Bethany Nowviskie has aptly summed up the current standoff between the University of California system and the Nature Publishing Group as a case of fight club soap. Bethany explains the metaphor much better than I can (I urge you to read her post), and she boils it down with even more economy on Twitter: "Fight… Continue reading Fight Club Soap, Sold by SD-6
Author: Mark Sample
Haunts: Place, Play, and Trauma
Foursquare and its brethren (Gowalla, Brightkite, Loopt, and so on) are the latest social media darlings, but honestly, are they really all that useful? Sharing your location with your friends is not very compelling when you spend your life in the same four places (home, office, classroom, coffee shop). Are these apps really even fun?… Continue reading Haunts: Place, Play, and Trauma
Forget Unconferences, Let’s Think about Underconferences
In a few days the latest iteration of THATCamp will convene on the campus of George Mason University, hosted by the Center for History and New Media. Except "convene" really isn't the right word. Most of my readers will already know that The Technology and Humanities Camp is an "unconference," which as Ethan Watrall explains… Continue reading Forget Unconferences, Let’s Think about Underconferences
Fall 2010 Grad Class on Graphic Novels
Here's the course description for my Fall 2010 graduate class on graphic novels (ENGL 685:003): This course considers the storytelling potential of graphic novels, an often neglected form of artistic and narrative expression with a long and rich history. Boldly combining images and text, graphic novels of recent years have explored divisive issues often considered… Continue reading Fall 2010 Grad Class on Graphic Novels
On the Death of the Digital Humanities Center
Two or three years ago it'd be difficult to imagine a university shuttering an internationally recognized program, one of the leading such programs in the country. Oh, wait. Never mind. That happens all the time. My own experience tells me that it's usually a marginalized field, using new methodologies, producing hard-to-classify work, heavily interdisciplinary, challenging… Continue reading On the Death of the Digital Humanities Center
Loud, Crowded, and Out of Control: A New Model for Scholarly Publishing
Yesterday Dan Cohen, the director of the Center for History and New Media and my colleague at George Mason University, posted a thoughtful piece describing a major problem of scholarly publishing (and of book publishing more generally). Dan suggests that while the "supply" of written work has changed with the advent of digital collaborations, academic… Continue reading Loud, Crowded, and Out of Control: A New Model for Scholarly Publishing
Gaiman and I
Neil Gaiman has done it again. He has stolen from me, again. I am talking wholesale robbery. Gaiman is a lie and a thief and an incubus that leeches upon my dreams, my unconscious, my fevered sleeping mind. Do I have to spell it out for you? Let's go all the way back to the… Continue reading Gaiman and I
The Archive or the Trace: Cultural Permanence and the Fugitive Text
We in the humanities are in love with the archive. My readers already know that I am obsessed with archiving otherwise ephemeral social media. I've got multiple redundant systems for preserving my Twitter activity. I rely on the Firefox plugins Scrapbook and Zotero to capture any online document that poses even the slightest flight risk.… Continue reading The Archive or the Trace: Cultural Permanence and the Fugitive Text
A Tale of Two MLA Bibliographies
Last month I questioned the Modern Language Association's decision, handed down in the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook, to exclude URLs (i.e. web addresses) from bibliographies and Works Cited lists. My readers seemed to be divided, and Rosemary Feal, the Executive Director of the MLA, joined the conversation by outlining some of the reasons… Continue reading A Tale of Two MLA Bibliographies
The MLA in Tweets
I've learned from following several digital humanities conferences from afar the past year (including Digital Humanties 2009 and THATcamp 2009) that the Twitter archive of a conference back-channel can be unreliable. Twitter's default search stream for any hashtag is extremely ephemeral, and that impermanence poses a problem for conference participants and observers, as well as… Continue reading The MLA in Tweets
Tips for the Modern Language Association
In the spirit of my fake advice for National Novel Writing Month, last month I began posting "tips" on Twitter for the upcoming Modern Language Association conference, an annual exercise in masochism for literature professors and graduate students the world over. This year's conference was held in Philadelphia, from December 27 to December 30, and… Continue reading Tips for the Modern Language Association
MLA Word Cloud for 28 December 2009
Today the Modern Language Association Conference goes into its second full day of meetings in Philadelphia. What's the conference been like so far? You can be the judge of whether the conference backchannel on Twitter captures the conference or not. Here's a word cloud of all #MLA09 tweets from Monday, December (minus the hashtag itself)… Continue reading MLA Word Cloud for 28 December 2009
The Modern Language Association Wishes Away Digital Différance
This is the first academic semester in which students have been using the revised 7th edition of the MLA Handbook (you know, that painfully organized book that prescribes the proper citation method for material like "an article in a microform collection of articles"). From the moment I got my copy of the handbook in May… Continue reading The Modern Language Association Wishes Away Digital Différance
National Novel Writing Month Tips
November has been decreed National Novel Writing Month by some wise guy in California. The idea is that you have 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel. A noble endeavor to be sure, but one that seems doomed to not succeed on any satisfying level. I imagine it's like running a marathon, but without… Continue reading National Novel Writing Month Tips
Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2009 MLA
Below are all of the upcoming 2009 MLA sessions related to new media and the digital humanities. Am I missing something? Let me know in the comments and I'll add it to the list. You may also be interested in following the Digital Humanities/MLA list on Twitter. (And if you are on Twitter and going… Continue reading Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2009 MLA