Loyola University Chicago

Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities

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MA in Digital Humanities

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GRADUATE PROGRAM

Welcome to the CTSDH!

For details on our Digital Humanities MA program, please visit our website.

News

Data Firmament: Seeing and Sounding Dickinson's Birds
April 10 | 12:30-2 pm | Loyola Hall, Room 318 | Marta Werner, Caroline McCraw, Danielle Nasenbeny, and Rayne Broach This project undertakes the identification, archiving, and un-archiving of bird sounds in Dickinson's text-, land-, and sky-scapes to enlarge our understanding of the relationship between Dickinson's bird-poems, her evolving sense of emplacement, and her intuition of the long approach of the Anthropocene through the widespread ecological changes of the Industrial Revolution, while also encouraging us to sound out our contemporary experience of loss and mourning for a planet now suffering profoundly from the effects of climate change, loss of biodiversity, and environmental degradation. Please register here: https://tinyurl.com/dickinsonbirds Lunch will be provided.
WHY LIBRARIES MATTER
APRIL 18, 2024 | 5:00 PM - 7:30 CST | LSC, MUNDELEIN, PALM COURT | Join us for a conversation on these issues with Emily Drabinski, the president of the American Library Association and an associate professor of library and information science at the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. Drabinski will discuss how libraries are vital to American democracy, and how we can support them. While they are currently sites of conflict, libraries also hold the key to bridging the nation's divides. Please register here: https://libcal.luc.edu/calendar/events/April18Drabinski
What Hopkins Can Show Us About How To Read and Teach Poetry Better
April 3, 2024 | 12:30 - 2:00 pm CST | Prof. Emeritus Frank Fennell | Loyola Hall, Room 318 In his new book The Frugal Chariot: Readers, Reading, and the Case of Hopkins Professor Emeritus Frank Fennell outlines what he has learned from his decades-long study of how ordinary readers, not academics, approach the poet. In the process he believes he has learned how we need to teach poetry differently, indeed how his own teaching methods were misdirected. As one reviewer said, ‘This is a seasoned scholar’s bold challenge to his discipline, and it will be a balm to anyone who loves poetry and has lamented the life-sapping ways it is so often taught and studied. Register here: https://tinyurl.com/hopkinspoetry
Building The Beggar’s Opera Website 1.0: A Digital Humanities Project for Scholars, Students, Teachers, and Performers
March 18, 2024 | 4:15 - 5:30 pm CST | Dr. Steve Newman (Temple University)| on Zoom In this presentation, faculty and librarians for Temple University will discuss how and why they are constructing a site based around The Beggar’s Opera (1728), the first English musical, the model for The Threepenny Opera and many other adaptations, and one of the most influential texts from the English eighteenth century. They will discuss their editorial decisions for the music and text; how they encoded the text in TEI- and MEI-XML (Text and Music Encoding Initiative eXtensible Markup Language) and the challenges in coordinating the two; and their plans for the site in the future. We look forward to questions and feedback! Register here: https://tinyurl.com/beggarsoperazoom
13th Annual International Symposium
Symposium Theme: "LEAP!" #CDEP24 | Center for Digital Ethics & Policy | March 14, 2024 | McCormick Lounge, Coffey Hall, LUC. Join 13th Annual International symposium on digital ethics and policy. For more information and archive: https://www.luc.edu/digitalethics/events/upcomingevents/ REGISTER HERE! https://bit.ly/3vYe9GA Media inquiries: Dr. Florence M. Chee, Associate Professor and CDEP Director fchee@luc.edu
Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week
Friday, March 1| 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 pm. | Lake Shore Campus, Information Commons, 4th Floor Join us for an engaging program in recognition of Fair Use and Fair Dealing Week featuring Donna L. Ferullo, JD, Professor and Director of the Copyright Office at Purdue University and author of Managing Copyright in Higher Education: A Guidebook. An exception under the U.S. Copyright Act, fair use is a provision frequently used in higher education settings that can be confusing to those needing to interpret and apply it. Ms. Ferullo will explain what the exception is and how it is a great asset to libraries and universities. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in a group activity that allows them to apply their knowledge of fair use in various scenarios. Check the event page for registration and details: https://libcal.luc.edu/calendar/events/fairuse2024
