Deadline: May 10, 2018

Total funding available: $2,000

DH@MSU invites proposals for seed grants to support digital humanities projects in research, teaching, and public outreach, in any humanistic or related discipline of the university during summer 2018. DH@MSU summer seed grants are designed to support collaborative projects that might include

• Textual analysis: digital editions; websites that invite linguistic, social, and historical analysis of texts; text aggregation sites; the development of tools for digital analysis.
• Geospatial approaches to literary texts and historical problems.
• Network analysis of literary texts and historical problems.
• Data-mining of large corpora for insights into genres, discourses, and the sociology of knowledge.
• Digital projects whose aim is primarily pedagogical, often undertaken with civic or public humanities goals in mind.
• Humanistic studies of new media, science or technology.

We also invite course development proposals from faculty who wish to develop a new course in digital humanities or add a significant DH component to an existing graduate or undergraduate course. The course may be in any humanities or related discipline.

Applicants may be tenured or tenure-track faculty, non-tenure track faculty, specialists, staff, and/or graduate students. As the seed grant initiative is funded by the College of Arts & Letters, at least one member of the project team must be affiliated with CAL or the DH Program. We will prioritize applications for prototypes that will lead to larger projects, for projects that demonstrate collaboration across units, and for projects that make use of existing infrastructure and resources available through the Digital Scholarship Lab.

A detailed budget is required for all applications. Awards will be for costs associated with conducting or disseminating research, purchasing technology (limited to a maximum of 30% of total budget) or hiring specialized technical development (programming, etc.). Funds may not be used to pay faculty salary.

Application Package and Process

• Applications must include a Project Narrative of no more than 1,000 words. The narrative should describe the guiding premises of the project clearly, provide a clear overview of the project’s structure (components, personnel, tasks), and describe in concrete terms what the project hopes to accomplish by the end of the summer.
• Applications must include a separate, detailed budget, with clear explanations for each item and a justification of their importance to the project.
• Applications must include a separate timetable that outlines the expected stages of the work and a date of completion.
• Applications must include a CV from the primary investigator on the project and from any other individuals who will play a leading or critical supporting role (i.e. outside programmers, other specialized contributors).
• Applications should take the form of a Word file or a PDF containing the primary applicant’s last name in the filename. Applications should be submitted to Kristen Mapes (kmapes@msu.edu) by 5:00 PM on May 10, 2018.
• All applicants will be notified by May 17, 2018.

Report on Outcomes

• All funded applicants must submit a report of 1,500 words by September 30, 2018, to be posted on the digitalhumanities.msu.edu website, describing the outcomes of their project. The report should be written by the lead investigator on the project, with assistance from other collaborators where necessary.
• The lead investigator or team on all funded projects must present their work as part of the DH@MSU fall colloquium series, a new monthly series of talks that will highlight the work being done by members of the DH community.

Thank you to Rutgers University Digital Humanities for serving as the model for this call and its language.

On Monday, February 22, 2018, Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Kristen Mapes went on the Liberal Arts Endeavor podcast to talk about the world of DH at MSU. You can listen to the podcast below and on Soundcloud here:

Grand Opening February 5th – 8th, 2018

Please join us for a week of digital scholarship events and programming, designed for users from beginner to advanced. Come see what the lab has to offer, meet potential collaborators, and enter for a chance to win a 3D-printed Sparty!

About the Lab

A partnership between the Michigan State University Libraries and the College of Arts & Letters, the Digital Scholarship Lab is an 8,000-square-foot space in the Main Library, featuring a 360-degree immersive visualization room that accommodates up to 20 students along with a Virtual Reality room for experimentation with VR headsets. The Digital Scholarship Lab’s grand opening will be on February 5th, 2018.

The lab includes dedicated lab space and informal gathering areas to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration. Students in every major may use the advanced and graphics-intensive computing software and interactive visualization for research projects and scholarly exploration. Offering extended hours, including nights and weekends, to accommodate the realities of student life, this space is unique among specialized computing spaces on campus.

The Digital Scholarship Lab is available to faculty to support their research and promote innovative instruction. Librarians and faculty partners across disciplines will promote a wide range of research endeavors through consultation, advising, workshops, and instruction sessions. The lab brings collections, resources, tools, and expertise together.

The Lab is adjacent to Hollander MakeCentral on the second floor of the Main Library’s west wing, extending the MSU Libraries’ support for emerging technologies for teaching and learning across disciplines.

Lab Hours

Beginning February 12, 2018:

• Monday – Thursday, 9 am – 7 pm
• Friday, 9 am – 5 pm
• Saturday & Sunday, 12 noon – 5 pm

Open Consultation:

Tuesday & Wednesday, 1 – 4 pm

Make sure to double-check the Main Library’s calendar, as the Library is closed on University Holidays.

