Core Courses
TXTDS 402: Book Arts: Proseminar in Printing, Bibliography and Special Collections
Credits: 5
GE: A&H
For info and an add code, contact Professor Geoffrey Turnovsky
Description: This small seminar will offer students interested in the Textual Studies and Digital Humanities minor a chance to discover Special Collections and to get hands-on experience working with historical and archival materials as well as printing with a letterpress.
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TXTDS 403: Archives, Data, and Databases: Early Chinese Texts and Their Datafication. Offered jointly with: ASIAN 498 D
Credits: 5
GE: A&H and SSc
Instructor Professor Gian Duri Rominger
Description: This course combines the study of early Chinese texts, stemming from the pre-imperial and early imperial periods (up to 220 CE), with digital humanities tools and methods. It will provide an overview of a selection of the most classical pieces of premodern Chinese philosophy and literature. Additionally, this course will serve as an introduction to computational methods and digital tools in the study of Chinese texts. We will cover the challenges and rewards of working with premodern Chinese language materials using computer systems originally designed for contemporary Western languages and consider ways that digital humanities methods can lead to fresh insights in Chinese literature.
This course has three goals: it familiarizes students with early Chinese texts and some of the most pertinent trends in the study of early Chinese textuality; it teaches computational techniques applicable to other topics and fields; it proposes ways to think through premodern textual heritage in novel ways.
While this class will be taught in English, students will require some background knowledge of Chinese. No technical skills or programming experience are necessary for this course. For questions or an add code, contact text@uw.edu
Electives
TXTDS 267 A: Data Science and the Humanities
Offered jointly with: ENGL 267 A
Credits: 5
GE: A&H
Instructor: Professor Anna Preus
Description: Do humanistic questions have a place in the field of data science? Conversely, are methods from data science useful for the study of literary classics, famous works of art, or historical debates? And how can humanities approaches help us address issues of bias and exclusion in an increasingly technology-driven world? This course tackles such broad issues while offering an introduction to a range of approaches and methodologies within the growing field of humanities data science. Topics will include data bias, text digitization, digital archiving, data visualization, modeling, and computational analysis. During the course, we will work with and analyze a broad range of digital resources, including online libraries, digital editions, data visualization platforms, text analysis packages, and creative projects. We will use and analyze these digital tools and work with datasets. The final project will involve conducting an original analysis of a dataset using digital tools. This course will take place in person.
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ITAL 262 A: Dante’s Divine Comedy
Offered jointly with: C LIT 361 A
Credits: 5
GE: A&H
Instructor: Professor Beatrice Arduini
Description: Introduces Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Covers Dante’s journey through the afterlife. Explores questions about the nature of evil, the possibility for spiritual improvement, and the experience of true happiness. Identifies parallels with the modern day. Taught in English.
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AFRAM 360 A: Black Digital Studies
Credits: 5
GE: SSc and DIV
Instructor: Professor LaShawnDa Pittman
Description: Bridges and intersects two interdisciplinary fields – black studies and digital humanities. Attention to knowledge production. Role of archives, collections, research centers, the black press, and digital technology. Ideas related to power, memory, resistance, perspective and respectability politics in storytelling and control of the vehicles used to do so.
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ASIAN 498 D: Special Topics — Early Chinese Texts and their Datafication
Credits: 5
GE: A&H
Instructor: Professor Gian Duri Rominger
Description: This course introduces students to early Chinese texts, stemming from the pre-imperial and early imperial periods (up to 220 ce). It will provide an overview of some of the most classical pieces of premodern Chinese philosophy and literature, and introduce students to some of the most pertinent trends in the study of early Chinese literature.
Additionally, this course serves as an introduction to applying computational methods to study Chinese literature. It will familiarize students with various digital tools, algorithms, and datasets that have been recently developed, and we will utilize those to gain fresh insights into premodern Chinese literature.
We will cover the challenges and rewards of working with premodern Chinese language materials using computer systems originally designed for contemporary Western languages, and ways computational methods can expedite research in this area. No technical skills or programming experience are necessary for this course.
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TXTDS 503: Introduction to Data Science: Applications in Library Science and Humanities Research
Offered jointly with: LIS 572
Instructor: Professor Melanie Walsh
Description: Textual archives and databases; their historical construction and role as mediators to the past, bringing light to and obscuring/reshaping the past. Digitization of archives and repositories. Transformation of historical texts into data, which can be searched, processed, and analyzed in new ways. Techniques for building, organizing, and analyzing archives and databases.
Course counts towards the Graduate Certificate in Textual and Digital Studies.