Note: The usual weekly schedule for this course is as follows:
Friday night before: unit and weekly introductory videos published. Any other weekly material marked TBA posted. View intro videos before you do the readings.
Tuesday: Discussion leaders post discussion posts about the readings on the student blog
Thursday: Everyone else posts responses on the student blog
Friday: Dr. S. will post a summary video. On some Fridays, “Labs and Building Blocks” assignments are due.
Links to assignments and videos typically will be posted the Friday night prior to the week listed on the syllabus. If you don’t see a link, then I haven’t updated the syllabus yet — hang tight until Friday night.
All students should do the assignments listed, except for anything under an “Additional Assignments” bullet point. “Additional Assignments” are optional for undergraduates and required for graduate students.
You can do any of the work for this class before the due dates as long as all the links are posted and you’ve done the prep work (for example, doing ALL weekly readings, websites, & videos before posting to the private student blog).
Assignments may change or shift depending on class needs. Check back here each week for the most up-to-date schedule.
Unit A: What is Cultural Heritage Data?
Week 1 8/24-28
Note: this week diverges from the weekly schedule, since everything is new, and you’re just getting started.
Introductory Video(s)
- Introduction to Course videos (25 min & 10 min)
- Introduction unit video (will be posted the previous weekend) (
5-10 min17 min [I will work on making them shorter!])
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Read the syllabus (this whole website)! There is a syllabus assignment due by Friday (earn one token for being on time – a very brief survey/poll- should take 5 min)
- Introduction & Section 1 only of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Cultural Heritage
- Amelia Acker and Tanya Clement, “Data Cultures, Culture as Data” (Introduction to a special journal issue) (read online or download pdf and read offline)
- Go to the CCP
- Read the entire landing page (scroll all the way down)
- Read the “About the Conventions” page under the Conventions menu tab
- Read the “About” page
- (please always refer to it as the CCP and the conventions as “Black Conventions” on your websites and the student blog; thank you)
- Go to the World Shakespeare Bibliography and the Folger Shakespeare Library
- Read both landing pages entirely
- Read the About page of the WSB
- Read the Online Resources page of the FSL (click around if you like!)
- Watch the lecture “Cultural Heritage Present and Future” by Columba Stewart (the annual National Endowment for the Humanities Jefferson lecture for 2019) ~47 minutes
Week’s Assignments: Getting to know each other
- Tuesday noon Central time: Join the Private Student Discussion Blog (earn one token for being on time)
- Write an introductory blog post by noon Wednesday (earn one token for being on time)
- By Friday noon
- respond to discussion questions on private student blog
- substantively respond to at least 4 intro posts on the blog (make a connection with the other person in some way)
- Don’t forget to do the syllabus assignment!
Week 1 Summary Video (updated 8/31 – prob with original video)
Week 2 8/31-9/4
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video on Themes
- Introductory Video on readings/assignments
- Christof Schöch, “Big? Smart? Clean? Messy? Data in the Humanities”
- Risam, Introduction
- “Dear Data” Project Introduction
- Websites (updated midnight Fri/Sat)
- Livingstone Online (mentioned in Risam)
- Don’t know Dr. Livingstone? Click on “Life and Times” and then “Life and Times: An Overview”
- Visit one or two other pages, such as
- “Life and Times” and then “Southern Africans and the Advent of Colonialism”
- “Spectral Imaging” and then “The Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project: An Introduction”
- A page of Mary Shelley’s Draft of Frankenstein (encoded in TEI text encoding mentioned in Schöck — see the intro video)
- click on each of the four little buttons shown below & see what happens
- Livingstone Online (mentioned in Risam)

Discussion
- Discussion Leader Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders listed on Canvas: none as of Fri 8/28, so Dr. S will post (email me if you want to move to this day)
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time) from everyone else; Discussion Leaders should respond to responses later (updated Fri 8/28).
