Dynamic Subspace

Tag: Humanities

  • Some Notes for the Empowering Faculty with AI Roundtable Discussion Today

    an anthropomorphic cat professor wearing a shirt, tie, suspenders, and pants is standing in the middle of a vintage computing room lined with minicomputers and a chalkboard is in the background on the wall
    Image created with Stable Diffusion.

    I collected the following notes, resources, and readings to share during today’s Empowering Faculty with AI roundtable discussion organized by City Tech’s Academic Technologies and Online Learning (AtoL).

    These resources are divided into these sections: Writing and Editing, Research and Experimentation, Teaching, and Readings for Faculty.

    I tend not to trust a computer that I can’t throw out the window, so I only use local Generative AI models that I can run on my desktop workstation or Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 laptop. My primary interests are in text generation and image generation, which I have documented over the past three years here on DynamicSubspace.net.

    Writing and Editing

    • I used Generative AI to edit my writing and create the cover image for Yet Another Science Fiction Textbook (YASFT) OER that I published on my website in Feb. 2024. I included an explanation of my workflow in the front matter of the textbook.

    Research and Experimentation

    Teaching

    Assigned Readings in Professional and Technical Writing Classes

    Introduction to Language and Technology, ENG1710

    Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing, ENG2700

    • Reeves, Carol and J. J. Sylvia IV. “Generative AI in  Technical Communication: A Review of Research  from 2023 to 2024.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, vol. 54, no. 4, 2024, pp. 439-462, https://doi.org/10.1177/00472816241260043.

    My AI Use Policy

    There’s no doubt (at least in my mind) that the current state of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI is nothing short of incredible. There are certain tasks AI is good at, there are other tasks AI is not good at, and in all tasks, there is a greater than zero chance that the AI fails at its task horribly and potentially catastrophically. There are legal and ethical considerations, especially for those beginning careers as professional writers and communicators. So, where does AI fit into education, and more specifically, our class? The goals of education include giving students unique experiences for learning, research, and collaboration, as well as opportunities to demonstrate learning, insight, and growth through exams, papers, and projects. Undertaking higher education, changes your brain in deep and important ways that enable you to begin a professional career as a knowledgeable problem solver who is also capable of continuing as a life-long learner. AI’s entrance introduces a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be used as a tool to support your work and learning, but it can also be used egregiously to plagiarize and violate the CUNY Academic Integrity Policy. To avoid any misconceptions or misunderstandings, and to support your best learning experience in our class, you may not use AI at all in our class–including email, summarizing, ideation, discussion, or writing–unless the exercise or assignment explicitly states that you may. I am instituting this policy, because I want you to face the challenge of the class using your human abilities, skills, and talents. It’s only through those challenges will you grow and develop into a professional who can do more and find greater success than those who recklessly rely on AI technologies to do their thinking and work. Of course, violations of this policy are simply violations of the Academic Integrity Policy (under definitions 1.1 Cheating, 1.2 Plagiarism, and 1.3 Obtaining Unfair Advantage), which may result in failure and referral to the college.

    Alexander Chee’s Plea on Bluesky

    Alexander Chee, writer and Dartmouth College professor, writes on Bluesky: "This will sound weird but love yourself enough to write your own term papers. Having a LLM or another person writing your papers feels like a victor but it is just your own defeat, you felled by your own contempt for your future and anyone who believes in you."

    Alexander Chee, writer and Dartmouth College professor, shares on Bluesky: “This will sound weird but love yourself enough to write your own term papers. Having a LLM or another person writing your papers feels like a victor but it is just your own defeat, you felled by your own contempt for your future and anyone who believes in you.”

    Readings for Faculty

    I’ve recently been experimenting with so-called reasoning LLM models. For the synopses below, I gave my reading notes to a 6.0bpw quant of DeepSeek’s R1 Distill of LLaMA 70b LLM asking it to turn my telegraphic points into a brief paragraph of prose. Giving the model the “<thinking>” tag before the model’s response engaging the reasoning capability, which tends to provide better results and instruction following. The information that went into the summaries are based on my notes, so any errors or misunderstandings are mine.

