Altissia Chair: Practical Digital Methods and Tools for the Humanities

Teacher(s)

Gribomont Isabelle;

Language

French
> English-friendly

Prerequisites

LFIAL2010 Enjeux culturels et éthiques du numérique is recommended but not mandatory.

Main themes

The digital is not just a "polish of modernity" superimposed on the reality that surrounds us, it is a fundamental movement that confronts the real and the virtual—and actually goes beyond the opposition between the two—, which influences languages, arts, culture, society, systems of thought, and even our perception of space and time. This fundamental digital shift therefore affects the “subjects" that are at the heart of our disciplinary fields in FIAL while at the same time raising important societal challenges, both ethical and democratic.
In this course we look into the practical impact of the (post)digital on the humanities and the opportunities and affordances it makes possible for obtaining better, richer, and subtler results in our studies and research. We will therefore focus on and learn how to use various digital tools and algorithms for effective applications in the humanities, both improving our angle on, knowledge of, and efficiency in, our subject matters and helping to work in cross-disciplinary contexts and be successful when coping with the challenges of the digital age. 
Our practical applications will range from digital archiving bringing together image, text, and sound to 3D modeling to algorithms and tools for history, art history, and archeology to apps for linguistics and literature to data management, visualization, and classification to network visualization and analysis, etc. Student will be allowed to focus on and work with applications most relevant to their subjects or to their main research, cultural, and professional interests.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	The goal of this course is to introduce the students to the most advanced and effective digital tools and affordances relevant to their subject matter and/or their personal research/professional interests and help them learn how to deploy them successfully in academic/real-life and job/career-relevant contexts.

Content

This course introduces the research possibilities offered by a digital environment in the humanities. We’ll learn how to use digital tools to answer our research questions, while maintaining a critical outlook towards the former. 
The tools considered will allow us to create digital exhibitions/collections; create and analyse networks; analyse a literary, historical or media corpus; annotate, analyse and visualise a range of digital data etc. 
Students will be able to focus on questions and tools which are most relevant to their interests and professional aspirations. 

Teaching methods

Lectures and hands-on workshops. 

Evaluation methods

Project and oral presentation. 

Other information

English-friendly course: course taught in French but offering facilities in English.

Online resources

Moodle

Faculty or entity

FIAL