Labs & Building Blocks Due Friday 11:59 pm Central Time
- Register your own domain on OUCreate
- Set up your skeleton website on OUCreate
Summary Video (click to expand window and play)
Unit B: New Digital Worlds
Week 3 9/7-9/11
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video about Themes & Concepts (17 min)
- Introductory Video about Assignments (5 min)
- “Archive” entry in Digital Pedagogies in the Humanities
- Risam chapter 1 pp. 23-25, 32-40, last paragraph on p. 46
- Risam chapter 2
- Websites (digital archives) (updated 9/3):
- INSTRUCTIONS:
- For each, read their landing page and “About” or description page
- If there is a way to search or browse, search or browse the items and think about issues in the readings and mentioned in the weekly video
- WEBSITES TO VISIT:
- Papers of the Revolutionary War Department
- Early Caribbean Digital Archives
- “Our Marathon” (mostly “born digital” – an archive of digital artifacts rather than historical objects that have been digitized)
- Indigenous Digital Archive
- INSTRUCTIONS:
- Additional assignments (optional for undergrads, required for grads):
- sections of chapter 1 omitted above
- Chicana por mi Raza
- NINES
Discussion
- Discussion Leader Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders DJ, BL, KN (as of 9/3)
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time from everyone else; DLs’ responses to responses can be later)
Get started on this unit’s Labs and Building Blocks due at the end of the unit
Summary Video on Week 3
Week 4 9/14-9/18
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video about Themes & Concepts
- Introductory Video about Assignments (link updated 9/16 – tech difficulties reported with 9/11 video)
- Risam, chapters 3 and 5 undergrads skip pp. 116-122
- Additional Readings (optional for undergrads, required for grads)
- pp. 116-122 Risam
- Risam, Chapter 4
- Websites
- Visit Around DH in 80 Days and visit 3 or 4 projects in different parts of the world; reference them in your discussion responses if at all possible
- Swift-Speare algorithmic predictive text poetry
Discussion
- Discussion Leader Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders n/a
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time from everyone else; DLs’ responses to responses can be later)
Bonus special event: Risam lecture
Summary Video (TBA)
- I can’t summarize anything better than the q&a thread on the blog this week. Go read that whole thread!
Labs & Building Blocks Due Friday 11:59 pm Central Time
- Class creates a “digital archive of archives” (instructions will post by Tues 9/8 2 am)
Unit C: Cultural Heritage Preservation in Black Digital Humanities
Week 5 9/21-25
Note: We will be having one or two guest lectures from CCP staff/creators in this unit. Please stay tuned for more information.
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video (23 min — also introduces the unit)
- Intro to Assignments Video (5 min)
- Kim Gallon, “Making a Case for the Black Digital Humanities“
- NOTE: the important stuff for this class starts with “The field of Black studies is nearing its fiftieth birthday…”
- Amy Earhart, “Can Information be Unfettered? Race and the New Digital Humanities Canon“
- Visit the Black Book Interactive Project
- About page (link above)
- the preliminary Database
- Transatlantic Slave Database (now called Slave Voyages)
- Read entire landing page and watch intro video
- Visit and read the About page and the Understanding the Database pages under the Trans-Atlantic and Intra-American menus
- Visit anything else you are interested in on the site
- Visit Freedom on the Move (Fugitive Slave Ad database)
- Read entire landing page and watch intro video
- Click on “Access the Database” and then read sample ads that display below or run a search
- (CCP moved to next week- edited 9/18)
Discussion
- Discussion Leader Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders AA, JB, KN (as of 9/18)
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time from everyone else; DLs’ responses to responses can be later)
Get started on this unit’s Labs and Building Blocks due at the end of the unit
Summary Video (6 min)
Week 6 9/28-10/2
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video on themes this week (18 min)
- Intro video on assignments (7 min)
- Nicole M. Brown et al., “Mechanized Margin to Digitized Center“
- Thoroughly explore the Black Press Research Collective (Home page, About page, and choose several pages under the Datavisualizations and Multimedia menu tab)
- Thoroughly explore La Gazette Royale and read Review of project La Gazette Royale
Thoroughly explore Songs without Words project(canceled 9/24)- Visit the CCP again. Read (moved from week of 7 — edited 9/24):
- Principles and Speakers Agreement under the About tab
- and consider the landing page for Corpora (under the Conventions tab) and click through to explore the Corpora
- Optional (added 9/26): computational Fugitive Slave Ads project
Discussion
- Discussion Leader Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders TA, SM, BS (as of 9/18)
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time from everyone else; DLs’ responses to responses can be later)
Get started on this unit’s Labs and Building Blocks due at the end of the unit
Summary Video (11 min)
Week 7 10/5-10/9
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video (17 min)
- Intro video on assignments (4 min)
- Amy Earhart, “Can We Trust the University? Digital Humanities Collaborations with Historically Exploited Cultural Communities“
- Return to the CCP; read: (moved from Week 5 and then 6 — edited 9/18 & 9/25)
- Introduction to the Conventions
- At least two other exhibits
- the Digital Records page; click through and read some records (either search using key words or click on the red buttons for lists of conventions with records)
- Visit these crowdsourcing project hubs. How do they work? Who is consulted in each project’s creation? Who can access the projects? Who can contribute to them? Who is preserving them?