    • Werse, Nicholas R. “What Will Be Lost? Critical Reflections on ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, and the Value of Writing Instruction.” Double Helix, vol. 11, 2023, https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/double-helix/v11/werse.pdf.
      • Werse examines the implications of ChatGPT—a highly advanced text-generating AI developed by OpenAI—on the future of writing instruction in higher education. He argues that while ChatGPT can mimic human writing and even assist in research and writing processes, over-reliance on this technology risks undermining the critical thinking and deep understanding that writing fosters. He highlights that writing is not just a practical skill but a cognitive process that externalizes thought (citing Kellogg’s The Psychology of Writing–see below), allowing writers to explore connections, organize ideas, and reflect deeply on a topic. Werse acknowledges the benefits of AI as a tool but warns that outsourcing writing to AI may shortchange students of the educational value of engaging in the iterative writing process. He also discusses the broader societal implications, such as how AI could reshape the role of writing in professional contexts, potentially shifting its value from career preparation to personal enrichment. Werse calls for educators to rethink how they teach writing in an AI-driven world, balancing the practical benefits of technology with the enduring importance of writing as a means of learning and critical engagement.
    • Kellogg, Ronald T. The Psychology of Writing. Oxford UP, 1994.
      • I’ve only just started this book (it’s available to borrow on archive.org here), but I’ve received Kellogg’s thesis about how writing is a cognition supporting technology and activity through many other readings and lessons (though, not always citing Kellogg–it’s more like an established axiom now). Nevertheless, I believe returning to this text is important for building an argument to our students about the importance of doing their own writing for their own thinking and cognitive development.
    • Jamieson, Sandra. “The AI ‘Crisis’ and a (Re)turn to Pedagogy.” Composition Studies, vol. 50, no. 3, 2022, pp. 153-157.
      • Jamieson critiques the panic surrounding AI’s impact on academia, particularly its perceived threat to the college essay and higher education. She argues that while AI tools like ChatGPT, QuillBot, and ParagraphAI are powerful technologies capable of generating sophisticated text, they are not a crisis but an opportunity to refocus on teaching writing. She highlights that composition studies has historically responded to externally defined crises, such as concerns over literacy, cheating, and plagiarism, by adapting pedagogical practices. Jamieson emphasizes that AI is simply another tool, akin to computers or calculators, that can be integrated into teaching. She suggests using AI as a brainstorming or collaborative tool to enhance student learning, rather than viewing it as a threat to be policed. This approach aligns with broader pedagogical values, encouraging educators to trust students and teach them to use AI ethically and effectively. Jamieson also addresses labor issues within academia, critiquing the exploitation of contingent faculty and the mistrust embedded in surveillance technologies. She advocates for a “re-turn” to foundational teaching methods, emphasizing the process of writing—revision, invention, and critical thinking—as a way to engage students deeply with their work. Jamieson sees AI as an opportunity to strengthen writing education rather than undermine it.
    • Carver, Joseph and Samba Bah. “Rehumanizing Higher Education: Fostering Humanity in the Era of Machine Learning.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20644.
      • Carver and Bah examine the challenges and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI, within higher education. They highlight the polarized attitudes toward AI, ranging from optimism about its potential to enhance research and efficiency to concerns about its impact on critical thinking and human values. They draw parallels to the “Science Wars” of the 1990s, which questioned the validity of soft sciences, and note the lack of consensus on AI policies among academics. The article emphasizes the historical development of AI, from Alan Turing’s foundational work to modern advancements in machine learning (ML) and deep learning, which have enabled AI to mimic human reasoning and solve complex problems like protein folding. However, the authors stress the “alignment problem,” a term referring to AI’s inability to fully understand and align with human values, leading to biased outcomes in areas such as hiring and criminal justice. They argue that higher education has a unique role in shaping the future of AI, not only through research and integration of AI tools but also by rehumanizing education. They advocate for a unified response to AI, one that prioritizes human values and addresses the existential implications of AI on education’s traditional goals, such as critical thinking and knowledge creation. Drawing on philosophical traditions like Ubuntu, an African philosophy emphasizing interconnectedness and community, the authors call for a reimagined higher education system that centers humanity, empathy, and collaboration. They conclude by urging educators to ensure that AI enhances rather than diminishes human potential.
    • Liu, Larry. “AI and the Crisis of Legitimacy in Higher Education.” American Journal of STEM Education: Issues and Perspectives, vol. 4, 2024, pp. 16-26, https://www.ojed.org/STEM/article/view/7572.
