Welcome

Welcome to the course blog for ENGL 4913/5633 at NSU. This is where students will collaboratively annotate two chapters of Little Women. An annotated edition of a book provides supplementary notes that explain important words and terms and provide background and/or historical information on references in the text. An annotated edition makes a text more reader friendly so they are easier to understand. We are creating our annotated edition on a blog, rather than Blackboard, because a blog can be accessed by any Internet user -- the Blackboard for our class only can be viewed by people in the class.

What is digital humanities?

According to the Office of Digital Humanities (ODH) at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), "As in the sciences, digital technology has changed the way scholars perform their work. It allows new questions to be raised and has radically changed the ways in which materials can be searched, mined, displayed, taught, and analyzed. Technology has also had an enormous impact on how scholarly materials are preserved and accessed, which brings with it many challenging issues related to sustainability, copyright, and authenticity." Read more about digital humanities from the ODH here: http://www.neh.gov/ODH/About/tabid/56/Default.aspx

Why are we doing this project?

Stanford professor Russell Berman, president of the Modern Language Association (the premier international professional organization for scholars in English and other languages), has argued that the future of the humanities "depends on our integrating new media and technologies, and our students deserve the chance to become familiar with them as part of their course of study. Not only do the digital humanities pose fundamental questions about culture; they also respond to aspects of the contemporary media environment, which define students’ horizons of expectations. To engage undergraduate or graduate students today, we cannot forgo the digital dimension." Read more from Professor Berman here:
http://www.mla.org/fromthepres