Susan Jaret-McKinstry, Helen F. Lewis Professor of English
Austin Mason, Assistant Director of the Humanities Center for the Digital Humanities and Lecturer in History
Tim Raylor, Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. Professor of English and the Liberal Arts
George Shuffelton, Professor of English
English professors Tim Raylor, George Shuffelton, and Susan Jaret-McKinstry collaborated with Digital Humanities Assistant Director Austin Mason to create a new course in Textual Scholarship. The course will be first offered during Spring Term 2020. The course, English 285: “Textual Technologies from Parchment to Pixel,” explores the digital humanities and familiarize students with different techniques of textual criticism, including practices such as paleography, stemmatics and genetic criticism, and descriptive bibliography.
This course stands as an introduction to the History of the Book, a vibrant field that is still underrepresented in Carleton’s current curriculum. The most important subjects explored in this new class is media history, the history of technology, and the humanities more generally. This course is likely to appeal to a broad range of students, and will serve as a cornerstone of any future minor or major in the Digital Humanities. Public scholarship increasingly involves the editing and presentation of archival material for new audiences, and textual scholarship is a crucial part of these efforts. Students who take this class will emerge with a better understanding of how different media present texts for consumption.
With Professor Mason’s expertise in Digital Humanities, Professor Shuffelton’s knowledge of current textual scholarship tools, Professor Raylor’s vast knowledge of textual scholarship as an editor, and Professor Jaret-McKinstry’s skills in literary theory, the four have combined their specialties to benefit students in this upcoming course.
Austin Mason
Austin Mason, Assistant Director of the Humanities Center for the Digital Humanities and Lecturer in History