Cambridge Digital Humanities course timetable

This course looks at how modern computational techniques in logic can be used to approach historical questions in the history of logic while also reflecting on the differences and similarities between historical and modern approaches to logic.

Historically, the course will focus on two authors’ approaches to modal logic, the branch of logic that deals with possibility, necessity, and contingency. Ibn Sina (9th century) and John Buridan (14th century). Using these two authors and their discussions of logic as a starting place, we will look at how their logical systems can be represented and formalised using contemporary computational methods, as well as reflecting on the similarities and differences between historical approaches to analysing validity and its relationship to modern notions of algorithms.

The overarching aim of the course is to develop the framework that allows us to computationally show that Buridan and Ibn Sina are working with the same modal logic under two different presentations.

This course looks at how modern computational techniques in logic can be used to approach historical questions in the history of logic while also reflecting on the differences and similarities between historical and modern approaches to logic.

Historically, the course will focus on two authors’ approaches to modal logic, the branch of logic that deals with possibility, necessity, and contingency. Ibn Sina (9th century) and John Buridan (14th century). Using these two authors and their discussions of logic as a starting place, we will look at how their logical systems can be represented and formalised using contemporary computational methods, as well as reflecting on the similarities and differences between historical approaches to analysing validity and its relationship to modern notions of algorithms.

The overarching aim of the course is to develop the framework that allows us to computationally show that Buridan and Ibn Sina are working with the same modal logic under two different presentations.

This course looks at how modern computational techniques in logic can be used to approach historical questions in the history of logic while also reflecting on the differences and similarities between historical and modern approaches to logic.

Historically, the course will focus on two authors’ approaches to modal logic, the branch of logic that deals with possibility, necessity, and contingency. Ibn Sina (9th century) and John Buridan (14th century). Using these two authors and their discussions of logic as a starting place, we will look at how their logical systems can be represented and formalised using contemporary computational methods, as well as reflecting on the similarities and differences between historical approaches to analysing validity and its relationship to modern notions of algorithms.

The overarching aim of the course is to develop the framework that allows us to computationally show that Buridan and Ibn Sina are working with the same modal logic under two different presentations.

Do you need a database for your data? Or could you store the data in standalone files? Which database paradigm should you consider? What are the consequences of these choices on your work routine? How to navigate all of this with minimal or no programming experience?

These and more are the questions we will address in the course. We aim to provide a gentle introduction to databases and database paradigms, with examples that help explain the differences between the most common database packages and guide researchers to design suitable solutions for their data problems.

Do you need a database for your data? Or could you store the data in standalone files? Which database paradigm should you consider? What are the consequences of these choices on your work routine? How to navigate all of this with minimal or no programming experience?

These and more are the questions we will address in the course. We aim to provide a gentle introduction to databases and database paradigms, with examples that help explain the differences between the most common database packages and guide researchers to design suitable solutions for their data problems.

Do you need a database for your data? Or could you store the data in standalone files? Which database paradigm should you consider? What are the consequences of these choices on your work routine? How to navigate all of this with minimal or no programming experience?

These and more are the questions we will address in the course. We aim to provide a gentle introduction to databases and database paradigms, with examples that help explain the differences between the most common database packages and guide researchers to design suitable solutions for their data problems.

Do you need a database for your data? Or could you store the data in standalone files? Which database paradigm should you consider? What are the consequences of these choices on your work routine? How to navigate all of this with minimal or no programming experience?

These and more are the questions we will address in the course. We aim to provide a gentle introduction to databases and database paradigms, with examples that help explain the differences between the most common database packages and guide researchers to design suitable solutions for their data problems.

If you've ever collected some data but weren't sure how to go about visualising it in a way that could help you uncover new insights, or if you've struggled to present data in a way that helped others understand your findings, this course is intended for you.

We'll talk about how to select the right visualisation for your data, discuss the pros and cons of different approaches, and get hands-on experience displaying information in clear and compelling ways. We'll also discuss broader issues surrounding visualisation science, such as common ways that visualisations are misinterpreted and how to avoid them, and controversies around what counts as best practice in visual communication.