- Zooniverse (About tab, Build a Project tab, and explore projects)
- Library of Congress By the People (Home page, About page, explore some campaigns)
- Smithsonian Digital Volunteers (Home page, About page, explore projects)
- Papyri.info (Home page, About Epidoc page, Search Navigator if you know ancient Greek or Coptic — don’t panic if you can’t navigate; instead discuss what happened in your blog post)
Discussion
- Discussion Leader Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders OB, ET, RJ (as of 9/18)
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time from everyone else; DLs’ responses to responses can be later)
Bonus special event: African Digital Storytelling Conference Thurs-Fri
Labs & Building Blocks Due Friday 11:59 pm Central Time
Summary Video (16 min)
Midterm Assignments
Week 8 10/12-16
Blogging Assignment
- Introductory Video (added 9/26)
- Landing page and menu for Blog established
- Blog post(s) on Units A-C (how many posts? See the course grading guidelines) due Wednesday 11:59 pm Central Time
- Comment on fellow students’ posts by Friday 11:59 pm
Project proposals due
- check the grading guidelines to see if you want/need to do a project
Week 8 Summary Video (same as Week 9 assignment info video)
Unit D: Indigenous Cultural Heritage and Digitization
Week 9 10/19-23
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video
- Week 9 Assignment Info video (same as Week 8 Summary video)
- Defining Indigeneity Video
- Jennifer Guiliano and Carolyn Heitman, “Difficult Heritage and the Complexities of Indigenous Data”
- “Introduction” to the “After the Return” Special Issue
-
“The Inuvialit Living History Project” OR “Zuni Cultural Heritage Materials in the Smithsonian Folklife Center“moved to week 10 on 10/15 - Edited 10/16 to reflect our prior work on Omeka: Visit Mukurtu including:
- the homepage
- the video What is a Digital Heritage Item?
- the video on Communities, Cultural Protocols, and Categories
- one or two projects in the Showcase
- consider how Mukurtu is similar to or different from Omeka — what does Mukurtu enable compared to Omeka?
Project Websites TBA(edited 10/16- no website assignment)- Additional Assignments
Discussion
- Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders JB & ET, TA, BL
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time) from everyone else
Earn Tokens at the Bonus Optional Special Event: OU Digital Humanities Symposium Thurs-Fri afternoons (preregister at the link!)
Get started on this unit’s Labs and Building Blocks due at the end of the unit
Summary Video
Week 10 10/26-30
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video (35 minutes — you can watch in two settings if you want!)
- Week 10 Assignments Video
- “The Inuvialuit Living History Project” OR “Zuni Cultural Heritage Materials in the Smithsonian Folklife Center” moved from Week 9 on 10/15
- Keynote lecture at the “After the Return” Conference (you can add closed captioning and can adjust the speed if you’d like)
DRKeynote2012_Enote from Sustainable Heritage Network on Vimeo.
- Download and play Indian Land Tenure game
- Download and play Beneath Floes game
- Additional Assignments
- Townsend, “Digital Archaeology and the Living Cherokee Landscape” on Canvas
Discussion
- Discussion Leader Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Friday
Tuesdaynoon Central Time)- Leaders RJ, DJ
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog
Thursday noonSunday midnight Central Time from everyone else; DLs’ responses to responses can be later)
Bonus Optional Special Event: “Collaboration” Digital Humanities Conference Thurs-Sat
Summary Video (5.5 min)
Unit E: Antiquities and 3D Cultural Heritage
Week 11 11/2-6
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video
- Introduction to weekly assignments video
- If you want a cheap immersive viewer that can be used with a smart phone, there are cardboard viewers for sale for as little as $15; see weekly video for how to use it (added 10/28)
- canceled
Seamus Ross, “Digital Humanities Research Needs from Cultural Heritage Looking Forward to 2025?” - Go to the Arc/k project website and read/explore:
- Mission and Process (watch the photogrammetry video)
- Palmyra
- Optional: check out other projects
- Denker, “Palmyra as it Once Was“
- Khunti, “The Problem of Printing Palmyra“
- Additional Assignments
- Read about crowdsourcing 3d reconstruction
- Optional: Read a Case Study of modeling churches in Turkey by Giorgio Verdiani
Discussion
- Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Monday 11:59 due to election, extension through Tuesday noon if you choose– changed 10/30 due to university election-day policy
Tuesday noon Central Time)- Leaders SM & BS
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time) from everyone else
Get started on this unit’s Labs and Building Blocks due at the end of the unit
Summary Video (none this week – Weeks 11 & 12 will be together next week)
Week 12 11/9-13
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video
- Video about assignments
- Erik Champion, “The Role of 3d Models in Virtual Heritage Infrastructures” (login to https://library.ou.edu to access)
- Explore Athens3d
- Explore the 3d Rome Coliseum
- Visit the Roman Forum
- Visit the Giza Plateau (rec’d by BS- thanks!)
