Looking for classes to take this fall? Consider one that will help you collect, analyze, or visualize humanities data! Learn what network graphs can reveal about Chinese history, experiment with digital tools to study your own writing style, and more. See below for a list of classes related to the digital humanities.

If you are teaching a course connected to DH and would like it included, please email the Digital Humanities Lab.

Advanced Web Application Development in the Digital Humanities

CPSC 376
Benedict Brown

Advanced applications of computer and data science in the humanities, including web technologies, visualization, and database design. Students work in teams to develop a variety of applications proposed by faculty and staff from the Digital Humanities Lab, the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, and the Computer Science department. Meets with CPSC 376. Students may earn credit for CPSC 276 or 376; not both.

Prerequisite: CPSC 223 or equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Anthropology of Information

ANTH 570
Paul Kockelman

This course is about the digital and computational mediation of meaning. In some sense, it is about human-based significance in relation to machine-based sieving. We read classic works in media studies, cybernetics, computer science, semiotics, anthropology, and critical theory. Key topics include the relation between meaning and information; the relation between interpretation and computation; and the relation between interaction and infrastructure.

Archives: Histories, Practices, Theories, and Formations

AMST 853, FILM 806, WGSS 853
Laura Wexler

This seminar studies the co-constitution of objects-with-documents and undocumented people. We explore theoretical, historical, material, practical, methodological, and curatorial questions related to the operation and status of the archive in this migration of objects and people. Students are asked to work collaboratively in and with archives as sources and tools, and to experiment with creating archives of their own. The seminar involves some travel to Brown and some irregular hours that are mentioned in the syllabus.

Digital China: Using Computational Methods to Illuminate Society, Politics, Culture, and History

ANTH 405, EAST 403, SOCY 309
Charles Chang

• move to Spring 2019 semester

In the humanities and social sciences, those who study China face a vast volume of disparate information that ranges from historical archives and maps to the news and social media posts of our time. Such abundance and variety of data can seem daunting, quite beyond an individual’s capacity to digest, and yet, with appropriate concepts and methods, the data can be accessed and sorted out in such a way as to allow the researcher to address questions, hitherto neglected or insufficiently analyzed, in Chinese history, politics, society, and culture. The course has two components: seminar and workshop. In the seminar, we discuss the ideas and concepts behind the collection of data, which could be temporal, spatial, or textual; this is followed by an introduction to network analysis and visualization. In the workshop, students gain hands-on experience in the full actualization of a project. Note that although the course’s title is “Digital China,” its ideas and methods are applicable to other non-Western countries. Students whose research interest lies in, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, or Africa are welcome.

Introduction to Computing and Programming

CPSC 100
Benedict Brown

Introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and to the art of programming. Students learn how to think algorithmically and solve problems efficiently. Topics include abstraction, algorithms, data structures, encapsulation, resource management, security, software engineering, and web development. Languages include C, Python, SQL, and JavaScript, plus CSS and HTML. Problem sets inspired by real-world domains of biology, cryptography, finance, forensics, and gaming. See CS50’s website, https://cs50.yale.edu, for additional information.

No previous programming experience required. Open to students of all levels and majors.

Introduction to Web Application for the Digital Humanities

CPSC 276
Benedict Brown
DH Teaching Fellow, Yoni Nadiv

Introduction to applications of computer and data science in the humanities, including web technologies, visualization, and database design. Students work in teams to develop a variety of applications proposed by faculty and staff from the Digital Humanities Lab, the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, and the Computer Science department. Meets with CPSC 376. Students may earn credit for CPSC 276 or 376; not both. Humanities graduate students with an interest in digital humanities are heartily welcomed in this class with permission of their DGS.

Prerequisite: CPSC 110, CPSC 112, equivalent programming experience, or permission of the instructor.

Literary Theory

CPLT 881, ENGL 960, WGSS 960
Marta Figlerowicz and Jonathan Kramnick

What is literary theory today, and what is its history? The aim of the course is to introduce students to central concepts in theory and explore their relation to method. We examine the variety of approaches available within the field of literary studies, including older ones such as Russian formalism, New Criticism, deconstruction, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, as well as newer ones like actor-network theory and digital humanities research. We explore the basic tenets and histories of these theories in a way that is both critical and open-minded, and discuss their comparative advantages and pitfalls. The focus is on recurrent paradigms, arguments, and topics, and on transhistorical relations among our various schools of literary-theoretical thought. Readings might include work by René Wellek, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Gayatri Spivak, Bruno Latour, Judith Butler, Northrop Frye, Fred Moten, and many others.

Literature and the Future, 1887 to the Present

ENGL 287
R. John Williams
DH Teaching Fellow, Tyler Lutz

A survey of literature’s role in anticipating and constructing potential futures since 1887. Early Anglo-American and European futurism during the years leading up to World War I; futures of speculative fiction during the Cold War; futuristic dreams of contemporary cyberpunk. What literature can reveal about the human need to understand both what is coming and how to respond to it.

Literature Seminars: Good Literature

ENGL 115
Ryan Wepler
DH Teaching Fellow, Elizabeth Krontiris

Exploration of major themes in selected works of literature. Individual sections focus on topics such as war, justice, childhood, sex and gender, the supernatural, and the natural world. Emphasis on the development of writing skills and the analysis of fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction prose.