      • Liu explores how the rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence is challenging the legitimacy of higher education, defined as society’s belief in the necessity of college credentials for secure, middle-class jobs and social mobility. AI’s ability to perform tasks like essay writing, exam-taking, and personalized learning threatens to disrupt traditional educational roles, with some educators even leaving the profession due to its impact. While AI could potentially boost college legitimacy by displacing jobs and increasing demand for credentials, it also poses risks, such as overreliance on AI making students less engaged learners. The article identifies three key challenges: AI’s unique capabilities, government and employer shifts toward skills-based hiring over degree requirements, and the “enrollment cliff” caused by declining birth rates. Using sociological frameworks, Liu applies Jürgen Habermas’s concept of legitimation crisis, where the state’s ability to balance economic growth and welfare is strained, to argue that higher education’s role in maintaining capitalist legitimacy is at risk. Additionally, Randall Collins’s credential inflation theory suggests that the surplus of college graduates devalues degrees, creating social hierarchies rather than preparing workers for the labor market. Liu concludes that educators should embrace AI’s benefits while addressing its broader societal impacts, such as declining enrollment and political distrust in higher education.
    • Fritts, Megan. “A Matter of Words: What Can University AI Committees Actually Do?” The Point Magazine, 12 May 2025, https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/a-matter-of-words/.
      • Fritts discusses the profound challenges artificial intelligence (AI) poses to higher education, particularly in the humanities, as universities across the U.S. grapple with how to respond to the technology’s transformative impact. Fritts, a philosophy professor, details her experiences on AI response committees at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where debates focus on issues like AI detectors’ accuracy, whether tools like Grammarly should be banned, and the ethical implications of students using AI for academic work. Central to these discussions is the tension between viewing AI as a tool for equity or efficiency and as a threat to human-centered education. She argues that the heart of the crisis lies in the humanities’ core mission: if the goal is to produce artifacts like essays or arguments, AI could soon replace human efforts. However, if the focus shifts to forming human persons through language and self-expression, AI becomes an existential threat by undermining the uniquely human connection between thought, language, and identity. Drawing on a philosopher like Ludwig Wittgenstein or the political theorist Alasdair MacIntyre, Fritts emphasizes that language is not just a tool but a formative part of human life, and relying on AI for communication risks eroding this essential aspect of humanity. She calls for radical policies to preserve the humanities by banning AI in classrooms and reclaiming the indispensability of human expression.
    • Luckin, Rosemary, Mutlu Cukurova, Carmel Kent, and Benedict du Boulay. “Empowering Educators to be AI-Ready.” Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, vol. 3, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2022.100076.
      • Luckin et al. focus on the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education and emphasize the need for educators to become “AI-Ready.” AI is defined as the capacity of machines to simulate intelligent behavior, with applications ranging from learner-facing tools that adapt to individual needs to educator-facing systems that assist with tasks like grading and institutional support tools for resource management. Despite AI’s potential, its adoption in education lags behind other sectors due to challenges like ethical concerns, data limitations, and the complexity of educational ecosystems. The concept of AI Readiness involves understanding AI’s capabilities and limitations, particularly its lack of human-like qualities such as social intelligence and metacognition. The authors introduce the EThICAL AI Readiness Framework, a seven-step process (Excite, Tailor, Identify, Collect, Apply, Learn, Iterate) to guide educators and administrators in identifying challenges, collecting and analyzing data, and applying AI ethically. Case studies, such as one involving Arizona State University, demonstrate how this framework helps educators assess student learning behaviors and develop targeted interventions. The article concludes by stressing the importance of balancing AI’s strengths with human expertise to enhance education effectively.
    • Ellerton, Wendy. “The Human and Machine: OpenAI, ChatGPT, Quillbox, Grammarly, Google, Google Docs, & humans.” Visible Language, vol. 57, no. 1, Apr. 2023, pp. 38-52, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/893661.
      • Ellerton reflects on the evolving relationship between humans and technology, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of generative AI. Ellerton, a design educator, explores how tools like ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Quillbot are reshaping writing and communication, blending personal narrative with critical analysis. She discusses her experimentation with AI, highlighting both its potential to enhance creativity and collaboration and its limitations, such as the risk of misinformation and ethical concerns like authorship and bias. Using autoethnography, a research method that combines personal experience with cultural critique, she examines her own interactions with AI, revealing the tensions between human qualities like metacognition and emotional intelligence and the efficiency of machines. She advocates for a balanced approach, emphasizing the need to embrace human values and critical thinking while leveraging AI’s capabilities.
