A reminder about two events:

Global Women’s Wikipedia Write-In, Friday, April 26, 10 a.m.–1 p.m., Research Commons

(Workshop on editing Wikipedia begins at 9 a.m.) Wikipedia, of course, is one of the Web’s most-accessed resources, and certainly its most ubiquitous reference source. Yet only 13% of Wikipedia contributors are women, and even fewer are women of color. This imbalance in Wikipedia’s contributors is reflected in its content; for example, Wikipedia boasts 45 different articles on characters from The Simpsons, but only five articles on Mexican feminist writers. Help rectify this imbalance by learning how to edit Wikipedia with the help of experts on both Wikipedia-editing and on content areas that are poorly represented.

Urban Humanities Information Session, April 22, 3–4 p.m., YRL Research Commons Classroom

Grad students: Learn about opportunities (including significant funding opportunities) available through the Urban Humanities Initiative, a new program to support innovative scholarly work on urban environments.

Remember, you can always find these archived here (grad student opportunities) and here (undergrad opportunities). And you can always find the DH program on Facebook and Twitter.

Tool of the Week

Digitate

A free application, designed primarily for the iPad, that allows scholars to make notes directly on an image. This might come in handy for an art historian or any scholar who works with research photos.

CFPs

QGCon: The Queerness and Games Conference, October 26–27, U.C. Berkeley

“The Queerness and Games Conference brings together academics and developers to embark on an innovative and interdisciplinary exploration of the intersection between LGBT issues and video games.” Proposals due July 1.

Interdisciplinary Conference on Ada Lovelace, October 18, 2013, Stevens Institute of Technology

“This conference will coincide with the week celebrating Ada Lovelace Day, a global event for women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). All aspects of the achievements and legacies of Ada Lovelace will be considered.” Proposals due May 14.

Publishing the Archive, Archive Journal

“Archive Journal is now accepting project and essay proposals for the “Archives, Remixed” section of its upcoming fourth issue, “Publishing the Archive.” This issue will examine how technological developments—from discrete digitization projects and databases to linked data and APIs for extensible machine-readability—are changing how we produce and publish archives and archival research.” Proposals due June 3.

Events

Diptych Forum, April 29, 12–1:30 p.m., Royce 334C

“Join the Urban Humanities Initiative for the first of a reading group series revolving around urbanism and the humanities.”

IS Colloquium: Rina Bliss and Ramesh Srinivasan, “Diverse Ontologies and Networked Dissent: Tales from the Globe,” May 2, 3 p.m., YRL Presentation Room

“This talk illustrates how local peoples have adjusted and adapted their lives to the spread of social media, directly fueled by projects I have conducted with communities around the world over the past ten years.”

IS Colloquium/Breslauer Lecture: Christine Madsen, “Library Futures and the Importance of Understanding Communities of Users,” May 16, 3 p.m., YRL Conference Room

“A two year ethnographic study of that aimed at understanding how the digitization of rare texts is changing scholars’ work and in turn how it is changing their relationship with the library.”

Job-Jobs

Research Associate, Future Tense, Washington, D.C.

“The New America Foundation and Arizona State University are seeking a full-time Future Tense research associate in Washington, D.C. The ideal candidate is a highly motivated individual interested in the intersection of public policy and transformative technologies.”

Postdoctoral Scholars, U.C. Merced

“Postdoctoral Scholars should have research projects which engage the Center’s theme, ”The World Upside Down: Topsy-Turvy,“ and that fall in the areas of Digital Humanities or Public Humanities.” Applications due May 9.

This week brings a raft of  new DH-related events and opportunities. I'd like to highlight two events in particular:

Urban Humanities Information Session 

April 22, 3–4 p.m., Research Commons Classroom

Grad students: Learn about opportunities (including significant funding opportunities) available through the Urban Humanities Initiative, a new program to support innovative scholarly work on urban environments. Watch your inbox for more information.

