This syllabus was my fourth version of a course aimed at introducing the digital humanities at an undergraduate level. The course was organized around four projects, each of which was oriented by a theoretical reading: mapping a novel; text analysis with archival sources; creating composite images from digital films; and text digitization,…[Read more]

Syllabus for ENGL 758D, The Speculative Situation, graduate seminar in the University of Maryland English department, Fall 2017.

This course focuses on developing visual language literacy and theoretical frameworks through analyzing and creating a range of narrative media. We will examine a range of visual scholarly and creative works, starting with sequential art and moving into time-based and interactive media.

Students will:
1. Learn “close reading” strategies for…[Read more]

Course Description: Develops the ability to write clear, coherent, and well-developed expository prose. This course requires analytical reading and critical thinking and includes instruction and practice in research methods and writing from sources.

Is the divide between human and machine becoming harder to maintain? From the Golem of folk tales to Frankenstein and even Siri, the concept of the semi-artificial person, or cyborg, is long-lived, appearing across popular, religious, and scientific imaginations. As technology becomes more personal, the cyborg becomes less alien, and the prospect…[Read more]

Is the divide between human and machine becoming harder to maintain? From the Golem of folk tales to Frankenstein and even Siri, the concept of the semi-artificial person, or cyborg, is long-lived, appearing across popular, religious, and scientific imaginations. As technology becomes more personal, the cyborg becomes less alien, and the prospect…[Read more]

Syllabus for an online, 12 week, general education literature course for non-majors.

My research bridges my interests in media history, in particular history of the book, with my duties helping catalyze conversations around digital humanities, diversity, and social justice in an academic library at a large public university. This summer’s reading has gelled around a couple of slowly converging topics – information literacy and min…[Read more]

“But these perceptions had to be fabricated first.”
–Friedrich Kittler, Grammophone, Film, Typewriter (1986)

DTC 375 is an introduction to the historical relationships between technology, communication, and forms of writing. The course gives students an appreciation of the technological history of media, including hands-on encounters wit…[Read more]

A how-to lesson on working with Early English Books Online and Eighteenth-Century Collections Online, focusing both on the basics of searching and navigating interfaces and on thinking about remediation on how EEBO and ECCO represent material texts. Presented originally at Edinburgh’s “Beyond the Black Box” series in May 2017.

This course, under the broad heading of literature and science, takes on the subject of climate change fiction (cli-fi). It was first taught at Antioch College in winter of 2017. The course included field trips to the OSU climate research center, a local nature preserve, and the College’s farm.

This paper examines textiles as an indicator of social class in the sentimental novels of the American long 1850s. Publications such as Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830) and Lady’s World of Fashion (1842) are credited with creating the ties between social status and textile quality. Yet, domestic novels of the long 1850s such as The Discarded Daugh…[Read more]

This handout serves as a guide for student peer-reviewers to provide useful feedback to the writer. The open-ended questions walk the reviewer through the rhetorical analysis essay and provide a structure for evaluating the thesis, organization, rhetorical strategies, and use of pathos, ethos, logos, and kairos in the paper. The Rhetorical…[Read more]

This handout serves as a guide for student peer-reviewers to provide useful feedback to the writer. The open-ended questions walk the reviewer through the rhetorical analysis essay and provide a structure for evaluating the thesis, organization, rhetorical strategies, and use of pathos, ethos, logos, and kairos in the paper. The Rhetorical…[Read more]