Dartmouth Events

Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Lecture Series

"WhatEvery1Says About the Humanities -- Digital Humanities Methods for Understanding and Making a Difference in Public Perception of the Humanities," a lecture by Alan Liu.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016
4:30pm – 6:00pm
Haldeman 41 (Kreindler Conference Hall)
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Lectures & Seminars

Drawing on research and advocacy conducted by the 4humanities.org initiative that he founded, Alan Liu, Distinguished Professor of English, UC Santa Barbara, discusses the contemporary public perception of the humanities, methods of using digital research and communications to develop effective humanities advocacy, and the broader question of the future of humanities disciplines. Part of the talk focuses on the in-progress 4Humanities “WhatEvery1Says” project, which uses topic-modeling and other digital methods to study a large corpus of articles about the humanities in the media with the aim of assisting the humanities in reframing the debate. How does data mining newspapers, magazines, etc. help put in perspective the themes--some might call them “memes”--declared in headlines about the decline of the humanities, the crisis of the humanities, etc.?

Professor Liu founded the NEH-funded Teaching with Technology project at UC Santa Barbara called Transcriptions: Literature and the Culture of Information and his English department’s undergraduate specialization on Literature and the Culture of Information. During 2002-2007 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) and chair of the Technology/Software Committee of the ELO’s PAD Initiative (Preservation / Archiving / Dissemination of Electronic Literature).

Digital initiatives he has recently led include Transliteracies: Research in the Technological, Social, and Cultural Practices of Online Reading, a University of California multi-campus, collaborative research group (2005-10); and RoSE (Research-oriented Social Environment), a software project funded by a NEH Digital Humanities Start-up grant (2011-12) that is the culmination of Transliteracies. He is also co-founder and -leader of the international 4Humanities advocacy initiative as well as 4Humanities@UCSB (the UCSB 4Humanities local chapter formed as an Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Research Focus Group).

Liu is currently working on books about the digital humanities and the relationship between media and history.

Sponsored by the Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Initiative, the Department of English, and the Comparative Literature Program.

For more information, contact:
Michelle Warren

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.