 

Global Women's Wikipedia Write-In

Friday, April 26, 10 a.m.–1 p.m., Research Commons 

(Workshop on editing Wikipedia begins at 9 a.m.)

Wikipedia, of course, is one of the Web's most-accessed resources, and certainly its most ubiquitous reference source. Yet only 13% of Wikipedia contributors are women, and even fewer are women of color. This imbalance in Wikipedia's contributors is reflected in its content; for example, Wikipedia boasts  45 different articles on characters from The Simpsons, but only five articles on Mexican feminist writers. Help rectify this imbalance by learning how to edit Wikipedia with the help of experts on both Wikipedia-editing and on content areas that are poorly represented.

Below please find some more events and opportunities you might find interesting. You can always find these archived here (grad student opportunities) and here (undergrad opportunities). And you can always find the DH program on Facebook and Twitter. 

Tool of the Week 

MyHistro

MyHistro allows you to make simple map-based timelines, which you can embed in a blog, download onto a mobile device, export as a PDF, or view in Google Earth.

Internships and Summer Jobs

Google Summer of Code, multiple locations

 "A global program that offers students stipends to write code for open source projects." Note in particular that the Maryland Institute for Technology and the Humanities is hosting a student this summer. 

Getty Undergraduate Multicultural Summer Internships, multiple L.A. organizations

"Aiming to increase diversity in and provide support for Los Angeles-area museums and visual arts organizations, the program provides funding for internships at these organizations, including at the Getty Center and the Getty Villa. The Foundation's support enables organizations to host students in full-time, paid internships for ten weeks during the summer." Application deadlines vary by organization.

Resources

Python Programming for the Humanities

"Python is an excellent choice for dealing with (linguistic as well as literary) textual data, which is so typical of the Humanities. In this tutorial you will be thoroughly introduced to the language and be taught to program basic algorithmic procedures."

Institute of Historical Research (University College London) Online Courses

Topics include "Building and Using Databases for Historical Research," "Data Preservation," "Digital Tools," "Podcasts for Historians," and "Sources for British History on the Internet."

Events

Hack for L.A.!, Boyle Heightes, June 1–2

"Developers will have the chance to generate solutions for community problems in Boyle Heights and all of LA while inspiring local high school students about mobile app development." 

Augmented Journalism & Publishing, USC Annenberg School, April 17

Augmented journalism is "an eminently practical application of AR that allows magazines and news outlets to not just expand the real estate of the page, but also tell stories in creative new ways."

CFPs

Social, Digital, Scholarly Editing, University of Saskatchewan, July 11–13, 2013

"Proposals should focus on some aspect of contemporary digital scholarly editing. We welcome descriptions of current projects, theoretical or speculative discussions, bibliographic work, or any aspect of scholarly digital editing." Proposals due April 26. 

Exploring Digital Narcissisms, Reconstruction special issue 

"We invite scholarly essays to explore the dynamism that may exist in the rise of social media with respect to changes in narcissistic behaviours and ego formation. How has the digital milieu shaped, or been shaped by, narcissisms?" Essays due August 1.

Opportunities

Visualizing Venice: Digital Visualization Workshop, Venice International University, June 4–14

"The aim of the workshop, jointly promoted by Duke University, Iuav University of Venice and Venice International University is to provide a thorough introduction to a series of digital tools for the analysis, interpretation and visualization of data related to the shaping of man-made space." Scholarships available. Rolling admission.

Call for Editors: History Workshop Online

Seeking editors "who have experience of connecting historical research and digital media, and who would be actively engaged in commissioning innovative work in the field." Applications due May 15.

Job-Jobs

Historypin Project Officer, San Francisco 

"We currently have a full-time position available to manage two primary projects focused on the Bay Area: Year of the Bay and the San Francisco Jewish Memory Pilot." 