In addition to the weekly online sessions, participants are expected to spend around two hours per week applying the skills learnt to gain greater fluency and enable us to 'workshop' each other's visualisations.

Your participation will also benefit if you have the chance to take our "Give me 5! Principles of Data Visualisation", which is scheduled for 23rd & 30th March. However, attending this workshop is not a prerequisite, so please do not be deterred if you miss the dates.

This CDH Basics session introduces the IIIF image data framework, which has been developed by a consortium of the world’s leading research libraries and image repositories and demonstrates a range of different machine learning-based methods for exploring digital image collections.

If you've ever collected some data but weren't sure how to go about visualising it in a way that could help you uncover new insights, or if you've struggled to present data in a way that helped others understand your findings, this course is intended for you.

We'll talk about how to select the right visualisation for your data, discuss the pros and cons of different approaches, and get hands-on experience displaying information in clear and compelling ways. We'll also discuss broader issues surrounding visualisation science, such as common ways that visualisations are misinterpreted and how to avoid them, and controversies around what counts as best practice in visual communication.

In addition to the weekly online sessions, participants are expected to spend around two hours per week applying the skills learnt to gain greater fluency and enable us to 'workshop' each other's visualisations.

Your participation will also benefit if you have the chance to take our "Give me 5! Principles of Data Visualisation", which is scheduled for 23rd & 30th March. However, attending this workshop is not a prerequisite, so please do not be deterred if you miss the dates.

This course will be of interest to academics at all levels (including PhD students) who travel to remote locations (including small libraries worldwide) to access their primary material (often pamphlets and hand-written ephemera) which they are interested in digitising not only for their own scholarly appraisal, but also as a means of enabling access to the wider academic community. We will go step-by-step through preparation of materials, cataloguing systems, rigs and illumination, tethered photography using Lightroom, smartphone lenses and Halide, and packaging and checksums. We will also be discussing theoretical and ethical questions around decolonisation, reparation, and handling of Black and Indigenous heritage.

If you've ever collected some data but weren't sure how to go about visualising it in a way that could help you uncover new insights, or if you've struggled to present data in a way that helped others understand your findings, this course is intended for you.

We'll talk about how to select the right visualisation for your data, discuss the pros and cons of different approaches, and get hands-on experience displaying information in clear and compelling ways. We'll also discuss broader issues surrounding visualisation science, such as common ways that visualisations are misinterpreted and how to avoid them, and controversies around what counts as best practice in visual communication.

In addition to the weekly online sessions, participants are expected to spend around two hours per week applying the skills learnt to gain greater fluency and enable us to 'workshop' each other's visualisations.

Your participation will also benefit if you have the chance to take our "Give me 5! Principles of Data Visualisation", which is scheduled for 23rd & 30th March. However, attending this workshop is not a prerequisite, so please do not be deterred if you miss the dates.

Methods Workshop: Best Practices in Coding for Digital Humanities

Mary Chester-Kadwell (CDH Research Software Engineering Coordinator)

Please note this workshop has limited spaces and an application process in place. Application forms should be completed by noon Wednesday, 4 May 2022 (you can only access this form by signing into your University Google Account). Successful applicants will be notified by end-of-day Monday, 9 May 2021.

This course introduces best practices and techniques to help you better manage your code and data, and develop your project into a usable, sustainable, and reproducible workflow for research.

Developing your coding practice is an ongoing process throughout your career. This intermediate course is aimed at students and staff who use coding in research, or plan on starting such a project soon. We present an introduction to a range of best practices and techniques to help you better manage your code and data, and develop your project into a usable, sustainable, and reproducible workflow. All the examples and exercises will be in Python.

If you are interested in attending this course, please complete the application form.

Machine learning-driven systems for seeing and sorting still and moving images are increasingly common in many contexts. This CDH Basics session explores the technical fundamentals of machine vision and discusses the societal and cultural impact of these systems, including the challenges and opportunities faced by humanities and social science researchers using computer vision systems as research tools.

