HISB05H3 F LEC01 20259:How We Became Digital: Introduction to our Information Age

At the end of this course, you should:

• be able to articulate the historical importance of computers and information science across various domains of human activity
• be able to describe to others what the phrases "digital history" and "digital humanities" mean to you.
• be able to frame a coherent and nuanced argument of your own about the value of digital and quantitative methods to the field of history
• be able to clearly state and defend a position regarding "engaged scholarship", and articulate the relationship of your argument to the contemporary media landscape
• have a basic understanding of markup languages and their use in the digital humanities
• understand how to create simple historical maps, and have an opinion about the value of GIS in historical argument

There are many approaches to digital history and the digital humanities, all of them involving tools that are under rapid and iterative development. A given project is likely to require a substantial training period in the particular tools chosen by the principal investigators. It is therefore not possible for this course to provide an effective survey of "the" digital humanities toolkit. But learning tools is an essential skill for the digital humanist. So what should we do?

Almost every digital humanist will, at some point, need to do the following:

• read and edit HTML, CSS and code
• debug running web pages using the browser's built-in tools
• use a text editor to write code in any of several languages
• collaborate with peers using version control software, almost always git

Our emphasis is therefore on a combination of simple coding taught using standard tools that are available almost everywhere, and reflecting on our interactions with code and data in a written form. Almost all of the software we use is Free or Open Source. These baby steps will give you some sense of what skills a "real" digital history project requires, and give you some of the tools you'll need to teach yourself when you encounter new tools in the course of a project. This course is also the gateway to a deeper engagement with code and history in HISC07.

Students with diverse learning styles and needs are welcome in this course. In particular, if you have a disability/health consideration that may require accommodations, please feel free to approach me and/or the AccessAbility Services Office as soon as possible.

AccessAbility Services staff (located in Rm AA142, Arts and Administration Building) are available by appointment to assess specific needs, provide referrals and arrange appropriate accommodations 416-287-7560 or email ability.utsc@utoronto.ca. The sooner you let us know your needs the quicker we can assist you in achieving your learning goals in this course.

Diverse backgrounds, embodiments, and experiences are essential to the critical thinking endeavor at the heart of higher education. As always, I expect you to be respectful of the many social and cultural differences among us, which may include, but are not limited to: age, cultural background, disability, ethnicity, technical ability, gender identity and presentation, citizenship and immigration status, national origin, race, religious and political beliefs, sex, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Please talk with me right away if you experience disrespect in this class—from any source, including myself—and I will actively work to address .

The University treats cases of cheating and plagiarism very seriously. The University of Toronto's Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters outlines the behaviours that constitute academic dishonesty and the processes for addressing academic offences.

Potential offences in papers and assignments include using someone else's ideas or words without appropriate acknowledgement, submitting your own work in more than one course without the permission of the instructor, making up sources or facts, obtaining or providing unauthorized assistance on any assignment (including from AI Agents).

On tests and exams, cheating includes using or possessing unauthorized aids, looking at someone else's answers during an exam or test, misrepresenting your identity, or falsifying or altering any documentation required by the University.

We meet on a territory whose history the stretches back long before European settlement. For thousands of years, the land on which the University finds itself, as well as greater territory stretching northward from the shores of Lake Ontario, has been the traditional land of Indigenous peoples including the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island, as well as many newcomers from around the world. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work here, and acknowledge the long history of injustice and expropriation which ha brought us to this moment in time.

Students may use artificial intelligence tools, including generative AI, in this course as learning aids or to help produce assignments. However, students are ultimately accountable for the work they submit.<br><br>Students may not use artificial intelligence tools for taking tests, writing research papers, creating computer code, or completing major course assignments, except when the professor has explicitly given guidance on the appropriate role of generative AI in that assignment. These tools may be useful when gathering information from across sources and assimilating it for understanding.<br><br>The knowing use of generative artificial intelligence tools, including ChatGPT and other AI writing and coding assistants, for the completion of, or to support the completion of, an examination, term test, assignment, or any other form of academic assessment, may be considered an academic offense in this course when that use contravenes my instructions.