    • Miller, Robin Elizabeth. “Pandora’s Can of Worms: A Year of Generative AI in Higher Education.” portal: Libraries and the Academy, vol. 24, no. 1, Jan. 2024, pp. 21-34, https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2024.a916988.
      • Miller considers the impact of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing Chat on higher education since their rapid introduction in late 2022. She discusses the varied reactions among educators, from alarm to cautious enthusiasm, and highlights the challenges of regulating and understanding these tools while students and colleagues simultaneously experiment with them. The piece uses Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation theory to frame the adoption process, categorizing users into groups like early adopters and laggards, and outlines the five stages of adoption: awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. Miller also examines the spectrum of acceptable uses for AI, dividing them into “green light” tasks (low-resistance, repetitive work), “yellow light” tasks (cautious experimentation with expertise-related activities), and “red light” tasks (high-resistance creative or original work). The article raises ethical concerns, such as the potential for misinformation, copyright infringement, and depersonalization of communication, while also noting the practical benefits of AI as a tool for efficiency and learning. She emphasizes the ongoing challenges educators face in navigating the ethical, technical, and policy implications of generative AI, likening its introduction to opening Pandora’s Box, where hope remains the last and most enduring consequence.
    • Norris, Christopher. “Poetry, Philosophy, and Smart AI.” SubStance, vol. 53, no. 1, 2024, pp. 60-76, https://doi.org/10.1353/sub.2024.a924142.
      • Norris examines the debates surrounding AI’s role in poetry and creativity, drawing on his expertise in poetry, philosophy, and literary theory. He questions whether AI can genuinely think or create, arguing that AI-generated poetry is either a product of human creativity or a simulation. Norris engages with philosophical arguments, such as John Searle’s “Chinese Room” thought experiment, which posits that AI lacks consciousness and intentionality, rendering its outputs mere mechanical processes. He also considers the “extended mind” thesis, suggesting that tools like AI are extensions of human cognition, complicating distinctions between human and machine creativity. Norris discusses William Empson’s work on poetic ambiguity, linking it to the challenge of determining whether AI can capture the intentional depth of human poetry. The article concludes that while AI can mimic poetic forms, its impact on poetry will depend on its role as a tool to enhance rather than replace human creativity, emphasizing the enduring importance of judgment and intentional creativity in poetic endeavors.
    • Laurent, Dubreuil. Humanities in the Time of AI. University of Minnesota Press, 2025, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/129366.
      • Dubreuil’s Humanities in the Time of AI is the most challenging reading (to me) on this list. He presents a paradoxical optimism about the potential of AI to revitalize the humanities. He argues that while AI can perform tasks traditionally associated with humanistic research, such as summarizing, describing, or translating, these are not the ultimate goals of the humanities. Instead, he advocates for a maximalist understanding of scholarship, emphasizing creation, transformative signification, and the exploration of the unsaid. He distinguishes between invention, which reorganizes existing knowledge, and creation (poiēsis), which emerges from contradictions and impossibilities, suggesting the latter as the true domain of the humanities. Dubreuil critiques both conservative and progressive approaches to humanistic inquiry, arguing that the humanities must engage in a dialogical endeavor that considers the past, present, and future without reducing scholarship to tradition or moral indictment of historical eras. He also explores the relationship between AI and human cognition, noting that AI is not a separate entity but an extension of human thought, trained on vast datasets of human artifacts. Dubreuil emphasizes that while AI can simulate creativity, it lacks true interpretive and creative capacities, which remain the province of the humanities. He calls for a redefinition of the humanities that embraces their role in interpreting and creating meaning, positioning them as a counter to the standardized, algorithmic thinking of AI. Dubreuil critiques the superficial dismissal of Plato’s concerns about writing in the Phaedrus, arguing that these concerns resonate with contemporary debates about AI’s impact on cognition and memory. He challenges the notion that AI is merely a neutral tool, highlighting its potential to reshape human thought and creativity. Dubreuil also examines the ethical dimensions of AI, cautioning against the reduction of ethics to utilitarian decision-making and emphasizing the importance of critical interpretation over descriptive scholarship. He advocates for a maximalist vision of the humanities, one that embraces complexity, creativity, and the unique capacities of humanistic inquiry in the face of technological advancements. Dubreuil sees AI as both a challenge and an opportunity to redefine the humanities’ role in fostering critical thinking, interpretive depth, and intellectual exploration.