Technical Editor, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

"The National Gallery of Art seeks a highly motivated individual to provide editorial and managerial expertise for its website and publications related to the permanent collection, especially the Systematic Catalogue of the Collections and to the Gallery’s education, library, and research departments." 

Visiting Assistant Professor, Digital History, Temple University

"The Temple University History Department seeks applications for a two-year non-tenure-track position in public history, with a specialization in digital history. The appointment will be at the rank of Visiting Assistant Professor/Instructional, to begin August 2013, with possibility of renewal." 

Bolinger Fellow in Library Innovation, Bollinger Library, University of Pennsylvania

"This is a two-year fellowship for a recent PhD in the humanities with a strong interdisciplinary background. The Fellow works at the intersection of new modes of scholarly inquiry and production. through this Fellowship, the Libraries seek to build a community of practice that fosters innovation and creativity in interdisciplinary humanistic research."

BitCurator Community Lead, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities

"The BitCurator project … is seeking a Community Lead to build an active user community for our project, promote and evangelize our work (through both site visits and social media), and provide expert support to our users."

Tool of the Week 

Trello

This week's tool, Trello, is lightweight task-management software that's especially good for collaboration. If you're the kind of person with Post-It notes all over your computer monitor, you might enjoy the visual, tactile approach of Trello.

Events

Transmedia Hollywood 4: Spreading Change, UCLA, April 12

"Transmedia, Hollywood is a one-day public symposium exploring the role of transmedia franchises in today's entertainment industries."

(im)Perception Arts Party at the Hammer, April 9

"Join us for a night of collaborative art making, perceptual shifts, and distorted reality!" Co-organized by the DH program's own Iman Salehian!

Global Women Wikipedia Write-In, April 26, 10am–1pm PST

"This virtual event is designed to encourage internet users to write entries about women from around the world into Wikipedia and to improve existing entries on these topics." Watch for details on a UCLA-hosted node of this event!

Opportunities

Urban Humanities Initiative Summer Institute, UCLA, August 26–September 13

A "Summer Institute that weds critical analysis with urban design, followed by elective seminars during the regular school year, and a capstone design studio experience in Spring quarter that includes travel to Japan over Spring Break. Ample funds are available to support student research and travel." Open to UCLA grad students. Watch for an information session on this opportunity.

Undergraduate Student Initiated Education

"Interested in facilitating your own seminar? USIE is a unique program designed to allow students to facilitate a seminar of their own design and enhance their overall undergraduate experience at UCLA." Applications due Tuesday, April 30.

Student Jobs

Research and Instructional Technology Consultants, Center for Digital Humanities

"Graduate students in any department of the Humanities Division, or a department that is affiliated with the Digital Humanities Program, are eligible to work for up to two years as Research and Instructional Technology Consultants (RITC) at the Center for Digital Humanities (CDH)." Applications due April 30.

Daily Bruin Blogging Internship

"Online reporting interns will be regular contributors to our mobile journalism blog, Mojo. They will also help upload content to our site, manage social media and contribute to long-term multimedia projects, such as a weekly news and culture video blog." Applications due Monday, April 8. 

CFPs

Social Media and Society Conference, September 14–15, Dalhousie University

"The objective of this 2-day conference is to bring together experts in social media and online social networks from both the academic and business worlds, to share ideas on the best practices around how to study the impact of social media on our society." Proposals due May 1.

AdaCamp San Francisco, June 8–9, 2013

"AdaCamp is a conference dedicated to increasing women’s participation in open technology and culture: open source software, Wikipedia-related projects, open data, open geo, fan fiction, remix culture, and more." Applications due April 12 (for consideration for travel funding).

Voke

"Voke, a new art education research platform, is accepting proposals for visualized research objects to include in its inaugural issue, to be released this October." Abstracts due April 22.