If you've ever collected some data but weren't sure how to go about visualising it in a way that could help you uncover new insights, or if you've struggled to present data in a way that helped others understand your findings, this course is intended for you.

We'll talk about how to select the right visualisation for your data, discuss the pros and cons of different approaches, and get hands-on experience displaying information in clear and compelling ways. We'll also discuss broader issues surrounding visualisation science, such as common ways that visualisations are misinterpreted and how to avoid them, and controversies around what counts as best practice in visual communication.

In addition to the weekly online sessions, participants are expected to spend around two hours per week applying the skills learnt to gain greater fluency and enable us to 'workshop' each other's visualisations.

Your participation will also benefit if you have the chance to take our "Give me 5! Principles of Data Visualisation", which is scheduled for 23rd & 30th March. However, attending this workshop is not a prerequisite, so please do not be deterred if you miss the dates.

Methods Workshop: Best Practices in Coding for Digital Humanities

Mary Chester-Kadwell (CDH Research Software Engineering Coordinator)

Please note this workshop has limited spaces and an application process in place. Application forms should be completed by noon Wednesday, 4 May 2022 (you can only access this form by signing into your University Google Account). Successful applicants will be notified by end-of-day Monday, 9 May 2021.

This course introduces best practices and techniques to help you better manage your code and data, and develop your project into a usable, sustainable, and reproducible workflow for research.

Developing your coding practice is an ongoing process throughout your career. This intermediate course is aimed at students and staff who use coding in research, or plan on starting such a project soon. We present an introduction to a range of best practices and techniques to help you better manage your code and data, and develop your project into a usable, sustainable, and reproducible workflow. All the examples and exercises will be in Python.

If you are interested in attending this course, please complete the application form.

Isabelle Higgins, Methods Fellow - Cambridge Digital Humanities

This Methods Fellows' Workshop Series event aims to encourage participants to think critically and reflexively about the nature of digital humanities research. It will explore (both individually and collectively) the function and effect of critical, intersectional and decolonial research methods and their impact on research fields, participants and research outputs.

For each seminar, participants will be provided with a reading list that will contain both core introductory texts and additional readings. They will be expected to do 30 minutes of reading ahead of each seminar. The seminars themselves will be a mix of presentations, small group discussion and the study of specific empirical cases.

Throughout the seminars we will collectively assemble a shared bibliography of academic texts and other digital resources. Participants will also be encouraged to bring and share examples and challenges from their own research.

To increase space for discussion and critical reflection, participants will be encouraged to form small working groups, focused on the seminar theme they find most productive, and to connect with their working group for a 30-minute call to reflect on their chosen seminar outside of the scheduled four hours of teaching. There will be the option to feed back on these discussions to the wider group, deepening our shared understanding of the content covered in the course. Isabelle will also hold virtual office hours following the seminar series. In these ways and others, the series will aim to cater for those new to this area of research, as well as for scholars who are already working in digital humanities.

Key topics covered in the sessions will include:

• Seminar 1: Digital Humanities in Social and Historical

Context: Considering what and how we research

We will focus on placing digital humanities, as a discipline, in the context of its emergence. Disciplinary Sociology, for example, is increasingly grappling with its colonial past (Meghji, 2020). What happens when we examine the history and context of digital humanities? McIlwain (2020) reminds us of the historical ties between the development of computational technology and the surveillance of Black bodies. Yet digital humanities research has also sought to challenge the legal, social and political power exercised through digital systems (Selwyn, 2019). Does contextualising our methods change how we approach them?

• Seminar 2: Critical approaches to Digital Environments: Affordances, Interfaces, AI, Algorithms

We will draw on the vast range of work produced by race critical code scholars, which help us to explore the assumptions and inequalities that are coded into the software we study (or use to conduct our studies). Ruha Benjamin (2016a:150) reminds us to ask of digital technology: 'who and what is fixed in place – classified, corralled, and/or coerced, to enable innovation?' How does a consideration of encoded digital inequalities affect our methodologies?

