NewtFire logo: a mosaic rendering of a firebelly newt
newtFire {dh}
Maintained by: Elisa E. Beshero-Bondar (eeb4 at psu.edu) Creative Commons License Last modified: Monday, 03-Nov-2025 14:09:14 UTC. Powered by firebellies.

Fall 2025: Classes meet M W F 10:10 – 11am in Lilley Library 006

Read the Course Description

This contains a detailed explanation of course policies and the basis for grades.

Jump Down to the Schedule

This link jumps to the closest day to today's date. Review the schedule as we get started to get a sense of how this course will work on a daily basis.

Quick links to digital resources

Week 1 Class topics Do before class

M 08-25

 ...

W 08-27

 Read The Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0 and check out who wrote it.

F 08-29
  • Digging into the DH manifesto: contexts/commentary
  • Introduce Livingstone Online exploration assignment
 Set up Hypothes.is account and complete first annotation assignment. Re-read up close (text and image) and annotate with Hypothes.is (Detailed guidance posted on Canvas): The Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0 Context/Metadata: ~2009.
Week 2 Class topics Do before class

M 09-01

 Labor Day Holiday: No classes. ...

W 09-03

 Livingstone Online exploration assignment

F 09-05
  • Discussion of Warsame and this essay’s importance for Digital Humanities: Lived experience and historic significance.
  • Data visceralization. Explore Mimi Onuoha’s The Library of Missing Datasets
  • Curating, mapping, visualization.
 Read and annotate with tags: Khalid Warsame, “This Vast Conspiracy of Memory” Published in Spring 2019 Meanjin Quarterly
Week 3 Class topics Do before class

M 09-08
  • In-class exercise on Dear Data. Launch the longer-range assignment on personal data collection and visualization
  • View videos and images of the Dear Data Project
  • Discussion Exercise (Canvas) Before class, take three screen captures of three hand-crafted/humanized data visualizations from anywhere on the Dear Data site (including video content) that particularly struck you. In your discussion post post the images and comment on what is being shown and why does it seem memorable?

W 09-10
  • Recording worthwhile missing data in our tech systems: what matters to document?
  • Exporting and surveying your entries from Hypothes.is

F 09-12
  • Approval/Launch of class Dear Data Visualizations
  • Explore Data by Design interactive site.
  • Preview/form teams for VARIA project next week.
  • Revise, if necessary, Dear Data proposal
Week 4 Class topics Do before class

M 09-15

 VARIA Lab activity Part 1: with Dr. Liebe and VARIA lab team Dr. B is attending the TEI Conference in Kraków this week. Start recording: Dear Data: Your Week of Visualization

W 09-17

 VARIA Lab activity Part 2: with Dr. Liebe and VARIA lab team VARIA lab 3D scanning exercise

F 09-19

 VARIA Lab activity Part 3: with Dr. Liebe and VARIA lab team VARIA 3D Annotation Assignment due
Week 5 Class topics Do before class

M 09-22

 Introduce Frankenstein: A Digital Variorum Edition Complete Dear Data: Your Week of Visualization

W 09-24
  • Tracking changes: Reading/visualizing variation
  • Looking at markup data under the hood of a digital humanities project
 Frankenstein Variorum variant discovery exercise

F 09-26
  • Install oXygen XML Editor, prepare for markup and code orientation
Week 6 Class topics Do before class

M 09-29

 Learning the code syntax of eXtensible Markup Language: elements and attributes. XML and HTML XML Markup Exercise 1

W 10-01

 XML: Markup of data and metadata structures XML Markup Exercise 2: emphasis on nesting elements and adding attributes

F 10-03

 Tracking changes! Orientation to git, GitHub, and version control Annotate readings: Intro to Git and Version Control Systems
Week 7 Class topics Do before class

M 10-06
  • Orientation to Command Line and Git
  • Cloning a repo.
  • Demonstration: Pushing and pulling files.
 Git/GitHub assignments:
  • Expose file extensions setting on your computer
  • GitHub account setup, join class GitHub repo/organization

W 10-08
  • Mindful file management and upkeep with git/GitHub.
  • Git at command line: getting git in your fingers: Terms and concepts: local vs. remote
    • Where to use the git commands
    • git status
    • When you have to git pull
    • Staging new local stuff with git add
    • git commit -m "You describe what's in here"
    • git push

F 10-10
  • Tech for publishing a website: content management systems, servers, GitHub
  • Look at a website under the hood: HTML, CSS, image files in a folder
  • XML vs HTML: Similar syntax, different purpose! Semantic vs. layout code. Structure of an HTML file.
  • GitHub Pages with the docs/ directory and index.html: Organizing files for a website in a git repository
  • Introduce the Comparative Web Development Assignment and content for portfolio sites.
Week 8 Class topics Do before class

M 10-13
  • Code an HTML file and view it a browser.
  • HTML elements and attributes tutorial
  • HTML Exercise 1 (orientation to HTML) and HTML Exercise 1.5 (Setting up GitHub Pages)
  • Reading / annotation with Hypothes.is: article on Tim Berners-Lee and the invention of the internet (PDF | Interenet Archive).