Third International Symposium on Digital Ethics, Loyola University, October 4, 2013

"Topics might include privacy, anonymity, griefing, free speech, intellectual property, hacking, scamming, surveillance, information mining, transparency, digital citizenship, or anything else relating to ethical questions and digital technology, or ethical use of digital technologies in journalism, advertising and public relations." Full papers due April 15. 

Job-Jobs

Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, History/Digital Humanities, Boston College

"The History Department at Boston College invites applications for a post-doctoral teaching fellowship to teach in the History Core program. Core courses cover the period from approximately 1500 to the present, introducing all undergraduates to a foundational knowledge of modern history and key historiographical debates." Applications due April 12

Celebrate and watch the launch of "Digital_Humanities", a book with UCLA authors Johanna Drucker (Breslauer Professor of Bibliographic Studies), Peter Lunenfeld (Professor of design and media studies), and Todd Presner (Professor of Germanic languages and comparative literature and chair of the digital humanities program). Other distinguished guests include David Schaberg, Dean of Humanities; and Kevin Mulroy, Associate University Librarian.

The event features talks by the authors, followed by a response from the dean of humanities and an audience Q&A session.

Click to view the Youtube video .

Digital_Humanities is a compact, game-changing report on the state of contemporary knowledge production. Answering the question, "What is digital humanities?," it provides an in-depth examination of an emerging field. This collaboratively authored and visually compelling volume explores methodologies and techniques unfamiliar to traditional modes of humanistic inquiry--including geospatial analysis, data mining, corpus linguistics, visualization, and simulation--to show their relevance for contemporary culture.

As we head toward the spring semester, it's time to start thinking about the Digital Humanities capstone courses, also known as DH 198/199 (for undergraduates) and DH 299 (for grad students). These are project-based collaborative courses in which undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members will work in teams to accomplish specific projects. 

We've designed these courses to "cap" your experience in the Digital Humanities program, so ideally you'll take them after completing your other DH program prerequisites. At a minimum, undergraduates must have taken DH 101 and 194, and graduate students must have taken DH 201.

This year, we're pleased to offer five options for the captsone class:

1. Virtual Worlds, with Professor Chris Johanson
2. Visualizing Massive Data Related to the Holocaust, with Professors Todd Presner and David Shepard
3. Designing a Database of Ancient Magic, with Professors Miriam Posner and Jacco Dieleman
4. UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, with Professor Willeke Wendrich
5. HyperCities/Mapping Jewish L.A., with Professors Todd Presner and Karen Wilson

Undergraduates will sign up for one section of the capstone using a course contract. Sign up for 198 if you're an honors student and 199 if you're not.

Graduate students can enroll in one section of 299 as they would any other class.

We've chosen this slightly unconventional format for your capstone experience because we want to emphasize some qualities that we think are important features in digital humanities: collaboration across disciplines and hierarchies, project-based learning, and theorizing through practical work. We're looking forward to working together!

The CDH Learning Lab @ Rolfe is a brand new, technology-enabled presentation and collaboration space for instruction and research. It is located in Rolfe 2118. To celebrate the opening of the Lab, CDH is hosting a series of events for faculty, staff, students,  librarians and partners who may want to make use of the Learning Lab for presentations, lectures, meetings, group projects, and collaboration. 

Join us throughout the week of February 11-15 to see and experience what the Learning Lab has to offer. On Monday, Feb. 11, we're hosting two public lectures on research (10:15am) and instruction (12:15) followed by technology demos for faculty from 2-4. Tuesday, Feb. 12 from 12:30-4 is Digital Humanities Program Day, with digital humanities project demos, and the chance to talk with students in the Program. Wednesday, Feb. 13 from 2-4:30 is our Research Reconnaissance event for anyone wanting to learn more about technology for research, whether you're a faculty member or a student. Thursday is our "Take 2 with chocolate" afternoon from 12:30-2:50, where you can drop in to ask questions about some of the demos and tools on the preceding days, try something out, or learn about the Digital Humanities Program and the services at CDH. Friday, Feb. 15 from 12:30-4 is Digital Fun & Games Day, featuring fun ways to try out digital humanities tools and environments and culminating in our Grand Prize drawing at 4pm. 