As noted above, most communication should take place via Slack. In the case of questions having to do with official University business (requests for extensions, discussion of accommodations, any message involving sensitive personal data) please use my University email, being sure to put "HISB05" in the subject line. I'll do my best to reply within two working days, though occasionally the delay may be slightly longer. Please allow the full 48 hours to elapse before sending a repeat email (longer if you email after Thursday!).

Also: I have an injury-related difficulty co-ordinating action between my left and right hands, which leads to very frequent & distinctive typographical errors (and is also one of the many reasons you don't want to hear me play a musical instrument). In my course materials, assignment comments, and announcements, I strive to eliminate those errors, but in instant messaging I am less attentive, as typing corrections approximately triples my composition time. So… please be patient with my typos.

Make every effort to attend each class meeting! Class will begin and end on time. Please do your best to arrive before the start of the session. Students are expected to attend all meetings unless unavoidable circumstances prevent you. Please let me know in advance if you need to skip class either once or in general. I may ask you to make up your attendance mark with extra work.

Please silence notifications on your devices during class, so you can focus. Please don't use class time (lecture or lab) to check your email, update your status, read reddit, watch YouTube, make dank memes, seize the means of production, etc. Such usage is distracting and interferes with learning both for you and for all the other students around you. If I notice you doing this, I will call you out in public. Spend class time on class materials. If another student's activity is distracting, please ask them to stop it (or let me know outside of class).

Our first foundational concept. Our idea of "information" has a more recent origin than you may think. We'll talk about where it comes from, what we mean by "Information Age", discuss the course goals, and do a fun exercise.

• Readings: None
• Activities: Course Roster Activity
• Homework Assignments: Zotero Setup (including proxying)

Charting the growth of "information" asa concept, and also the first waves of electronic computing technology from ENIAC to Radio Shack.

• Readings:
  • Wiener, Norbert. 1989. “Progress and Entropy.” In The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society, 28–47. London: Free Association. (On Quercus here)
  • Campbell-Kelly, Martin. 2023. “Inventing the Computer.” In Computer: A History of the Information Machine, Fourth edition., 82–113. New York, NY: Routledge. (Quercus)
• Activities: Spreadsheet exercise
• Homework Assignments: TBD

The personal compuer "revolution", the Internet metastasizes into the World Wide Web, and the dot-com boom/bust feuls narratives of emancipation and redemption as the Cold War ends in an apparent American triumph.

REMOTE, ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: I will be out of twon for a meeting, but will record lectures in advance.

Freedom persists as a zombie idea, while platforms and venture capital transform the Internet into a machine for sucking wealth out of the world economy and into Northern California, and the integration between surveillance state and computation approaches completion.

We switch gears form a broad outline towards special topics. The first of these is on the organization of knowledge through notes, argument, and writing.

• Readings:
  • Schmidt, Johannes F. K. 2018. “Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: The Fabrication of Serendipity.” Sociologica 12 (1): 53–60. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/8350. (shorter) or Schmidt, Johannes F. K. 2016. “Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: Thinking Tool, Communication Partner, Publication Machine.” In Forgetting Machines: Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe, edited by Alberto Cevolini, 287–311. BRILL. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004325258. (a little easier)

• Activities: Note Taking Systems
• Assignments: "Commonplace Book" Handed Out

Our next topic is "Artificial Intelligence", placed slightly out of sequence in order to ensure generlay understnading of class policies.

• Readings:
  • Flasi{\’n}ski, Mariusz. 2016. “History of Artificial Intelligence.” In Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG. (Quercus link)
  • “On the Dark History of Intelligence as Domination } {Aeon Essays.” n.d. Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/on-the-dark-history-of-intelligence-as-domination. Accessed September 6, 2023. (link here)
  • Barocas, Solon, Moritz Hardt, and Arvind Narayanan. n.d. “When Is Automated Decision Making Legitimate?” In Fairness and Machine Learning. Accessed September 6, 2023. (read HTML or access PDF from here)
• Activities: Chatbot Brainstorming & Editing

A look at what is lost and gained when unstructured informational inputs are turned into into structured data.

