notes)
Discussion: Your Responses to “Open Peer Review” and “Gold Farming”
Workshop: How to Generate and Interpret Usage Stats
Reminder: Touch Base with Any Concerns about the Final Presentation and Essay

March 31st (Meeting 12): Final Presentations

Log: Presentation Materials
Discussion: Your Final Presentations
Reminder: After Your Presentations, We Will Conduct Course Evals