2016/17 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL3296 Beyond the Book: An Introduction to the Digital Humanities

20 creditsClass Size: 10

School of English

Module manager: Dr. James Mussell
Email: j.e.p.mussell@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2016/17

Pre-requisite qualifications

Please note: This module is restricted to Level 2 and 3 students. Enrolment priority will be given to Level 2 students for a restricted period (as detailed in the School’s Module Handbook).

This module is mutually exclusive with

ENGL3292

Beyond the Book: Textuality after the World Wide Web

Module replaces

ENGL3292 Beyond the Book: Textuality after the World Wide Web.

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Objectives

Most acts of writing and reading now happen in digital form. Email, blogging, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are all writing and reading spaces that are used by millions of people worldwide. We are in the midst of the digital revolution and yet the humanities, in particular, have been slow to take this seriously. In this module you will be introduced to the emerging field of the digital humanities. This new area of research is dedicated to understanding our digital culture and what it means for the way we understand the world around us. Students will learn to think critically about websites, social media, and data, as well as reading and writing in the digital age. The module is practical as well as theoretical: students will write blog posts and comments; will learn how to make webpages; and will encode their data, displaying it in maps and other visualisations. These skills will both inform your studies and will equip you to participate in the wider digital world beyond.

Learning outcomes
By the end of the module students will be able to:

Recognize how different media affect the possibilities of representation
Use a range of theoretical approaches to analyze new media.
Understand how digital resources are constructed and published online.
Produce simple web pages in HTML
Analyse and visualise data in a variety of forms

Syllabus

Most acts of writing and reading now happen in digital form. Email, blogging, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are all writing and reading spaces that are used by millions of people worldwide. We are in the midst of the digital revolution and yet the humanities, in particular, have been slow to take this seriously. In this module you will be introduced to the emerging field of the digital humanities. This new area of research is dedicated to understanding our digital culture and what it means for the way we understand the world around us. You will learn to think critically about websites, social media, and data, as well as reading and writing in the digital age. The module is practical as well as theoretical: alongside the readings set each week you will work on a digital project in collaboration with Special Collections. Not only will this module provide you with skills useful both in your studies and your life beyond university, it will also help make the University's collections more accessible in the digital age.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Computer Class	5	1.00	5.00
Seminar	10	1.00	10.00
Private study hours			185.00
Total Contact hours			15.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Private study

Teaching will be through weekly seminars (10 x 1 hour) plus 5 lab sessions.

Private Study: Reading, seminar preparation, essay writing.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

- Seminar contribution.
- Feedback on unassessed essay of 1700 words

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	A digital portfolio and accompanying essay of 4000 words (including notes and quotations). One unassessed essay of 1,700 words is also required. This does not form part of the assessement for the module, but is a requirement and MUST be submitted. Students who fail to submitthe unassessed essay will be awarded a maximum mark of 40 for the module (a bare Pass).	100.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 26/04/2016

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