Wikidata Edit-a-Thon: Calling all heroes!
February 22nd-23rd, 2024 | Mary Ton, the Digital Humanities Librarian at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | on Zoom Dive into comic book data and level up your Wikidata Skills in this fully virtual edit-a-thon. We are focusing on works published in Illinois and emphasizing comics with BIPOC characters and BIPOC creators. No prior editing experience needed! To register and check the schedule visit: http://go.illinois.edu/heroes
Humanities Datebook Spring 2024
We are pleased to announce that the Humanities Datebook Spring 2024 is here for you! We can’t wait to hear from you! Regards, CTSDH What is the Humanities Datebook? The Humanities Datebook is a weekly listserv to provide a round-up of humanities-related events around LUC. To subscribe, and send event visit our page. JOIN
Douglass Day 2024
Wednesday, February 14 | 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM | Ruggles Hall, Newberry Library Chicago Join the CTSDH and the Newberry Library to wish a happy birthday to Frederick Douglass during our annual celebration of Douglass Day (https://douglassday.org/). The day celebrates Douglass and Black history by gathering communities to participate in a transcribe-a-thon, using By the People, a crowdsourcing website from the Library of Congress, to improve access to the correspondence of Frederick Douglass. The event will be held in person at Ruggles Hall, Newberry Library. The Newberry Library is located at 60 West Walton Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610. No registration is required and the event is open to all on a drop-in basis. Please bring your laptop to participate in the transcribe-a-thon and stay for cake and browsing the Newberry's collection.
Illinois Digital Humanities Speaker Series
Dr. Ryan Cordell & Dr. Mary Borgo Ton | Wednesday, November 15 | 1 pm - 2:30 pm CST | Room 318, Loyola Hall. We are thrilled to invite you to the inaugural edition of the Illinois Digital Humanities Speaker Series. For this special occasion, we have the privilege of hosting two professors from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: •Dr. Ryan Cordell: "From C19 to GPT: How Historical Reprinting Can Help Us Understand Large Language Models" •Dr. Mary Bogo Ton: "What Does It Take to Design, Develop, And Defend a Digital-Born Thesis or Dissertation?" Please register for this event by using this link: https://tinyurl.com/ILDHSpeakerSeries Lunch will be provided.
Workshop: Introduction to R
Dr. Matthews, Data Science, LUC | Wednesday, Nov. 8 | 1 pm - 2 pm CST | Loyola Hall, Room 318. This hands-on introductory workshop is for beginners interested in exploring the essentials of R programming and R Studio, important tools for data analysis and statistical computing. Participants will learn about fundamental R concepts, data manipulation techniques, and how R is used to create compelling visualizations. No prior experience is required—bring your curiosity and a laptop with R or R Studio installed. Please register for this workshop by using this link: https://tinyurl.com/workshopintrotoR
Girls Who Code Fall 2023
We are happy to announce that registration is now open for Loyola University Chicago’s Girls Who Code Fall 2023 session. Girls Who Code is a FREE nonprofit organization that teaches girls, female-identifying, and nonbinary tweens and teenagers (6th-12th grade) important coding skills to grow confidence in computer science and help close the gender gap in tech fields. Class sessions will feature interactive lessons and discussions, guest speakers, and individual and group work with Loyola University Chicago Computer Science graduate and undergraduate student instructors and mentors. This semester's focus will be on coding fundamentals using the programming language Python. In-person classes will be held on Loyola's Lake Shore campus in Rogers Park on the following Saturdays: Oct 21, Oct 28, Nov 4, Nov 1 No prior experience is required: all experience levels are welcome! And as always, our program remains completely FREE. To register, please visit https://tinyurl.com/girlswhocodefall23
Humanities Datebook Fall 2023
