This Friday! A report from DH Conference 2013 (Nebraska) by Toby Burrows

We're excited to be back from hiatus! Over the past few months we've enjoyed IAS Digital Humanities masterclasses from Harold Short and Paul Arthur, along with a keynote from Alan Liu. With the DHA 2014 conference being held in Perth between 18-21 March 2014 it's an exciting time to be exploring this dynamic field.

Here are four things you should know:

1. Our next meeting will be held 2-3pm on Friday 4 October - A report from DH 2013 (Nebraska) by Toby Burrows

Toby attended DH2013 at the University of Nebraska in July and will be reporting on some of the highlights, with particular emphasis on 'get involved' activities including; DH Commons, GO-DH, Around DH in 80 Days, ADHO Special Interest Groups and 4humanities.org. We're keen to encourage DH experimentation and outcomes from the Digital Antipodes in 2014 and this session should offer plenty of ideas to help those new to the field to tip their toe in the water.

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IMPORTANT: Please note the  venue for our DH session this Friday 4 October (2-3pm) has changed.
We will be meeting at the UWA iVEC facility which is located on the ground floor of the Physics building (entrance opposite the Reid Library or through the main Physics foyer). The iVEC team have generously offered us the use of their boardroom for this meeting.

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Toby has also suggested a thought-provoking reading for us all.
Dr Anne Galloway, 5 Things About Ubiquitous Computing That Make Me Nervous, The Design Culture Lab, March 31, 2013 (accessed 27 Sept 2013)

2. Don't miss the final IAS Digital Humanities Masterclasses for 2013!
Reading on/and Digital Platforms: A Digital Humanities Research Seminar with Dr Tully Barnett, Research Fellow, Creative Arts, Flinders University (21 Oct)
RSVP today!

Your chance to engage in debates surrounding digital texts.

 "Sven Birkerts reminds us that the human brain has been shaped by print and by the level of attention required for the long form of the book, and he argues that to do away with the book is to lose our humanity. Katherine Hayles tells us that other forms of reading can bring on dynamic transformations in cognition that do not need to be feared but can be embraced as complementary."

3. Rails Girls is coming to Perth! November 15 & 16.
Women are vastly under-represented in computer science and programming. Rails Girls aims to combat this by providing tools and a community for women to understand technology and to build their ideas - and it's coming to Perth! If you'd like to learn what it takes to build a simple web app, don't miss this free two-day workshop for women who want to learn to code. Beginners welcome. Applications are open until October 28th. I've signed up and I think you should too.

4. The call for papers for the DHA 2014 closes on Monday 30 September.
You still have a couple of days to submit an abstract for DHA2014! For those new to DH, the conference, which will be held in Perth, offers a fantastic opportunity to become more directly involved in this research area.

The call for papers for Digital Humanities Australasia 2014 is now open!

The University of Western Australia is proud to be hosting the 2014 Digital Humanities Australasia Conference.

The call for papers is now open!

Abstracts must be submitted by 14 September 2013. Explore conference themes and find out more about this exciting event.

Why should digital humanists attend #GovHack?

GovHack is a 48 hour national hackathon where teams compete to create mashups, visualisations and apps using government data.

It was a fantastic event and an amazing opportunity to put digital humanities into practice. I am very keen to register some UWA teams in 2014!

Our team created Pixtory - an iPhone app that allows users to uncover the hidden history around them. Pixtory collects and exposes geo-tagged historic photos from the State Library of WA's photographic archive. The result is an immersive experience that facilitates meaningful encounters with Perth's history and heritage.

We were incredibly proud to win the 'Spirit of GovHack' Award for the Perth event - a prize awarded to the team that demonstrated what GovHack is all about.

Vote for Pixtory in the GovHack People's Choice Awards!
You can vote up until Wednesday night (5th June 2013). All you need to do is register on the site, then log on, visit our team page and vote using the flames.
 

 Cross post from my blog (www.historypunk.com).

How is technology changing the way we tell stories? Next meeting: Friday 7 June, 2-3pm.

Frank Rose, The Art of Immersion

"Not long ago we were spectators, passive consumers of mass media. Now, on YouTube and blogs and Facebook and Twitter, we are media. What we're witnessing is the emergence of a new form of narrative that’s native to the Internet. Told through many media at once in a nonlinear fashion, these new narratives en­courage us not merely to watch but to participate, often engaging us in the same way that games do."  - Frank Rose, The Art of Immersion (2011)

How can researchers harness digital storytelling platforms to engage audiences, communicate new knowledge and promote social change? Can opportunities for co-creation empower communities to tell their own stories?

