Showing 1 - 4 of 4 Items

Date: 2019-07-03

Creator: Crystal Hall

Access: Open access

This article examines the relationship between two fields of study, Italian Studies and Digital Humanities (DH), by documenting projects that employ digital or computational methods in the study of Italian language, literature, history, and the arts. In a complementary fashion, the author outlines the analytical questions of Italian scholars that have potential to advance inquiry in DH. A final section is devoted to contextualizing DH within the practice of Italian Studies at the institutional, program, and department levels by drawing on research of course offerings and a survey circulated in August 2017. The overall finding is that the area of overlap between DH and Italian Studies is intellectually rich, with increasing (yet still sparse) opportunities to develop specialization in this area.

Date: 2016-09-13

Creator: Crystal Hall

Access: Open access

This data set represents a first attempt to identify the North American colleges and universities that offer Italian courses at any level and also have support for digital humanities (DH) pedagogy or scholarship at any level. The list of schools with Italian programs was developed using the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) list of undergraduate and graduate programs and College Source as of July 2016. The list was supplemented by checking if institutions listed with CenterNet (for Digital Humanities Centers) also have Italian programs. Overall, 10% of the Italian programs identified were not included in the AATI list, from the level of service courses through Masters degree. A search of each institution’s website was then performed to determine the level of DH resources available. Based on this collected data, 70% of North American colleges and universities that offer Italian also offer support for digital humanities courses or research through a center/lab, courses, major or minor programs, certificates, or graduate programs. A supplemental code sheet is available. Further analysis is provided in the author’s working paper “Digital Humanities & Italian Studies: Intersections and Oppositions” that is part of the State of the Discipline symposium organized by Wellesley College, October 1, 2016. (The data has been updated since the circulation of that paper, so numbers may not match.) The topic will be addressed in more detail based on the related survey and presentation at MLA 2017.

Date: 2016-08-18

Creator: Crystal Hall

Access: Open access

A survey distributed in English and Italian to collect information about the intersection of the fields of Italian Studies and Digital Humanities. The goals are to describe the kinds of work being done by scholars in this space of intersection, identify successful professional pathways that combine methods or content from the two fields, and inform next steps for organizations that support this work. Results will be discussed at the Wellesley "State of the Discipline" event on October 1, 2016 and the MLA Roundtable on the topic, January 5, 2017. The survey is provided here in case other fields are interested in conducting similar work.

Date: 2020-01-01

Creator: John Sweeney

Access: Open access

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Alexis de Tocqueville each warn that the dominant cultures of their days may hinder the project of self-government. Against the backdrop of advancing Enlightenment philosophy, Rousseau writes that as social visibility increases relative to intimate connection, the drive for recognition corrupts self-love. Following the American and French revolutions, Tocqueville explores the democratic erosion of social hierarchies. He writes that a rise in individualism may obscure “self-interest well-understood”—the perspective gained through collaboration with others, thoughtful reflection, and reverence for truths that lie beyond the dictates of cursory instincts. In this project, I apply these political theories to the Digital Age. I explain how the distinction between the physical world and the digital realm has actualized Rousseau’s depiction of double men, “always appearing to relate everything to others and never relating anything except to themselves alone.” In the era of social distancing, technological evolution threatens to induce regression in the sociability and reflective agency that promote our capacity for self-government. Accordingly, I argue that Rousseau’s theory of corrupted drive for recognition and Tocqueville’s theory of individualism inform a new danger to political freedom: digital tribalism.