Welcome especially to students. I’m so looking forward to working with you!
Here’s a video introducing the class
HIST/HSTM/LIS/WGS 4073/5073
Fall 2023
University of Oklahoma
Prof. Caroline T. Schroeder, Ph.D. (“Dr. S”)
ctschroeder[at]ou.edu
Student Hours
M 3-4 pm Central
Th 1:30-2:30 pm Central
or make an appointment
Student Hours are on Zoom
Description
This course uses methods from digital humanities, media studies, and data science to explore cultural heritage — the histories, literature, art, and artifacts of our world’s cultures. It particularly focuses on cultural heritage in digital public spaces: websites, social media, etc. No prior experience with computer programming is necessary.
Questions we will ask include: Has digital media changed our relationships with cultural heritage – our histories, literatures, artifacts? What does it mean to treat cultural heritage as “data”? Whose heritage is saved in our new digital worlds? What technologies do we use to study cultural heritage?
Note: this course is cross listed across multiple departments and is highly interdisciplinary, which is super fun!
Learning Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, undergraduate and graduate students will be able to:
- identify and articulate in writing questions and issues relevant to digital cultural heritage research (discussion leader assignment)
- build and maintain a public, digital platform for publishing cultural heritage material or the study of cultural heritage material (personal cultural heritage blog)
- communicate in writing analyses of critical questions about cultural heritage and technology, including questions involving race, colonialism, and privacy issues (weekly class blog discussions + critical-analytical reflection post on personal blog)
- apply four or more appropriate technologies for cultural heritage research purposes (labs)
- identify a cultural heritage research question and develop and/or implement a plan to use one or more technologies to research that cultural heritage research question (project)
Technology
To be successful in this course, students will need access to a computer (laptop or desktop) and high speed internet access every week during the semester. If this is a challenge for you, please let me know, and I can see what resources there might be.
Required Readings and Course Materials
- Roopika Risam, New Digital Worlds. You can buy it in print, buy it as an ebook, or use the OU Library ebook.
- Articles, readings, and videos online (in Canvas or on links on the course schedule)
- Lab tutorials and software (handouts or links on the course schedule on this website)
WGS Department Student Learning Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Understand and critically engage with the intersectionality of categories of social difference (such as gender, sexuality, race, class, language, ethnicity, nation, empire, and [dis]ability), which are always shifting and shaped by structures of power and oppression.
- Identify the potential of transdisciplinary collaborations and the tendencies of traditional academic disciplines to reproduce patterns of inequity.
- Create original research, identify salient research questions, critically evaluate primary and secondary sources, while demonstrating knowledge of and rationale for feminist, queer, and decolonial research methods.
- Develop critical thinking, reading, and writing skills.
- Demonstrate media and information literacy.
- Apply skillsets developed in WGS to life outside and beyond the university, including but not limited to professional pathways.