June 1, 2018
Carleton hosted its third annual Day of Digital Humanities (DH) on Friday, June 1, 2018. With support from the Carleton Humanities Center, the Gould Library, and ITS, Carleton’s Digital Humanities team organized a full day’s conference for DH practitioners in the upper-Midwest.
Dozens of people from multiple institutions attended the conference, with representation from St. Olaf, Macalester, Trinity College, Bethel University, Normandale Community College, the University of Minnesota, and Gustavus Adolphus College. The day began with a series of “lightening presentations”, where professors, students, and librarians gave short talks on their DH projects.
After a series of brief presentations, attendees heard from keynote speaker, Jack Gieseking, an assistant professor at Trinity College. Professor Gieseking presented on his research about space and identity in digital and material environments. More specifically, Professor Gieseking is creating a detailed digital map of queer spaces in New York City. His second book, A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queer Women, 1983-2008, will be released in 2019. Professor Gieseking presented on the research that will inform his book. To conclude his presentation, Professors Adriana Estill and Thabiti Willis hosted a question and answer session with the audience.
In the afternoon, attendees had the option to attend a variety of workshops. The workshops were all based in Digital Humanities, but addressed different areas within the field. One workshop, for example, was hosted by three representatives from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). They presented “Art Stories”, a digital storytelling tool MIA uses to encourage deeper engagement, enjoyment, and learning experiences with artworks.
While this workshop was specific to museum curating, another workshop, hosted by Professor Rebecca Wingo of Macalester College, explored the process of digitally archiving historical items. Professor Wingo explained how her history students at Macalester photographed and archived historical items, which allows families to maintain ownership of their historical items instead of turning them over to a museum. The third workshop was hosted by Andrew Wilson, Academic Technologist for Digital Scholarship at Carleton. He presented on ways to use augmented and virtual reality in the classroom.
The Digital Humanities program was founded in 2013 as part of a Mellon funded initiative with St. Olaf and Macalester colleges. DH at Carleton supports cutting-edge classroom experimentation and innovative computer-enhanced research by helping humanities faculty integrate digital technologies into their research and teaching. The program also trains students how to apply digital methodologies to their humanities studies and future careers.