  • Review of Donald E. Hall’s The Academic Self: An Owner’s Manual, Recommended for Graduate Students, Postdocs, and Junior Faculty

    Hall, Donald E. The Academic Self: An Owner’s Manual. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2002. Print.

    I picked up Donald E. Hall’s The Academic Self from the Georgia Tech Library after completing my teaching assignment for Spring 2013–eleven years after the book had been published. Specifically, I was looking for books and articles to help me grapple with the challenges of this stage of my professional life as a postdoctoral fellow: teaching a 3-3 load, performing service duties, researching, writing,  receiving rejections (and the far less often acceptance), and applying for permanent positions. In the following, I summarize Hall’s arguments, provide some commentary, and close with a contextualized recommendation.

    Hall states in the introduction that the goal of The Academic Self is, “encourage its readership to engage critically their professional self-identities, processes, values, and definitions of success” (Hall xv). I found this book to be particularly useful for thinking through my professional self-identity. As I was taught by Brian Huot at Kent State University to be a reflective practitioner in my teaching and pedagogy, Hall argues for something akin to this in terms of Anthony Giddens’ “the reflexive construction of self-identity” (qtd. in Hall 3). Hall truncates this to be “self-reflexivity,” or the recognition that who we are is an unfolding and emergent project. I use this blog as part of my processes of self-reflection–thinking through my research and teaching while striving to improve both through conscious planning and effort.

    However, unlike the past where the self was static and enforced by external forces, modernity (and postmodernity–a term Hall, like Giddens, disagrees with) has ushered in an era where the self is constructed by the individual reflectively. From his viewpoint, the self is a text that changes and can be changed by the individual with a greater deal of agency than perhaps possible in the past (he acknowledges his privileged position earlier in the book, but it bears repeating that this level of agency certainly is not equally distributed).

    In the first chapter, titled “Self,” Hall writes, “Living in the late-modern age, in a social milieu already thoroughly pervaded by forms of self-reflexivity, and trained as critical readers, we academics in particular have the capacity and the professional skills to live with a critical (self-) consciousness, to reflect critically upon self-reflexivity, and to use always our professional talents to integrate our theories and our practices” (Hall 5). If we consider ourselves, the profession, and our institutions as texts to be read, we can apply our training to better understanding these texts and devise ways of making positive change to these texts.

    He identifies what he sees as two extremes that “continue to plague academic existence: that of Casaubonic paralysis and Carlylean workaholism” (Hall 8). In the former, academics can be caught in a ignorant paranoia like Casaubon of George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871-1872), or in the latter, academics can follow Thomas Carlyle’s call to work and avoid the “symptom” of “self-contemplation” (qtd. in Hall 6).

    In the chapter titled “Profession,” Hall calls for us to apply our training to reflective analysis and problem solving of our professional selves and our relationship to the ever changing state of the profession itself. He questions to what extent the work of professionalism (seminars, workshops, etc.) are descriptive or prescriptive. “The ideal of intellectual work” varies from person to person, but it is an important choice that we each must make in defining who we are within the profession.

    He reminds us that, “much of the pleasure of planning, processing, and time management lies not in their end products–publication or project completion–it is derived from the nourishment –intellectual, communal, and professional–provided by the processes themselves” (Hall 46). He builds his approach to process on his personal experiences: “Unlike some, I know well when my work day is over. Part of the textuality of process is its beginning, middle, and most importantly, its end” (Hall 46).

    His talking points on process are perhaps the most practical advice that he provides in the book. In planning, he advises:

    1. begin from the unmovable to the tentative in your scheduling, know yourself–plan according to your habits and work on those aspects of your planning that need adjustment, and stick to your well planned schedule to yield the personal time that you might be lacking now without such a plan
    2. break goals and deliverables into their constituent parts [or building blocks (my Lego analogy) or code (my programming analogy)]
    3. monitor your progress and see daily/smaller goals as ends in themselves rather than simply means to a greater end
    4. take ownership of your goals, schedule, and commitments to others [this is something that I carry forward from my Mindspring days: Core Values and Beliefs: Do not drop the ball.]
    5. deal with and learn from setbacks–life, bad reviews, rejections, etc. [this is easier said than done, and the external effects of bad reviews goes beyond its effect on the writer]
    6. let change happen to our goals and research as our workplace, interests, and circumstances change
    7. taking ownership of our work in these ways can help protect us from and strengthen us against burnout

    Hall goes on to suggest ten steps for professional invigoration to help folks suffering from a stalled career or burnout. However, these ten pieces of advice are equally applicable to graduate students, postdocs, and beginning faculty: join your field’s national organization, read widely in your field, set precise goals, maintain a daily writing schedule [my most difficult challenge], present conference papers, write shorter artifacts to support your research [reviews or my case, this blog], know the process and timeline of manuscript publishing, foster relationships with publishers and editors, politely disengage from poor or dysfunctional professional relationship/praise and value positive relationships, and find support in your local networks.

