This fall, the Digital Scholarship Group (DSG) continued its work with the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities (DH) program, collaborating once again with instructor Angie Picone, Assistant Professor of History, on the introduction to DH course. This foundational class introduces students—most of them new to DH—to core concepts and methodologies. Last year, the course underwent a redesign led by Dr. Picone and DSG member Antonio LoPiano, who coordinates the department’s role in the certificate program. Their collaboration produced a restructured curriculum that balances critical inquiry with hands-on practicums designed and led by DSG members. The new approach has quickly proved successful: student learning and interest have grown, registration requests now exceed available seats, and students enter the capstone course better prepared.

In the latest iteration of the course, the DSG further refined its practicums and began joining class discussions to help ease the transition from theory to practice. Combining both presentation and workshop elements, the practicums introduce students to essential tools while showcasing a wide range of DH methodologies and their applications to research subjects, opening students’ minds to new possibilities. They span techniques from TEI to 3D modeling and nearly everything in between. Highlights include Joanna Schroeder’s session, which demonstrated the potential of primary sources as data by guiding students through the conversion of Catholic Almanac textual records into tabular form for analysis; Dave Thomas’s practicum on network analysis, using Anglo-Saxon charters to reveal connectedness and regionality within and between monastic communities; and Antonio’s GIS session, mapping Suetonius’s accounts to analyze the Imperial building programs of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula. In a strong example of how collaboration across the Libraries can enrich instruction, Ashlyn Stewart and Melanie Hubbard partnered with Marta Crilly from the Burns Library on a hands-on session exploring the use of archival materials in DH projects. Students discussed how to incorporate primary sources into DH work, covering topics from data extraction to preservation through digital editions.

Currently, the students—a wonderfully engaged group—are developing their final projects with our support. These projects are designed to be modest, experimental, and exploratory, though some students are pursuing more ambitious paths. One is constructing a 3D model of Soviet-era housing to explore how spatial development, shaped by national policy, influenced residents’ lived experience, while another is conducting a text analysis of rhetoric and sentiment surrounding trans people in conservative media. Text encoding has been especially popular this year, with two students creating XML/TEI-encoded digital editions: one juxtaposes sections from two translations of The Odyssey with Madeline Miller’s Circe, while the other draws on chapters from The Colored American’s serialized version of Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood. Other projects employ GIS, network analysis, data visualization, and virtual exhibits, together representing a well-rounded sample of the methodologies introduced throughout the semester. Through this work, students are grappling with the complexities and requirements of their chosen methods and subjects, fostering a deeper understanding of DH project design and planning, and laying the groundwork for their capstone project to come.