(En)visualizing Knowledge: Text Mining, Mapping, Network Analysis, and Big Data

Digital media and technology have opened an epochal chasm in our ways of knowing, as books, newspapers, libraries, whole universities, and worlds of scholarship are pulled into the digital realm only to reemerge in different forms. Many scholars have begun to explore how this new convergence alters knowledge production, visual culture, theories of representation and visuality, and the many and varied practices of everyday life. Text mining, mapping, network analysis, and big data visualization are among the most powerful forces now manifesting the everyday life world of the globe. This Mellon advanced graduate seminar examines these changes and convergences, investigating the legal, philosophical, scientific, artistic, and social implications of the new modes of creation and transmission of knowledge. Alongside such investigations, we examine existing projects in digital humanities and learn new tools and techniques for research in digital humanities. Students work individually and collaboratively to generate knowledge that can be demonstrated in a final term project.

Taught Spring 2016 by Inderpal Grewal and Laura Wexler