I am a big user/creator and general fan of technology and I want to listen and learn about how people in a very different discipline interact with and use technology.
I am a researcher at Queen’s University in the field of Computer Vision, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. I am an avid technology user and big supporter/believer of Open Source (everything…).
Henry joins us from Mathematics at Queen’s!
I’d like to understand more about the humanities side of “digital humanities”, since I feel that I have more understanding of the digital part than the humanities part.
My background: I’ve done a bunch of work on Free software, mostly for the KDE project. I did a Google summer of code project for the KStars planetarium on rewriting the graphics system. I’m particularly interested in the intersection of free software and free culture, and all these sorts of tangential issues around copyright, access to knowledge, and in particular control/surveillance/censorship of networks.
Ryan is an independent researcher in History and Medieval Studies who will join us for THATCamp!
As a grad student transitioning from a background in Medieval Studies into research that examines how historians can engage the public through digital and web technologies, I believe that attending QueensU THATCamp will expand my knowledge of all things digital and allow me to meet other scholars interested in the digital humanities.
My academic background stems from very traditional Medieval Studies training (i.e., Latin and paleography). Towards the end of my MA I became fascinated by the digital humanities and have embraced this new field whole-heartedly. I now research how technology and the web can be used to engage and empower the public to take an active role in history.
Ian will join THATCamp from Classics at Queen’s:
With an interest in multi-spectrum photograph and reflectography I have been able to apply these techniques to the fields of archeology and art conservation. Coming from the photography side, I am hoping to learn why and how certain wave lengths of light – not in the visible spectrum – react to different pigments, minerals and materials. I would like to show how I can give people the opportunity to see underneath the top layer of paint in a painting but at the same time I am hoping to learn more about the technical side of this process.
I first came into the humanities hoping to find a field of study I can feel passionate about, and I have, studying the history of the classical era. As Žižek would say, to love one thing is to hate everything other than it, so I do not have blinders on when it comes to learning new things. I have committed myself to studying classics but in my free time I enjoy everything from learning about astrophysics, studying the complex and interesting history of the nuclear bomb and reading post-apocalyptic fiction, among other things.
There’s one week left until THATCamp QueensU, and session proposals have been coming in!
Remember that proposals are due on Tuesday, February 5th. The Session Proposals page contains full instructions for how to submit your proposals and all registrants will have received an email prompt for proposals.
“…whenever computer mediated communications technology becomes available to people anywhere, they inevitably build virtual communities with it” -Howard Rheingold
Social media is everywhere in 2013. More and more people are carrying around mobile platforms, tools which are giving them the means to stay in constant contact with ever-broader networks. The implications of contact between new collaborative media (such as Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter) and traditional one-to-many media (such as radio, newspapers, and network TV) are only beginning to come to light, and so they make for an interesting object of research for humanities researchers. Specifically, the impact of new media on the established social discourse surrounding the political, journalistic, artistic, and academic fields is an intersection worth exploring as we look for new ways to share our research.
In this proposed Play/Talk session, participants are invited to help create a machine à tweets : a social network constructed collaboratively from paper, pushpins, pens, pictures, and strings. In addition to their joint creation of a unique visual object, which will incorporate text, colour, and space, participants will be invited to engage in a moderated discussion, identifying similarities and differences between on- and off-line social networks, and considering what these comparisons and contrasts can tell us about the on- an off-line media environments we are a part of.
Marc Rowley is a graduate researcher and MA candidate in Littératures francophones et résonances médiatiques, whose thesis research explores resonances between the social critique function of the 20th century comic novel and that of 21st century tweets.
May will join us from Cultural Studies at Queen’s!
I’m a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Queen’s. My dissertation deals with the uses of interactive and immersive technologies in Canadian museums, and more specifically, how cultural citizenship happens through one’s bodily interactions with museum (and national) archives. More generally, my interests include: museums & technologies, affect, phantasmagoria, and Canadian multiculturalism & postcolonialism. This semester, I’m also teaching a fourth year film class on Canadian cinema and multiculturalism.
Laura from History and Classics at Queen’s will be joining the conversation!
I’d love to hear from other disciplines in the humanities about how technology (and its speed of change) is affecting their work or studies. I would love to hear how other students/scholars/teachers working in other areas of the humanities are dealing with the rapid change of our ability to access and communicate information. As a medievalist, this has particular relevance as my discipline has jumped feet first into the world of digital humanities during the past few years, a trend not all scholars think is beneficial. I would like to discuss how technology is changing our ability to access “established” scholarly information (articles, journals, texts). Particularly in medieval studies, the “digitization” of manuscripts has been a much discussed topic in recent years. This may be a boon in terms of widening the availability of fragile and often unavailable texts; however, the downsides of these projects have only started to emerge (damage to the manuscript, cost to the library, etc.) Additionally, many projects in medieval history have attempted to capitalize on the burgeoning field of the digital humanities in an attempt to make medieval history “relevant”. I’d like to weigh the success of these numerous projects and how they have either aided or perhaps even restricted our ability to analyze primary and secondary sources.
I am a postdoctoral researcher at Queen’s, jointly appointed within the history and classics department. My research looks at the adoption and adaptation of written language from late antiquity to the Carolingian period (5th-9th centuries). In particular, I examine changes to the “technology of the written word” during this period, looking at the advent of the book (“codex”), changes and advances in handwriting, and widening literacy among medieval populations. The technological revolution that characterizes this period in medieval history mirrors our society’s current state of change with regard to the advent of the e-reader or IPad, drastically altering how we exist as a literate society.
Jeremy will be joining us from Queen’s Archives!
I am interested in the relationship between digital humanists and archives, and how archivists can better assist in the preparations and proposals for digital humanities projects.
I have been an archivist at Queen’s for nearly 12 years, with a focus on private manuscripts, electronic records, digitization and all things technical. My main area of research is on the long-term preservation of electronic records (both born-digital and digitized). My spare time is usually spent lately building Lego mashups of Star Wars and Harry Potter.
A very warm welcome to Heather from Queen’s Archives!
I work as an archivist at Queen’s and we are involved in a number of digital initiatives and humanities projects. I am interested in hearing what others have to say on the topic: what they imagine, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked. I anticipate sharing some of our experiences and talking about considerations when undertaking digital humanities projects from an archival perspective.
I am an archivist predominantly working with private/personal records (those of individuals) at Queen’s University. I have a background in cultural studies and English, and enjoy working with students introducing them to the value and potential of the archival record.
