Course Projects

These projects are still under construction...

My Journal

• Your NFO journal will be a record of your reading, thinking, and research on the problems of writing, technology, language, and connectivity. Some entries will be assigned, but our expectation is that you will use your journal to keep track of your thinking as you engage with the course readings and projects. Expect to have an entry for almost every class meeting. Only your instructors can see your journal.

• Technology Survey: For your first journal entry, we'd like to get a better idea of how you use digital technologies. Do you have a website or blog? Do you use social bookmarking sites or feedreaders? Are you a member of a discussion group or listserv? What do you read online? Do you have programming, coding, or web design skills? Do you play games online? Do research? How is technology used in other classes you have taken?

Class Blog

• The class blog is an experiment in collaborative authorship. Some assignments will include postings to the blog (so that others in the class can you the results of your research), but the blog is also a place to extend class discussions, pose questions about the readings, or post links others in the class might find interesting. The blog is more public than your journal, as everyone in the class can see it. Currently, it is not publicly viewable.

Class Bio

• Write a brief bio to include on the class website. Your audience is a professional one, so be sure to include your major, academic interests, work experience, projects, or even career goals. For examples, take a look at Alan Liu's class at UCSB.

Personal Timeline

• Construct a timeline of your personal experience with communications media. What is the first medium you remember using? What media have been added to your experience along the way? And what is the most recent addition? And, finally, which media no longer play any role in your life? There are probably some media that still exist, that you may even still use, but that play a smaller part in your life than they used to. Include those as well. You will be adding to this timeline throughout the semester, and it can include images and clips in addition to text.

• By Friday, February 13, post the link to your interactive timeline to the course blog. Leave a comment on at least two other posts/timelines. If you get stuck, or want to get fancy, Nora Dimmock has posted lots of information in the "Humanities Research" class in Blackboard - she can also meet with anyone for additional assistance.

Problems in Writing

Socrates and Plato on the inferiority of writing (see "The Phaedrus")

Remembering the Bible

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Library at Alexandria

The Archimedes Palimpsest

• Team Project: As a team, research one of the five problems in writing presented on Wednesday. These examples from the ancient world represent different "problems" related to written media: loss in linguistic translation, information overload, dead languages, communication failures, the fragility of scrolls, and a reliance on writing instead of on memory. Your task is to represent these problems using digital media, including text, images, sound, maps, etc. As a team, present your work to the class in either an interactive timeline or a powerpoint presentation.

• This is a an exercise in "rapid research." We (Morris and Rachel) know something about each of these historical "problems," and we know that each problem is fascinating, but we don't know the answers. So this is not a guess-what-we-know-that-you-don't exercise. It's a real opportunity for small-scale research. We want your projects to be genuine investigations--in search of the nature of the problems, solutions that the historical participants came up with (e.g., ancient philosophers like Plato and Socrates, ancient Jews and Christians creating and transmitting information that was essential to their communal and religious lives, etc.), and the best concrete examples that arise in your research. Of course, standard sources of information (Wikipedia, books and articles, encyclopedia entries, etc.) will help. But the best projects will consult local experts: librarians in Rush Rhees, professors in the departments of Philosophy, Religion and Classics, a local rabbi with special expertise, etc. Or venture further: email an expert in California (only if you have a cogent question--experts aren't likely to respond to big general questions from strangers).

• As a team, present your work to the class in either an interactive timeline or a powerpoint presentation. Your grade won't be based on technical expertise, though of course that is always appreciated.

• In-class work days: Friday (2.6)

• Presentations: Thursday (2.12)

The Virtual Bookshelf

• Each team chooses for further study one of the early books that Pablo Alvarez assembled. Investigate the full history of the book from its origin to its current location by asking such questions as:

1. Who printed it, under what circumstances?
2. How can I recognize the physical object? What are its identifying characteristics? size, paper, font(s), binding, etc. (Examine a bookseller's catalogue for good examples of such bibliographical descriptions.)
3. What does it look like? Reproduce (with digital images) key aspects of the book.
4. Where did it come from? Map the provenance of the book from its place of origin to Rochester.

• Each team will create a "Time Map" to display the information for their book. The "Time Map" use the interactive timeline as a foundation, and includes geographic data as well. You will be able to chart your book's provenance over time and through space.

• Your "Time Map" should include images of your book. At this time, researchers must request digital images through the Rare Books Library. At a minimum, "Time Maps" should include a picture of the binding, the title page, and the most interesting page in the book.

• Workshop days: 2.27 (with Nora Dimmock), 3.6, 3.20

• Presentations: Thursday 3.26

The Frederick Douglass Letters

• Each person will transcribe one (or more) letters for the Frederick Douglass project, whose aim is to digitize all of the Douglass materials in their collection. Your transcription will be available online, for anyone to access.

• Transcriptions will ultimately be done in Dreamweaver, but you may begin by transcribing your letter into a Word document, or even by hand (with pencil and paper).

• In addition to the transcription, we are also asking you to do some light research about your letter. Who are the correspondents? What can you find out about the people or events mentioned in the letter? What is the historical context? The research will serve to verify that your transcription is correct, and may be included as explanatory notes in the final transcriptions.

• There are several goals for this project, the most obvious being your active participation in a digitization project. Our course readings have focused on the digitization of books, newspapers, journals, and magazines, but lots of effort is also being directed at historical materials, generating new avenues for scholarly inquiry and giving everyone access to important or interesting primary sources. This project also highlights the transmission of messages across media forms. You will be translating a handwritten letter into your own handwriting, perhaps into a word document, and finally into a HTML document that can be accessed on the web.

• Workshop days: 4.3, 4.10, 4.24

• Due Dates
  • Journal Entry: 4.17
  • Light Research: 4.24
  • Transcription (HTML files with explanatory footnotes): 4:29