- Additional Assignments
- Optional: For more information, see 3D Research Challenges in Cultural Heritage II
Discussion
- Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders DJ & KN
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time) from everyone else
Thursday 12-1: optional event on DH & archaeology as restorative justice with archaeologist working on the Tulsa Race Massacre. Preregister! Attend via zoom and post to the private student blog about what you learned. Earn tokens!
Unit Lab/Building Block Due Friday 11:59 pm
Summary Video
Unit F: Social Engagement in the New Digital “Public Squares”
Week 13 11/16-20
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video
- Video on assignments
- Ben Marwick & Prema Smith, “World Heritage Sites on Wikipedia“
Lorenzo Monti et al., “Digital Invasions Within Cultural Heritage: Social Media and Crowdsourcing”updated 11/14- ATHAR project on black market antiquities on social media
- Fully read and interact with the executive summary page for 2019 report
- pp. vi and 4-20 of report
- Additional Assignments:
- Henriette Roued-Cunliffe, “Forgotten History on Wikipedia”
Discussion
- Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders AA, DJ
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time) from everyone else
Get started on this unit’s Labs and Building Blocks due at the end of the unit
Summary Video for Weeks 13-15 is in Week 15
Week 14 11/23-27 THANKSGIVING WEEK
Video for the week
Work on Blogs
- Please check your grades in Canvas. Do you have any incomplete Individual Student Blog Posts?
- You can revise and resubmit for new evaluation any Incomplete posts or you can start from scratch and write a new one. Exchange 2 tokens per post to redo or revise/resubmit
- Start work on your posts for Units D-F. The assignment is the same as for Units A-C, only this time on Units D-F.
- Unsure what to do? Come see me in Zoom hours Monday or send me an email suggesting another time.
- Unsure how many to write or what your grade is? Come see me in Zoom hours Monday or send me an email suggesting another time.
- If you are completing *projects* instead of a critical analytical end-of-semester-post, then please work on your projects. Check in with me if you have questions! By this point you should have:
- conducted most of your research (books/articles, assembling sources for the project)
- have your platform up even if not complete (your Omeka site should be up and running with some objects if using Omeka, your timeline should be started with a few entries if you’re using a timeline program, etc.)
Week 15 11/30-12/4
Weekly Readings, Videos, and Websites
- Introductory Video (opening slide says Week 14 — my mistake. Sorry! The video is the correct one.)
- Video on assignments
- S. L. Ziegler, “Open Data in Cultural Heritage Institutions“
- Marika Cifor et al., Feminist Data Manifest-No
Wikimedia Foundation on Gender Bias in WikipediaWatch the Coded Gaze mini-documentary- Optional
- Safiya Noble in Time Magazine OR
- Safiya Noble on Algorithms
Discussion
- Posts on Private Student Blog (Due Tuesday noon Central Time)
- Leaders RJ
- Discussion Responses (Due on Private Student Blog Thursday noon Central Time) from everyone else
Labs & Building Blocks Due Friday 11:59 pm
Summary Video
Semester Wrap-Up
Week 16 12/7-11 FINAL EXAM PREPARATION WEEK
Introductory Video(s)
Weekly Assignments
- Work on Blogs and Projects
- Critical Analytical Reflection post due
- NOTE: If you want to do your UNIT posts this week and Critical Analytical Reflection by 12/16 you may swap these deadlines. YOUR CHOICE.
Summary Video (TBA)
Week 17: 12/14-18 FINAL EXAM WEEK
Weekly Assignment
- Introductory Video(s) TBA
- UPDATED! Completion of Blog and Projects due Wednesday 12/16
- Unit D-F posts due (follow instructions for Unit A-C posts; post links to Canvas here and here)
- Projects due (post link to Canvas)
- Final Website refinements
- Note: if you want you can turn in your Reflection Post today and Unit D-F post(s) during Week 16 (in other words, swap due dates)
- UPDATED! By Friday noon respond to posts on your peers’ sites