• Seminar 3: Critical Engagement with User Generated

Content: Beyond content & discourse analysis

We will draw on critical theories that draw attention to the digital and social constructs and conventions that shape the production of user-generated content, with Brock's (2018) Critical Techno-Cultural Discourse Analysis as one such methodological contribution. We'll explore what happens to our research when we broaden our methodological framing, considering the type of content produced by users and how it is produced, who is producing it, and what governs this production.

• Seminar 4: Looking forward: Our roles as researchers in Digital Humanities

We will pay attention to the growing calls from a range of cross-disciplinary scholars who invite us to actively consider the impact of our methods on the future. We'll explore different notions of methodological responsibility and innovation, from the speculative (Benjamin, 2016b), to the caring (de la Bellacasa, 2011), to the adaptive and inductive (Markham & Buchanan, 2012). What happens when we place our research into its broader context and consider how our methods will shape the future of our discipline?

Isabelle Higgins, Methods Fellow - Cambridge Digital Humanities

This Methods Fellows' Workshop Series event aims to encourage participants to think critically and reflexively about the nature of digital humanities research. It will explore (both individually and collectively) the function and effect of critical, intersectional and decolonial research methods and their impact on research fields, participants and research outputs.

For each seminar, participants will be provided with a reading list that will contain both core introductory texts and additional readings. They will be expected to do 30 minutes of reading ahead of each seminar. The seminars themselves will be a mix of presentations, small group discussion and the study of specific empirical cases.

Throughout the seminars we will collectively assemble a shared bibliography of academic texts and other digital resources. Participants will also be encouraged to bring and share examples and challenges from their own research.

To increase space for discussion and critical reflection, participants will be encouraged to form small working groups, focused on the seminar theme they find most productive, and to connect with their working group for a 30-minute call to reflect on their chosen seminar outside of the scheduled four hours of teaching. There will be the option to feed back on these discussions to the wider group, deepening our shared understanding of the content covered in the course. Isabelle will also hold virtual office hours following the seminar series. In these ways and others, the series will aim to cater for those new to this area of research, as well as for scholars who are already working in digital humanities.

Key topics covered in the sessions will include:

• Seminar 1: Digital Humanities in Social and Historical

Context: Considering what and how we research

We will focus on placing digital humanities, as a discipline, in the context of its emergence. Disciplinary Sociology, for example, is increasingly grappling with its colonial past (Meghji, 2020). What happens when we examine the history and context of digital humanities? McIlwain (2020) reminds us of the historical ties between the development of computational technology and the surveillance of Black bodies. Yet digital humanities research has also sought to challenge the legal, social and political power exercised through digital systems (Selwyn, 2019). Does contextualising our methods change how we approach them?

• Seminar 2: Critical approaches to Digital Environments: Affordances, Interfaces, AI, Algorithms

We will draw on the vast range of work produced by race critical code scholars, which help us to explore the assumptions and inequalities that are coded into the software we study (or use to conduct our studies). Ruha Benjamin (2016a:150) reminds us to ask of digital technology: 'who and what is fixed in place – classified, corralled, and/or coerced, to enable innovation?' How does a consideration of encoded digital inequalities affect our methodologies?

• Seminar 3: Critical Engagement with User Generated

Content: Beyond content & discourse analysis

We will draw on critical theories that draw attention to the digital and social constructs and conventions that shape the production of user-generated content, with Brock's (2018) Critical Techno-Cultural Discourse Analysis as one such methodological contribution. We'll explore what happens to our research when we broaden our methodological framing, considering the type of content produced by users and how it is produced, who is producing it, and what governs this production.

• Seminar 4: Looking forward: Our roles as researchers in Digital Humanities

We will pay attention to the growing calls from a range of cross-disciplinary scholars who invite us to actively consider the impact of our methods on the future. We'll explore different notions of methodological responsibility and innovation, from the speculative (Benjamin, 2016b), to the caring (de la Bellacasa, 2011), to the adaptive and inductive (Markham & Buchanan, 2012). What happens when we place our research into its broader context and consider how our methods will shape the future of our discipline?