    The final chapter, “Collegiality, Community, and Change,” reminds us, “always t put and keep our own house in order” (Hall 70). He suggests strategies counter to what he calls “the destructive ethos of ‘free agency’ that seems to pervade the academy today–the mindset that institutional affiliations are always only temporary and that individuals owe little to their departments or institutions beyond the very short term” (Hall 70). On professional attitudes, he encourages a focus on the local (institution) before national (beyond the institution), the current job as potentially your last job–treat it with that respect, meet institutional expectations, collegial respect of others, and learning the history of our institution/school/department from everyone with whom we work.

    Perhaps most notably, he writes, “If we measure our success through the articulation and meeting of our own goals, as I suggest throughout this book, we can achieve them without begrudging others their own successes. However, if we need to succeed primarily in comparison to others, then we are deciding to enter a dynamic of competition that has numerous pernicious consequences, personal and inter-personal” (Hall 74-75). As I have written about on Dynamic Subspace before, it was the overwhelming in-your-faceness of others’ successes on social media like Facebook that distracted me from my own work. Seeing so many diverse projects, publications, and other accomplishments made me question my own works-in-progress before they had time to properly incubate and grow. For all of social media’s useful and positive aspects for maintaining and growing networks of interpersonal relationships, I had the most trouble resisting the self-doubt that the Facebook News Feed generated for me.

    Finally, he encourages dynamic and invested change in departments and institutions. However, as junior faculty, it is important to research and weigh the possible repercussions for working to make change. Hall is not arguing against change by those without tenure, but he is warning us to proceed cautiously and knowledgeably due to a number factors: potential sources of resistance, jeopardizing our jobs, etc.

    Hall’s “Postscript” reinforces the overarching idea of ownership by calling on the reader to live with “intensity,” an idea that inspired Hall from Walter Pater’s 1868 The Renaissance: “burn always with [a] hard, gem-like flame” (qtd. in Hall 89). Hall’s intensity is one self-motivated, well-planned, dynamically agile, and passionately executed.

    Hall’s The Academic Self is a very short read that is well worth the brief time that it will take to read. It offers some solid advice woven with the same theoretically infused self-reflexivity that he encourages. It practices what it preaches. The main thing to remember is that the book is eleven years old. When it was published, the field of English studies was experiencing an employment downturn (albeit one not as pronounced as in recent years). Michael Berube’s “Presidential Address 2013–How We Got Here” (PMLA 128.3 May 2013: 530-541), among many other places–this issue just arrived in the mail today, so I was reading it between chapters of Hall’s book, picks up some of the other challenges that graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty have to contend with in the larger spheres of the profession and society. The other advice that Hall provides on personal ownership and collegiality, I believe, remains useful and inspirational. In addition to reading Hall’s book, you should check out his bibliography for further important reading in this vein.

  • Down and Dirty Guide to Literary Research with Digital Humanities Tools: Text Mining Basics

    2010-10-05 - IMG_2791
    Miao and Jason get things done with computers!

    As part of the final Digital Pedagogy seminar of fall 2012, Margaret Konkol, Patrick McHenry, Olga Menagarishvili, and I will lead the discussion on “trends in the digital humanities.” You can find out more about our readings and other DH resources by reading our TECHStyle post here.

    As part of my contribution to the seminar, I will give a demo titled, “Down and Dirty Guide to Literary Research with Digital Humanities Tools: Text Mining Basics.” In my presentation, I will show how traditional literary scholars can employ computers, cameras, and software to enhance their research.

    To supplement my presentation, I created the following outline with links to useful resources.

