I’m proposing a discussion-y session on the role of the physical in the digital humanities. I’m coming at this as someone with an interest in the material history of books and texts and who works mostly with physical library collections. But I’d love to have a broad conversation about the physical structures/formats that we use to do digital work [ie. hardware, work spaces, etc.] and the way we account for and represent the physical attributes of objects when we create digital surrogates. We could also talk about physical computing and get theoretical about possibilities like what Gary Frost calls the “interdependence of paper and screen,” digital metaphors of physicality, and more. I’d love comments/additions/ideas!

A couple jumping-off points:

Trettien and Elish. “Acts of Translation: Digital Humanities and the Archive Interface.” MIT 6 Conference, 2009

“It’s time to bridge the gap between the physical and the virtual—time to use more than just your fingers to interact with your computer. Step outside of the confines of the basic computer and into the broader world of computing.”
— Tom Igoe, Physical Computing

If anyone would like to talk about project management, I would love to be in on that conversation. I would like to hear about what has worked successfully and what hasn’t.

I would like to propose a session on crowd sourcing. I would like to talk about what sorts of projects people are crowd sourcing and the tools they use.

I’m interested in sessions that might cover the teaching/study of literature and writing using such  digital techniques as text analysis, data visualization and databases.

We propose a session devoted to conversation between librarians, technologists, and digital humanists.  For digital humanists, what support could librarians and technologists provide that would help you in your research and teaching?  For librarians and technologists, what can grad students and faculty do that would help you help them with digital projects?

– Chris J. and Julia B., Grinnell College

Online Learning is of course a hot topic in education of all levels and likely intersects in some fashion with all of our work/academic lives. Would people be interested in discussing this topic as it pertains to student learning? I’d be interested in people’s experiences with this or other forms of asynchronous instruction, as well as real time teaching that more closely approximates in-classroom lecture and discussion.

This could either be during a specific session(s) or run self-serve throughout the camp.

Stop by the DRP tutorial room to lay down a small chuck of your knowledge on video! Record a few-minute screencast on any subject in your realm of expertise or you feel comfortable teaching other participants. No idea too big or too small! A computer with easy-to-use screen capture software, a web browser, office software, and microphone will be provided.

Know something about how Heidegger sees poetry and technology as two contrasting ways of “revealing?”

Have thoughts on Node.js’s implementation of the observer pattern using the EventEmitter class?

Know where to look to find writing about the Second Great Awakening in Jacksonian Era African-American newspapers?

Ideas don’t have to be complex or grand. Just share a few minutes of your knowledge and at the end we’ll see how we overlap and diverge. It could be fun.

A comment from Florence Boos:

I think I’ll be looking for sessions on digital archives, data management and software for literary sites which contain manuscript material.