At our next meeting, Paul Houghton, Digital Strategist at Emergent Form, will lead a discussion on digital storytelling and provide an overview of several projects he has been working on with his team.

The session will run between 2-3pm in Arts 1.33 on Friday 7 June.

In preparation for the session, please take some time to explore the websites below:

• Australian Centre for the Moving Image
• The Centre for Digital Storytelling
• Digital Storytelling @ Queensland University: Creative Industries Faculty

You might also like to read:
Frank Rose, The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue and the Way We tell Stories, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2011.

What is linked open data and what does it do?

"It's a powerful tool for connecting previously unconnected resources and stories”
Out of the Trenches : A Linked Open Data Project

"We are familiar with traditional narratives. The web – especially the semantic web – offers something else. It is a work in progress, not fully formed, but that only makes it more exciting to explore."
Mosman Library (NSW): Doing our Bit 1914-1918, Local History Project




I've been trawling through historical datasets today in preparation for GovHack next weekend and my mind is reeling with possibilities. Or perhaps it is just reeling! Thinking about history through data is a new experience for me. It's a brand new way to engage with historical sources and I'm excited.

I'm a GovHack newbie so I've been spending my Sunday doing a bit of research to get a better idea of what is possible and came across a marvelous case study of linked/open data (above). It's a huge project of course - far outside the remit of a 48-hour hackathon - but it really highlights the power and potential of data to reveal new insights about the past. If you're interested in the idea of a semantic web, you can check out a summary of a session on linked data and meta-data that Digital Antipodes ran last year, hosted by UWA's own Toby Burrows.

The Out of the Trenches project aims to optimise WW1 digital historic records by allowing computers to understand complex relationships between data.

Join a conversation about Technology, Neoliberalism and Higher Education next Fri 17 May

Our next meeting is on Friday 17 May between 2-3pm (Arts1.33).

Join us for a discussion on digital humanities in the context of academic neoliberalisation.

To what extent does DH pose an oppositional force to neoliberalism and the corporatisation of the academy? To what extent is it complicit?  How might different DH projects differently operate in these political contexts, and with what implications? Are these even the right questions to ask?

Huge thanks to UWA historian, Ethan Blue, who suggested readings and provocations for discussion.

Readings for next week:

• Christopher Newfield, The Unmaking of the Public University, Harvard University Press, 2008. (Introduction, Chapter 8: Facing the Knowledge Managers & Conclusion). Please email johawkins@gmail.com for a PDF document.
• Tarak Barkawi, The Neoliberal Assault on Academia, Aljazeera, 25 Apr 2013.
• 'An Open Letter to Professor Michael Sandel From the Philosophy Department at San Jose State U', The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 May 2013.

UWA Humanities/Computer Science "Meet and Greet" - 11am, Friday 17 May.

When: Friday 17th May 2013, 11:00am – 12:00pm
Where: Computer Science & Software Engineering, Seminar Room 1.24
Light lunch provided. RSVP essential.

UWA historian Ethan Blue and CSSE researchers Rachel Cordell-Oliver and Yvette Harrap are leading an initiative to bring together academics from humanities/computer science to discuss possible collaborations...

"Like a handful of people in the Arts Faculty, I have been looking into the possibilities of work in the digital humanities. Yet because I lack the required computer science and programming skills, I contacted some of the good folks across campus in Computer Science and Software Engineering to gauge their interest in potential collaboration.  As it turns out, a number of the folks over there are interested in joining forces, too.

With that in mind, and with CSSE's Professor Rachel Cordell-Oliver and Yvette Harrap, we’ve arranged an informal “meet and greet” for people from Arts and from Computer Science at 11:00 AM, 17 May, in Computer Science and Software Engineering Seminar Room 1.24.

If you are interested in digital humanities and have a project in mind, please come along.  We’ll go around the table to introduce ourselves and briefly explain our projects, in hopes of finding others with related interests and complementary skills.  We will have lunch afterwards to continue the conversation, courtesy of our colleagues in computer science."

Researchers are invited to give a short (5 minute) overview of their research interests related to digital humanities. 

RSVP to Yvette Harrap at yvette.harrap@uwa.edu.au by Tuesday May 14th.