FULL SCHEDULE

We're excited to announce the publication of Digital_Humanities, a compact, provocative look at the state of the field, co-authored by Anne Burdick (Art Center College of Design), Johanna Drucker (UCLA), Peter Lunenfeld (UCLA), and Jeffrey Schnapp (Harvard). You can download the book for free or purchase the beautifully designed hardcover from MIT Press. 

Please celebrate the book launch with Professors Drucker, Lunenfeld, and Presner, along with David Schaberg, dean of humanities, and university librarian Gary Strong, on Monday, February 4, 2013, from 2–4 p.m. in the Young Research Library main conference room. The event will feature a Q&A, along with a reception, booksigning, and demonstrations of digital humanities projects.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded UCLA $2 million to support "The Urban Turn: Collective Life in Megacities of the Pacific Rim." The three-and-a-half year project will build connections between architecture, urban studies and the humanities, engaging faculty and students from across the campus in the study of contemporary issues in four of the world's most complex cities — Los Angeles, Tokyo, Shanghai and Mexico City.

The project will also support collaboration with UC Berkeley, where the Mellon Foundation has funded a similar initiative. This is the first grant of its size designed to bridge the disciplines of humanities and design.

This gift will establish UCLA as an international research hub where collaborations between design and the humanities lead to a new understanding of megacities. "The Urban Turn" suggests the ever-greater extent to which our cities are shaped by and experienced as dynamic, culturally diverse and networked space.

Click here to read the article.

CFP: UC Multicampus Research Groups in the Humanities 2013-15

The University of California Humanities Network announces a call for proposals for UC Multicampus Research Groups (MRGs) in the Humanities.

Who Can Apply: UC Ladder Rank Faculty
Level of Award: Up to $35,000 for two years. All awards are contingent on available funding.
Funding Source: UC Humanities Network
Deadline:  March 13, 2013 (11:59 pm PST). Apply online via FastApps (opens February 6, 2013).

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

 MRG funds are intended to support long-term collaborative humanities research at any stage of development by UC faculty and advanced graduate students.

 MRGs may be interdisciplinary or focused on a traditional discipline, but should engage significant research questions and push the frontiers of knowledge production in the humanities or between the humanities and other fields or modes of inquiry. MRGs should set and explore innovative research agendas in ways that contribute to the advancement of the MRG topic specifically and the humanities as a whole.    

The proposal narrative should provide sufficient detail to convey the nature and significance of the proposed collaboration, as well as a substantive description and justification of the expected outcomes of a two-year research agenda. Examples of possible outcomes may include digital or print publication(s); digital archives, websites and other online forms of research dissemination; innovative curricula, learning modules or other pedagogical materials; exhibits, performances, or other public humanities events or engagements; and/or other strategies that support knowledge production and research dissemination.

Successful proposals will include faculty from at least two but preferably three or more UC campuses, and clearly explain how the theme and activities will contribute to research excellence in the humanities. Proposals should also explain how each MRG member will contribute to the group's stated aims.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss potential proposals with their home-campus humanities institute director, and to work with the institute to create a robust network of participants across other campuses.

Grants will range from $10,000 to $20,000 for 2013-14. If interested in applying for a second year of funding, please include  this in your proposal, budget, and budget narrative. Two-year funding should total no more than $35,000.  Second year funding is contingent upon available funds and the renewal of support for the UC Humanities Network by the UC Office of the President.

Examples of budget categories include travel, virtual meetings, website production and maintenance, archival development, group consultation of archives or site visits, student-faculty retreats, professional development workshops or other mentoring support for graduate student participants, editorial assistance, and support for collaborative authoring or composition. Proposals for conferences are discouraged. (Note that conferences and seminars, as well as other seed grants, are available through UCHRI, the UC California Studies Consortium, and other UC-based sources.)