We are pleased to announce that the Humanities Datebook Fall 2023 is here for you! We can’t wait to hear from you! Regards, CTSDH What is the Humanities Datebook? The Humanities Datebook is a weekly listserv to provide a round-up of humanities-related events around LUC. To subscribe, and send event visit our page. JOIN
DIGH 500 | FALL 2023: The Amy Lowell Letters Project
Dr. Bradshaw | Fall 2023 | Classes on Thursdays 4:15- 6:45 pm | Open to all graduate students including MA and Ph.D. students. This interdisciplinary seminar will introduce students to the theories and practices of digital scholarly editing, broad areas of DH-related discourse (e.g. databases, digital archives, interface) as well as issues unique to editing Amy Lowell Letters, such as using TEI elements, and encode letters in XML. No prior experience is required. Please email Dr. Bradshaw (mbradshaw@luc.edu) for course approval.
2023 CONFERENCE: DESIGN AND TEXT
This conference will be hosted by The New School, New York NY, and will take place June 1-3, 2023. Pre-registration is required. Schedule: https://textualsociety.org/design-and-text/ Register: https://textualsociety.org/membership-information/
End of the Year CTSDH Celebration!
Friday, April 28 | 3 pm CST | Loyola Hall, Conference Room 318. Please join us to Celebrate the end of the academic year! Please register for this event by using this link: https://tinyurl.com/semesterendcelebration
CDEP 12th Annual International Symposium
Symposium Theme: Inflection points: indicating a time of significant change in a situation; a turning point | Center for Digital Ethics & Policy | April 13-14, 2023 | LUC's Downtown Watertower Campus. Join a two-day conference about this time of transition and flux, with an eye toward the future in digital ethics and policy. Pre-registration is required. Schedule: https://www.luc.edu/digitalethics/events/upcomingevents/ Register: https://www.luc.edu/digitalethics/events/annualsymposium/
Developing a Digital Archive: Mexican Masks & The May Weber Ethnographic Study Collection
Catherine Nichols, Caroline Houser | Wednesday, April 12 | 1 pm CST | Mundelein 419. In recent years, anthropologists, information scientists, and digital humanists have called attention to the ways in which metadata standards and similar descriptive practices both increase discoverability and position objects within interpretive domains. This presentation of a work-in-progress will consider how one category of museum objects, Mexican masks held in the May Weber Ethnographic Study Collection, are (re)created in digital records. The focus will be on the development of a separate digital archive using Omeka C dedicated to increasing accessibility to these objects while considering the social and institutional dynamics of meaning-making. Please register for this event by using this link: https://tinyurl.com/MexicanMasks
Documenting Movements: Introducing Mukurtu CMS as a Platform for a Collaborative Video Archive
Margaret Heller and Greer Martin | Monday, March 27 | 1-2:30 pm CST | Loyola Hall, Conference Room 318. Mukurtu CMS, an open-source digital access platform, was designed for Indigenous communities to determine and enact cultural protocols in a digital space by managing the access and use of cultural materials and knowledge. What about for political action that Indigenous communities are engaged in and documenting right now? This presentation will provide an overview of Mukurtu CMS, and showcase a partnership between an academic institution and an Indigenous legal advocacy organization to create a portal for students and researchers to their video archive featuring documentation of environmental justice movements. Please register for this event by using this link: https://tinyurl.com/MukurtuCMS. Food will be provided.
A Chatbot Wrote My Essay: Navigating the Future of AI in the College Classroom
Bruce Montes, Brandiann Molby, Adam Porter, and Felix Oke | Friday, March 17 | 3 PM - 4.30 PM CST | Loyola Hall, Conference Room 318. Join us for an open and interactive discussion on the challenges—and potential opportunities—of incorporating Chatbot and AI technologies in the undergraduate classroom. Our interdisciplinary panelists from Digital Humanities, the Writing Program, Computer Science, and Religion will share their experiences and concerns with the rise of these technologies in education. **Note: A chatbot wrote this panel description. Please register for this discussion by using this link: https://tinyurl.com/AChatbotWroteMyEssay . Food will be provided.
Douglass Day 2023!