• Readings:
  • Lack, Pierre. 2021. “Using Word Analysis to Track the Evolution of Emotional Well-Being in Nineteenth-Century Industrializing Britain.” Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 54 (4): 228–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2021.1952915.
  • Mangrum, Benjamin. 2018. “Aggregation, Public Criticism, and the History of Reading Big Data.” Pmla 133 (5): 1207–24. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2018.133.5.1207.
• Activities: Working with JSON
• Assignments: "Working With Data" Assignment handed out

A very basic introduction to the field of "data science" and its implications for history.

• Readings:
  • Schmidt, Benjamin M. 2016. “Do Digital Humanists Need to Understand Algorithms?” Debates in the Digital Humanities 53.
  • Striphas, Ted. 2015. “Algorithmic Culture.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 18 (4-5): 395–412. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549415577392.
• Activities: Data Transformation
• Assignments: TBD

How to make simple graphs, and when not to.

• Readings:
  • Theibault, John. 2012. “Visualizations and Historical Arguments (Theibault).” Writing History in the Digital Age. http://writinghistory.trincoll.edu/evidence/theibault-2012-spring/.
  • Graham, Shawn et al. 2016. “Making Your Data Legible: A Basic Introduction to Visualizations.” In Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian’s Macroscope, Second edition. New Jersey: World Scientific. Download from Quercus
• Activities: Data Visualization Tools Workshop
  • We'll be working in Tableau Public: https://public.tableau.com
  • You'll need the files "Neighbourhoods-pretty.json" and either of the "COVID19-cases-toronto…" files from this directory in Quercus: https://q.utoronto.ca/courses/325415/files/folder/Resources%20and%20Data
• Assignments: –

Spatial data and spatial visualizations are a very special case. We;ll talk about how to make them, and the kind ofm istakes that it's easy to make with them.

• Readings:
  • Wood, Denis, John Fels, and John Krygier. 2010. “Unleashing the Power of the Map.” In Rethinking the Power of Maps, 39–66. New York: Guilford Press.
  • Hunt, Dallas, and Shaun A. Stevenson. 2017. “Decolonizing Geographies of Power: Indigenous Digital Counter-Mapping Practices on Turtle Island.” Settler Colonial Studies 7 (3): 372–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2016.1186311.
  • Lucchesi, Annita Hetoev{\.e}hotohke’e. 2018. “``Indians Don’t Make Maps’’: Indigenous Cartographic Traditions and Innovations.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 42 (3): 11–26. https://doi.org/10.17953/aicrj.42.3.lucchesi.
• Activities: Mapping Tools Workshop
• Assignments: TBD

Digital history projects are often complex and consist of interlocking parts. Project and product management are areas of expertise that can help you succeed in this kind of complex endeavour.

• Readings:
  • “User Journey Maps } Usability & {Web Accessibility.” n.d. https://usability.yale.edu/understanding-your-user/user-journey-maps. Accessed November 1, 2023.
  • “Opportunity Solution Tree.” n.d. https://www.productplan.com/glossary/opportunity-solution-tree/. Accessed November 1, 2023.
  • Torres, Teresa. 2020. “Opportunity Mapping: An Essential Skill for Driving Product Outcomes.” Product Talk. https://www.producttalk.org/2020/07/opportunity-mapping/.
  • Torres, Teresa. 2019. “Prioritize Opportunities, Not Solutions.” Product Talk. https://www.producttalk.org/2019/02/prioritize-opportunities/.
  • Optional: for more on opportunity trees, check out “Opportunity Solution Tree: A Visual Tool for Product Discovery.” n.d. Amplitude. https://amplitude.com/blog/opportunity-solution-tree. Accessed November 1, 2023.

• Activities: Planning your futures
• Assignments: Final Assignment due on Tuesday