Budgets should include itemized estimates for the costs of administering the MRG by your campus department or humanities center. There is a 10% limit on direct costs: a) if your dean’s office allows it, and b) indirect costs would go to the administrative unit on your campus administering the grant. Examples of administrative expenses might include hours of work-study student time, staff time required for travel arrangements, financial management, web support, and such; costs for photocopies or other research or support materials.  Please consult with your campus humanities center director, financial manager or MSO in developing reasonable estimates.

RA and GSR costs should be limited to within 35% of the total budget; larger allocations to that category require special justification that directly and demonstrably contributes to completing the work proposed in ways not otherwise possible, and will be funded only in rare cases. Note: Up to 35% of your budget may support RA and GSR costs UNLESS your budget also claims 10% in indirect costs; in the case that you chose to budget for indirect costs of 10%, your RA and GSR costs cannot exceed 25% of the total budget.

Matching funds are not required but any additional campus or external support, including in-kind contributions, for the MRG should be indicated.

Renewal applications from previously funded MRGs are no longer being accepted.

HOW TO APPLY

Applications are accepted exclusively online through UCHRI's FastApps system.

 Required documents include: 

• Proposal Abstract (150 words max)
• Proposal Narrative (2,000 words max; must include statement of outcomes and impact)
• List of Proposed Participants
• Proposed Budget (please include a narrative justification and description of how estimates were determined, as well as the amount/type of any home campus contributions)
• Curriculum Vitae of the PI, and co-PI, if applicable (2 pages max per c.v.)

Note: the PI must be a UC ladder rank faculty member who will be responsible for the organization and reporting of the work of the MRG.

For technical assistance, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . For program related questions, please contact Suedine Nakano, Program Officer, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

We're excited about two new courses we're offering this winter and spring, under the instruction of Professor David Shepard. These are both one-time-only course offerings, so enroll if you possibly can!

DH 150, Social Media Analytics (Winter 2013)

Undergraduate course (though grad credit is a possibility; please email Miriam Posner at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), four units

Social media are prominent now as major forms of both public and personal communication. Major world events (like the Arab Spring) have been attributed to the connective power of social media, and major news outlets now use social media to disseminate their information and track public opinion. It is no surprise, then, that they are now subjects of public and academic discourse. The purpose of this course is to develop students’ awareness of issues surrounding social media, as well as practical aspects of analyzing social media. This course will take an integrated approach, using the skills students learn to interrogate the theoretical questions, and requiring both theoretical and technical readings each week. The theoretical material includes a variety of writings that explore issues such as privacy, identity, the implications of new forms of communication, and political activism online. Additionally, the course will include a practical component in which students learn how to access various social media services’ APIs, and analyze the results. Our course will culminate in a final project in which students will gather and analyze social media about an event, or develop their own analytical methods for social media.

DH 250, The Great Unreading (Spring 2013)

Graduate course, four units

One of the clearest ways in which computing applies to humanistic work is large-scale textual analysis. We only have to think of the conversations surrounding Franco Moretti’s “distant reading” of the “great unread” to see a glimpse of the changes that digital reading promises. Unreading does not begin and end at Moretti’s Literary Lab, however. In this seminar, will we study not only how to “unread,” but also the history of, and the theoretical basis behind, large-scale textual analysis. This seminar will introduce the toolset available to contemporary scholars for digital reading. Techniques covered will include word counting, topic modelling, part-of-speech tagging, sentiment analysis, text parsing, and network analysis, as well as some basic programming. To understand these practical skills on a deeper level, we will examine the history of these methods to see how digital reading has changed since the 1960s. We will explore two central questions: what can digital reading do that non-digital reading cannot, and, since everyone talks about synthesizing these two areas of reading, just what might that synthesis look like?

Creative Commons-licensed image by Flickr user Luc Legay. (See original.)