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In: Annette Vee
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The English language is a tough one to master. It’s a language full of contradictions, exceptions to seemingly nonsensical rules, and confusing homophones. English Compositionists have spent decades studying how we learn to read and write it, and for most of that time, studies have focused on the language itself; using pens, pencils, and paper—or even a typewriter—little else would likely interfere with or distract from a basic writer’s journey toward mastery. Our April 5, 2021 guest on the podcast, Dr. Annette Vee, studies how writing, and the entire concept of literacy, has changed since the proliferation of digital technologies. For a student to be considered “literate” in an English Composition today, they must not only master the ins and outs of English itself—the minutia of commas, i-before-e, their/there/they’re—but also the computer or device they use to compose: the administrative and participatory tasks of their class’ Learning Management System, their word processing application, the host they send and read class-related emails through, and so much more. And as Dr. Vee points out, a student or employee who pursues a career that uses computers might also be required to learn a programing language before they are considered truly “literate” in the language of their professional world. A lot more goes into language-based literacy today than just words on a page. Dr. Vee is Associate Professor of English and Direction of the Composition Program here at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as a participant and Co-Leader of our Sawyer Seminar, originated in the fall of 2019 (And Read More

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In: Lara Putnam
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What does it really mean to do research in the digital age? We might have what seem like an easy set of answers: doing research means using Google, managing citations using organizational software like Zotero or Easy Bib, collecting and integrating quotations (we might use Endnote or Scrivener for this), accessing archives (some of which are physical, but most of which are not), and then presenting that research using a word processor. But again, what does this really mean, especially when we consider that for most of human history, research looked nothing like what I’ve just described? If a search engine does not exist, nor the Internet, neither do any of the ways we access information as it exists separately from geographic space and necessarily longer durations of time. Before such massive accumulations of digitized texts, a researcher would likely have to travel to a specific archival or fieldwork site to accrue knowledge that could only be gained in that specific way: driving to the airport, stepping on a plane, travelling to that location, and spending a significant amount of time there. But today, all of that time, money, and attention can be saved and spent on engaging with the text itself; fieldwork can be supplemented increasingly efficiently with Zoom, Skype, text and email. Our podcast guest on April 2, 2021, Dr. Lara Putnam, chatted with me about exactly how these profound and rapid changes in research methods impact our daily lives, and how we think about the world around us. Dr. Puntam is UCIS Research Read More

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In: Lyneise Williams
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On March 6, Lyneise Williams, Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, spoke with the Seminar about her work at the crossroads of computational archive science, art history, and material studies. Dr. Williams’ work involves analyzing visual representations of race; her book, Latin Blackness in Parisian Visual Culture, 1852-1932,  was published by Bloomsbury in 2019. In her talk with us, Dr. Williams pointed out that analyzing such visuals requires attention to reproduction, mediation, and digital surrogacy. In other words, when a reader of Williams’ book encounters an image of the 20th century Panamanian boxer Alfonso Teofilo Brown, they are not seeing the image itself—and certainly not the human depicted in the image—but, instead, a highly mediated reproduction. Certain details might be lost in translation, and the more often an image is reproduced, the more it is likely to deteriorate; thus, what we analyze is not only the image itself, but also its journey through space and time to get to our eyes. If you’ve ever watched a hilariously blurry Youtube video of something from the 1980’s you’re familiar with what’s called “generation loss” –the more copies exist from a single original, the less likely it is that you’re getting a truly representative visual. Dr. Williams’ described her ongoing difficulties with this issue, particularly as it applies to race. Most recently: when she studies microfilm scans of early-20th century newspapers, it is rare that adequate care is taken to preserve photographs within newspapers of Black subjects. While the words of the Read More

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In: Lyneise Williams
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In the midst of COVID-19 induced social isolation, with many institutions like museums closing their doors, digital surrogates are forced to temporarily take the place of embodied experience. While most of our distancing is temporary — for some objects, their surrogates are all we have. The weight that replicas have to bear is dependent on their function. If the original object is destroyed, through intentional or accidental means, the record of that original no longer serves as a finding aid — something that points the way to an attainable original. If our reproductions will serve in place of original objects, predicting what will be meaningful about the original is necessary, demanding, and maybe impossible. Such mindful practices are also undeniably worth it. Dr. Lyneise Williams has articulated the stakes of this issue well in, “What Computational Archival Science Can Learn from Art History and Material Culture Studies.” Why not just keep the original? Why put so much pressure on replicas? There are cases that require replicas to rise up to the task of “replacement.” Space is often an issue. Thousands of newspapers have been microfilmed, which is a much smaller and more stable form. The stability is also a key reason why originals are often not saved. Newspaper is produced cheaply, and the paper itself degrades over time. These concerns are not trivial, particularly since the housing of archival documents requires a stable environment (reminder: you shouldn’t store things you want to save in non-climate-controlled areas like basements or sheds). Sometimes it is impractical or even Read More