The Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (ECDS) is pleased to announce the details of the 2016 Spring Digital Scholarship Residency! Dr. Stephen Ross from the University of Victoria will be in residence at ECDS on the 3rd floor of Woodruff library for a research talk and a pedagogy workshop on March 2nd and 3rd. Both events are free and open to the public – and offer light refreshments!
Reading the Mind of Modernism
Wednesday, March 2nd from noon-1pm in the Jones room
Dr. Ross will present a research talk entitled “Reading the Mind of Modernism” focusing on his work with the Linked Modernisms project on Wednesday, March 2nd from noon-1pm in the Jones room on the 3rd floor of Woodruff Library.
Abstract: One of the essential problems that face those of us who wish to understand modernism in global terms is the challenge of superabundant material versus a relative deficit of time, resource, and ability. No one of us can ever possibly know enough to be able to answer questions about relationships and influences among people, places, techniques, movements, works, events, and so forth outside a vanishingly small field of inquiry. And yet if we could combine our knowledge, we would be able to answer many more questions about the circuits of exchange and circulation that made modernism a global phenomenon in the first place. Linked Modernisms aims to let us read the mind of global modernism by creating an ‘n-dimensional’ interface for exploring modernism. Users can move among entities of varying types (people, artifacts, techniques, events, places) from anywhere in the world and in any discipline. It lets us map relationships among entities and discover unguessed-at connections. It lets us ask questions to which we not only don’t know the answers, but to which we are not even sure there are answers. I will demonstrate Linked Modernisms, discuss its particularly modernist affordances, and present some sample searches. I conclude by suggesting some future directions for development and inviting audience members to begin formulating their own queries in a hands-on finale.
Download/View the Research Talk flyer and distribute!
Geo-Spatial Tools and City Novels
Thursday, March 3rd from 10:30am-noon in Room 312
On Thursday, March 3rd from 10:30am-noon in Room 312 on the 3rd floor of Woodruff Library, Dr. Ross will present a workshop focused on pedagogical techniques, geo-spatial tools, and ‘city novels,’ “works which not only take place in particular cities, but in which the city features as a significant element in the story” (note: the pedagogy workshop requires registration: tinyurl.com/stephenrossworkshop).
Abstract: In this workshop, I elaborate upon the potential of using geo-spatial tools for the study of ‘city novels.’ ‘City novels’ are those works which not only take place in particular cities, but in which the city features as a significant element in the story; they could not take place just anywhere. One of the biggest challenges facing teachers of such works is to get students to move beyond simply mapping the work onto an historical city, and to think about how the work constructs the city in its own terms. In an attempt to facilitate engagement with such issues, we have developed a new tool, the Z-Axis tool. The Z-Axis tool can be used to distort historical maps by creating visualisations of place-name frequency across a given text. The result is a visualisation of how prominently specific places are invoked over the course of a work. Participants will work with the tool from the outset, selecting the novels they want to work on, processing them with the tool’s Natural Language Processor, editing the results, and generating multiple visualizations. The results will be compared with static demographic historical maps showing birth and death rates, economic status, etc., and we will conclude by learning how to compare such maps with the warped maps we have produced with the Z-Axis tool.
Download/View the Pedagogy Workshop flyer and distribute!
Map & Directions
540 Asbury Circle, Atlanta, Georgia 30322
For driving directions, visit the Emory University’s Directions to Campus page.
Dr. Stephen Ross is Associate Professor of English and Cultural, Social, and Political Thought at the University of Victoria. Follow Dr. Ross on Twitter @ghostprof and ECDS at @EmoryCDS.
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