W 10-15
  • HTML elements and attributes tutorial, continued
  • How HTML points to files: absolute and relative file references:
    • links
    • images
  • Where will you work on your website? Your computer, campus labs, maintaining the same folders multiple places.
  • Organizing file directories for website development
 HTML Exercise 2: a file directory of at least two HTML files with at least one image and two links, using relative file associations.

F 10-17

 CSS for styling:
  • Separation of concerns
  • Storing a separate CSS file, and the <link> line to associate it on HTML pages
 HTML Exercise 3: HTML and CSS
Week 9 Class topics Do before class

M 10-20

 HTML / CSS, mindful file management, and publishing a website
  • Start series of Command Line and Web Lore Quizzes on Canvas
  • HTML / CSS / GitHub Exercise 4

W 10-22

 Website Development Lab: Spotlight on CSS
  • Reminder: Where to write your CSS: separation of concerns for styling and content
  • Look at the CSS Zen Garden: same HTML content styled several different ways with different CSS
  • Controlling image size display
  • Controlling page layouts: HTML container elements with CSS flex containers
 ...

F 10-24

 Web production work day: git/GitHub, HTML CSS Website Development Milestone for Comparative Web Development Assignment
Week 10 Class topics Do before class

M 10-27
  • Website debugging lab
  • Resolving GitHub Pages issues
  • Orientation to PSU Wordpress and Penn State web hosting services. How to transfer and edit content on the Wordpress site
 Website development for Comparative Web Development Assignment

W 10-29
  • Reflective Essay page of Comparative Website Development
  • Arranging for other pages to be added to your navigation menu
  • Website Accessibility Readings and Workshop
 Review the following readings: Apply two things you learn from them to your design of one of your websites (and comment in Canvas on what you are doing or want to do to apply them to your site):

F 10-31

 Wordpress and GitHub Pages site development Wordpress Milestone assignment
""
Week 11 Class topics Do before class

M 11-03
  • Review and discuss website previews and final checks before submission
  • Introduce Natural Language Processing (NLP) and N-gram analysis: Google Ngram viewer
  • Intro/testing out Voyant Tools and Antconc
"

W 11-05
  • Antconc orientation exercise
  • Selecting texts and corpora to compare
 Due by the end of the day: Comparative Web Development Assignment due: Check:
  • Prepare the same website content on GitHub Pages and Wordpress
  • The same reflective essay should be posted on each site
  • The reflective essay on GitHub Pages links to the reflective essay on Wordpress (and vice versa).

F 11-07
  • NLP and AI Discussion / Exercise
  • NLP in digital humanities for analysis vs. text generation
 Readings/annotations on NLP and AI: Mark Riedl, The Intuition Behindhow Large Language Models Work
Week 12 Class topics Do before class

M 11-10

 Setting up your text lab for comparative analysis
  • Organizing and re-naming photo files for your review and web writing
  • Looking for popular patterns
  • Looking for words / grams of interest in ngrams
  • Tracking an interesting n-gram from one corpus to the other
 Choose your text corpora to investigate for the Corpus Analysis assignment.

W 11-12

 Expanding scope, testing, and re-testing:
  • How to inspect your text corpora: KWIC concordance and plot views
  • Comparative analysis: Looking for one corpus’s popular n-gram in the other corpus
 Set up GitHub repo for comparative text analysis of your corpora and work on storing, naming, organizing screen-captures

F 11-14
  • Introduce final Game Analysis Project: Survey game options
  • Analysis reflection/development: What do you see and what could it mean?
    • Raising meaningful questions vs. drawing convenient conclusions
    • Looking stuff up: What contexts do you need?
 Milestone for Corpus Analysis Project
Week 13 Class topics Do before class

M 11-17
  • Upcoming Game Analysis Project: Tolkien reading for next class
  • Corpus Analysis draft workshop:
    • What more is needed?
    • Blocking and layout of legible and captioned screenshots for the website
    • Every set of pictures followed by a paragraph discussing what to notice.

W 11-19
  • Discussion of Leaf by Niggle
  • Setting up a simple network analysis with Kumu.io
  • Reading/Annotation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Leaf by Niggle (before class)

F 11-21

 Orientation to network statistics and styling a network in Kumu.io
  • Kumu.io network of Leaf by Niggle
  • Select, download, and install game to play and analyze for Game Analysis Project
Week 14 Class topics Do before class

Sun 11-23 – Sat 11-29

 Thanksgiving Holiday Have a peaceful and productive week!
Week 15 Class topics Do before class

M 12-01

 Developing a network for a game as you play it. Example of the Palermo game Game play / analysis

W 12-03

 Network analysis: Kumu Networks and organization / visualization options. Game Analysis.
  • Starter Kumu network analysis exercise

F 12-05

 Reviewing a game for user experience Milestone: Game Review notes
Week 16 Class topics Do before class

M 12-08
  • Organizing network visualizations: Network statistics and styles
  • Including/Embedding your network visualization (and other visualizations this semester) on your website

W 12-10
  • Web Portfolios and Game Reviews.
  • Dracula and the strange past and present of copyright
  • Remixing, Copyright, and Creative Commons license for your website
  • Game Analysis Development
  • Select and embed a Creative Commons license on your website

F 12-12

 Last Day! DIGIT Works event ...
Finals Week: 12/15 – 12/19 Due

T 12-16

 Final assignment: Game Analysis Project due by 11:59pm