Digital Humanities

2020/2021

Учебный год

ENG

Обучение ведется на английском языке

5

Кредиты

Кто читает:

Департамент истории

Статус:

Курс адаптационный

Когда читается:

1-й курс, 1, 2 модуль

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The course provides a critical view of digital humanities in terms of technology, method and nature of the virtual world. It discusses the concepts of digital sovereignty, the role of digital space in rethinking new media, access to the political field, corporality, coming of age, death and identity.

Learning Objectives

• The aim of the course is to show the anthropological perspective and introduce several new optics for analysis and critical reflection of the digital humanities field , and particularly on the phenomenon of the Digital.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Able to efficiently communicate based on the goals and communication situations
• Work with information: find, define and use the information from different sources which required for solving of research and professional problems
• Understand the ways of visualization and spatial representation of social objects and phenomena
• Capable of mastering special literature in several languages
• Capable of understanding and taking into account social and cultural differences in professional activity
• Capable of developing in students of general and vocational education institutions a tolerant attitude towards social, cultural, psychological and other differences between people, understanding and respect for ethnocultural specificities.
• The skill of discussing and analyzing sensitive topics, abstracting from a personal backround
• The ability to find a balance between different approaches and interpretations of reality under study
• Capable of processing information sources using quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis

Course Contents

• The optics and methods of exploring the Digital
  Rethinking digital humanities in anthropological critical framework
• New media. Rethinking the information balance of power between the public and the elites
  how digital technologies have opened up new opportunities and repertoire of practices for the general civil society and changed the balance of political forces in the information field
• The Spatial Dimension of the Digital.
  What social phenomena can humanitarians actually map and how can it contribute to the research?
• The Identification Authority
  Digital technologies as agents of transparency, deprivation, structural violence and control o Biopolitics in post-pandemic world o Migrants and border studies
• Digital Sovereignty
  Nomos of the Earth and nomos of the Platform, Digital Environment and software
• Administrative panopticon
  Digital as a source and key to the new forms of panopticon
• Governmentality vs Environmentality
  o What is specifically “human(-related)” in digital humanities? o Digital approach to the studies of non-human actors and environment. What’s the difference? o What’s specific about digital humanities optics? o Are digital humanities always about “big data” and are the applicable on the micro-level research cases?
• Coming of Age in Social Networks
  boundaries of the digital self, formation of identity of a kid and a grown-ups via social networks and blogging
• Death and anonymity in a digital society
  o Dead people's accounts and necropolitics o Personal data as archives that do not belong to anyone: ethics and research engagement practices o Who has the right to own the personal digital “legacy” of the deceased?
• Identity of a human and identity of a User: new regimes of subjectivity.
  The power of Platforms and the influence of physical/ virtual death on the pecularities, forms and regimes of the ways the Subjects exists in the (real) world
• Corporality, Medicine and Bioethics in the framework of digital authority
  Private and public in the era of digital data. Medical Panopticon.

Assessment Elements

• Class participation
• Essay

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (2 module)
  0.3 * Class participation + 0.7 * Essay

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Underberg, N. M., & Zorn, E. (2013). Digital Ethnography : Anthropology, Narrative, and New Media (Vol. 1st ed). Austin: University of Texas Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=548651

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Terras, M. M., Nyhan, J., & Vanhoutte, E. (2013). Defining Digital Humanities : A Reader. Farnham, Surrey, England: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=608888