Tuesday, February 14th | 11:30 AM-12:45 PM CT | Information Commons, 4th Floor. Join the CTSDH to wish a happy birthday to Frederick Douglass! Douglass Day is an online and international celebration of Frederick Douglass’s chosen birthday (Feb 14), run by The Center for Black Digital Research at Penn State ( https://douglassday.org/ ). The day celebrates Douglass and Black history by gathering communities to transcribe the papers of Mary Ann Shadd Cary. Please register for the event by using this link: https://tinyurl.com/douglassday . Food will be provided.
Humanities Datebook Spring 2023
We are pleased to announce that the Humanities Datebook Spring 2023 is here for you! We can’t wait to hear from you! Regards, CTSDH What is the Humanities Datebook? The Humanities Datebook is a weekly listserv to provide a round-up of humanities-related events around LUC. To subscribe, and send event visit our page.JOIN
Gathering Places: Religion, Community, and Digital Public History
Dr. Christopher Cantwell | Thursday, November 17th | 12:30PM-1:30PM | Loyola Hall, Conference Room 318. The rise of digital humanities methods and pedagogies has fundamentally altered the study of religion. At the same time, our networked world currently is experiencing a profound shift in the nature of religious life. How might these two trends be brought into conversation? Can one help understand the other? This talk will draw upon a recent digital public history project to explore how religious studies, digital humanities, and public history can fruitfully work together to build a vibrant digital archive of our current moment. Please register for this Lunchtime Lecture. Food will be provided.
Digital Paris, c 1400
Dr. Emily Hutchinson | Tuesday, November 15th | 12:30 PM-1:30 PM | Loyola Hall, Conference Room 318. Mapping is a critical element of my scholarly work, and a useful form of evidence. Mapping often reveals things that are otherwise hidden in textual, artistic, or material sources. It offers insights into the physicality of a space, but also into patterns of use. The primary aim of Digital Paris c. 1400 is to have this platform answer queries for users that range from the very simple and straightforward (such as locating a particular street) to the more complex (for example: tracing the trajectory of the Dit des Rues de Paris and identifying ONLY the sites of interaction with women). Mapping evidence from our textual sources forces us to recognize that people's experiences differ across the terrain in very concrete ways, and mapping enables these realities to come to life in ways that we might otherwise overlook. Please register for this Lunchtime Lecture. Food will be provided.
Digital Humanities + Textual Studies Showcase
Melissa Bradshaw, Ian Cornelius, Elizabeth Hopwood, Frederick Staidum, and Marta Werner | Wednesday, November 9th | 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Loyola Hall, Conference Room 318. Presentations of digital humanities projects by faculty in the Department of English. Please register for this Lunchtime Lecture. Food will be provided.
The Transformation of the Medium and Meaning of Illustration in Early Nineteenth-Century America
Join us as Dr. Chris Lusakik, Purdue University talks about 'The Transformation of the Medium and Meaning of Illustration in Early Nineteenth' on Thursday Oct 20, 2022 by 12:30pm at Loyola Hall, room 316. While the significance of illustration to the rise of a mass visual culture across the nineteenth century has been well documented, our understanding of what illustration meant during the period leading up to its dominance remains confused. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, this paper examines the transformations in the medium and meaning of illustration as they appear in periodicals published in America from 1775 to 1825. Evidence from this case study will be discussed as it pertains to the study of literature, art history, and book history as well as our understanding of the rise of optical media across the nineteenth century.
ANNUAL REPORT

Read the 2018-19 Annual Report
From new graduating MA students to major new grants, the CTSDH had a banner year in 2018-19. Learn more about all that our research center and graduate program accomplished!
Major Grant

Loyola Awards Grant to Commemorate 150-year History
The Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities, Public History Program, and the University Libraries are the recipients of a three-year grant to help prepare for the university’s 150th anniversary celebration which takes place in 2020.