    Down and Dirty Guide to Literary Research with Digital Humanities Tools: Text Mining Basics

    1. Text Analysis and Text Mining
      1. My working definition of text mining: “Studying texts with computers and software to uncover new patterns, overlooked connections, and deeper meaning.”
      2. What is Text Analysis: Electronic Texts and Text Analysis by Geoffrey Rockwell and Ian Lancashire
      3. Text mining on Wikipedia
      4. Text Mining as a Research Tool by Ryan Shaw (an excellent resource with a presentation and links to more useful material on and offline)
    2. Advantages to Digital Research Materials
      1. Ask Interesting Questions That Would Otherwise Be Too Difficult or Time Consuming to Ask
      2. Efficiency
      3. Thoroughness
      4. Find New Patterns
      5. Develop Greater Insight
    3. Types of Digital Research Materials
      1. Your Notes
      2. eBooks
      3. eJournals
    4. Digitizing Your Own Research Materials
      1. What to Digitize
        1. Primary Sources
        2. Secondary Sources
      2. How to Digitize
        1. Acquire
          1. Camera > high resolution JPG
          2. Scanner > high resolution TIFF or JPG
        2. Collate as PDF
          1. Adobe Acrobat X Pro (now XI!)
          2. PDFCreator
          3. Mac OS X Preview
        3. Perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to generate machine readable/searchable plain text
          1. Adobe Acrobat X Pro
            1. Print PDF to a letter size PDF
            2. Tool > Recognize Text
          2. DevonThink
          3. Use Google
          4. Others?
        4. Save As/Export plain text > .txt files
        5. Engage the “Text” in New Ways
          1. New Ways of Seeing “Texts”
            1. Keyword Search
            2. Line Search
            3. Word Counts
            4. Concordance
            5. Patterns
          2. Tools to Help with Seeing “Texts”
            1. AntConc
            2. BBEdit (“It doesn’t suck” ®)
            3. MacOS X and Linux: cat, find, grep, and print (use “man cat” and “man grep” to learn more from the Terminal. More info here, here, here, here, and here.)
            4. DevonThink
            5. Notepad++
            6. Mac OS X Spotlight/Windows 7 Search
            7. TextEdit
            8. Others?

    IMG_0987
    Miao awaits digitization.

  • Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Thinking About Steve Jobs and the Marriage of the Humanities and Technology

    Steve Jobs programming with an Apple I.

    Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Steve Jobs’ death. I wrote about it last year when I was still in Kent, Ohio–right after my Dad called me to tell me the sad news.

    Yesterday, I reflected on missing out on meeting and talking with Jobs–something that Scott Kurtz captured brilliantly on PvP. Growing up, I wanted to meet him–the natural element, the force of nature, the man who led his company to create “insanely great” things that enabled people to be creative in the digital age. However, I didn’t want to meet him in passing. I wanted to make or do insanely great things myself–things worthy of his admiration and interest. I suppose I’m still working on those insanely great things, and I unfortunately missed my window of opportunity to accomplish those things while Jobs was still with us. Nevertheless, his inspiration lives on and it drives me.

    Yesterday, Apple debuted a fitting tribute video to Steve Jobs’ legacy–Apple’s inheritance. To borrow Michael Stipe’s words out of context, it was “a right pretty song.” I snapped the pictures at the top and bottom of the post from that video. I decided to keep the frame of Mac OS X, because it just seemed right.

    Yesterday, I thought about something Jobs says in the video. He says, “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.” This was from Jobs’ surprise appearance to introduce the iPad 2 on March 2, 2011.

    Today, the obvious need for the humanities to be infused in our technologies is lost, I believe, on many people–particularly other technology innovators and so-called “education innovators,” who fight for STEM to the exclusion of all other ares of study. It extends also to education debates taking place right now in the United States. At the recent presidential debates, there was mention made of the need for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, but there was no mention of the humanities. How can we produce top rate engineers without instilling them with the ability to communicate effectively, the ability to think critically, the ability to argue rhetorically, the ability to think ethically, the ability to recognize and appreciate human difference, and the ability to situate themselves and their work within historical, cultural, and social networks? STEM is obviously one half of the solution, but the humanities and all that we have to offer are the other half of creating a total solution. If we choose to ignore the interconnection and interdependence of STEM and the humanities, we will not create an “insanely great” future. Instead, we will destroy the legacy of insanely great innovators, leaders, and teachers who worked so hard to give us a present time that could lead to a brilliant future.

    Tomorrow, we will reflect on the choices that we make today. We have to seize this opportunity to work collaboratively and integratively towards that future. If we ignore this opportunity today, tomorrow we will regret our choice: “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away/Now it looks as though they’re here to stay/Oh, I believe in yesterday” (John Lennon and Paul McCartney).

    Steve Jobs looks toward the sky next to Apple’s flagship store in New York City.