Registration is now open for both the Pre-Conference and THATCamp Clear Lake 2017 at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, November 3-4, 2017, on the theme Data Visualization in the Humanities. Register at the tab above, or click here.

You are welcome to register for one or both days, and people of all experience levels and backgrounds are welcome to attend. Registration is free for all participants thanks to the generous support of the Alfred R. Neumann Library and the UHCL Center for Faculty Development..

The Pre-Conference kicks off on Friday, November 3, from 1:00pm-5:00pm. Presentations from four speakers will start the conversation:

Rafia Mirza, Humanities Librarian at the Fondren Library, Southern Methodist University: “How to Bring Digital Humanities in the Classroom”

We will discuss some lightweight ways to introduce students to digital humanities concepts in the classroom, and ways to construct assignments that do not require knowledge of the command line/programming.

Claude Willan, PhD, Director of the Digital Scholarship Center, University of Houston Libraries: “Ethics of Data Visualization”

Like any form of rhetoric, data in the humanities is vulnerable to abuse and manipulation. Willan is interested in the problems of how to present work persuasively but also honestly. His presentation will examine ethical concerns in data visualization.

Sylvia Fernández Quintanilla and Maira E. Álvarez, PhD candidates, University of Houston: “U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Newspapers Data Visualization”

Borderlands Archives Cartography (BAC) emerges from the constant and current aggressive, political rhetoric that displays the geographic and ideological border between the United States and Mexico as a threat. As the first borderlands newspapers digital archive, its purpose is to locate, digitize and facilitate the access of borderlands newspapers. Bacartography.org has a repository platform that displays the digital map, a historical context of the borderlands, online resources, publications, a monthly newspapers exhibition and, graphs that help visualized the data collected.

Christal Seahorn, PhD, Assistant Professor of Writing, University of Houston-Clear Lake:

“Mere Exposure Theory in Shakespeare’s Plays, or, Why No Love for the Histories?”

Starting with consumption data (sales and electronic searches) that reveal Shakespeare’s history plays to be the least “popular” genre in his dramatic corpus, Seahorn presents her search for a structural reason why the histories might be less attractive to modern audiences? Traveling down a rabbit hole of graphic models that ultimately isolate the first tetralogy–Richard III to 1, 2, and 3–as the least liked, by these metrics, Seahorn uses character/scene ratios and word frequencies to posit a correlation between familiarity and “popularity” similar to the mere-exposure effect in Social Psychology.

THATCamp Clear Lake runs from 9:00am-3:00pm on Saturday, November 4. Coffee, breakfast and lunch will be served. 

THATCamp depends on participation and engagement from all THATCampers. If you would like to propose a session, go to the THATCamp site, click on Posts > Add New, and write and publish it there. Your session proposal will appear on the front page of this site, and we’ll all be able to read and comment on it beforehand. Remember that you will be expected to facilitate the sessions you propose, so that if you propose workshop on data visualization in R, you should be prepared to teach it or find a teacher; if you propose a discussion of the copyright issues surrounding data use and reuse, you should be prepared to summarize the issue, begin the discussion, keep the discussion going, and end the discussion.

Planning for THATCamp Clear Lake is currently in progress! It will be held November 3-4, 2017 on the theme of data visualization in the humanities.

THATCamp Clear Lake will convene at the Bayou Building on the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) campus and will be comprised of two parts. Friday will start things off with a series of talks from 2:00-5:00. Participants will then gather for an optional dinner and a mixer at 6:00. We will reconvene on Saturday from 9:00-3:00 at the Bayou Building for the THATCamp.

People of all experience levels and backgrounds are welcome. Because THATCamp Clear Lake is an unconference, the agenda will be determined by the participants during the first session on Saturday. If you are working on a project, you can show it off. If you have an idea or a dilemma, you can have conversations about it with fellow Digital Humanities (DH) enthusiasts. If you know a technology or technique, you can teach others about it.

Some food and refreshments will be provided for the Saturday portion, including a light breakfast and lunch. Attendance is free and open to everyone, though registration is required. You may register here or at the tab above.

More details will be published here as we have them. Meanwhile, read more about THATCamps at thatcamp.org.

New to DH? Check out A Short Guide to the Digital Humanities by Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp. See also Miriam Posner’s DH101: A Highly Opinionated Resource Guide, including a section on Visualizing Data.