Join us on March 22-23 for this FREE symposium! We are thrilled to announce that our two keynote speakers are Schuyler Esprit (Dominica State College) and Lisa Nakamura (University of Michigan)!

Registration is now open!

Please register by: Friday, March 9
Free and open to the public. Register at http://msuglobaldh.org/registration/

Digital Humanities at Michigan State University is proud to continue its symposium series on Global DH into its third year. We are delighted to feature speakers from around the world, as well as expertise and work from faculty and students at Michigan State University in this two day symposium. The full program will be announced in early February.

25 May – 23 June 2018
Technology Humanities, and the Arts in London

dh.cal.msu.edu/studyabroad

In this program, students will explore changes in arts and humanities through hands-on workshops, attend plays and performances, visit museums and galleries, converse with guest speakers, go on a day trip outside the city, and immerse themselves in the culture of London, one of the creative capitals of the world!

The program is open to students from any major and has the option to fulfill and IAH requirement. For a four week program in London, the program fee is also low, at $3500, which includes apartment housing, an unlimited underground rail pass, entry to plays, all day trip expenses, and several group meals.

Additionally, there are is a scholarship of $2000 available for a student in the Digital Humanities minor. If a student is interesting in adding this minor and does so before the scholarship deadline, they are welcome to apply for this scholarship.

See the itinerary from 2016 to get a better idea of where you’ll go and what you’ll do.

Check out these 10 reasons to go on this study abroad program

This 7-credit program includes 2 courses, one of which can fulfill an IAH 200-level general education requirement. Both courses may count as electives toward the Digital Humanities minor.

Courses included in the program, both taught by Kristen Mapes:

• IAH241E – Creative Arts & Humanities: The Creative Process (Focus: Technology, Society, & the Arts)
  AL491 – Culture: Physical & Digital

Upcoming information sessions:

• Wednesday, February 21, 1:00-3:00pm
• Tuesday, February 27, 3:00-5:00pm

Join MSUDH on Slack – just sign up using your @msu.edu email address at msudh.slack.com. It’s a great way to keep up on DH resources, events, and amusing cat emojis. Once you’re signed up, join the channels #events and #dhresources.

December 7th, 2017
3:00-5:00pm
REAL Classroom, 3W Instruction Room, Main Library (3rd Floor)

Join us for a series of presentations and discussion around social media analysis as well as the study of social media as a rhetorical form! Anyone is welcome to attend – no registration required. Just drop in! (Also, there will be coffee.)

Analyzing Political Memes on Instagram: Insights, Challenges, and Possibilities

Julia DeCook, Information and Media

As a social media platform, Instagram is monumental in its influence of youth culture, identity, and perceptions of the world, with the application serving not only for youth to follow accounts that are aspirational (celebrities, etc.) but also for entertainment and identity building through meme accounts and other types of Instagram accounts. Instagram’s primary user base consists of people who are teenagers and young adults, and meme accounts that espouse white supremacist, hateful ideology and subsequently, identity, are incredibly prevalent. Searching hashtags reveals that these meme accounts are not just a vehicle for entertainment, but rather are serving as spaces for identity building and identity reinforcement to occur. Of primary interest is the hashtag and alt-right affiliate movement the “Proud Boys,” which is being sold to young men as a fraternity-like organization to celebrate “Western ideals,” and operate on an ideology that consists of both symbolic violence and physical violence. Exploration to their recruitment and world-building practices on Instagram will be necessary to understand the movement, and gain further insight into how memes are being used as vessels of indoctrination. However, ethical issues emerge in scraping Instagram data and studying social media data in general, particularly for analysis of political and social movements. This presentation will share preliminary findings, analysis, and ethical issues that emerged during the research process.

Pure Michigan on Instagram as Marketing Strategy

Suzanna Smentowksi, WRAC

Photos and Captions on Instagram, Snapchat,and wechat

Shiyi Zhou, College of Education

I think analyze how people post same thing differently on different social media platforms were interesting. A analysis point at certain phenomenon, event or problem, we analyze it or we analyze a phenomenon, event, problem already happened but we didn’t aware of it. A successful analysis should based on collecting enough research data, interviews from target audience and some academic professional articles as one of the resources to analyze the result. Also, it acquire us do careful analysis of the acquired materials, discovery of the essential characteristics, and basic rules. Most people focused on analyze audience 18 to 25, we lacked the voices people under 18 and over 25. Meanwhile, we likely focused on American voices but forget people not from U.S. In addition, we mostly did survey on students but didn’t do much on people who were non-students. In social media analysis, people’s critical mind likely to follow and chasing big social stream which can cause internet violence on people. In order to ameliorate them, we should posted more positive opinions and things on social media. Ethics of social media analysis might found people lack own thoughts but automatically pursue big stream, it taught us social stream not always correct. Moreover, American likely focus on own but didn’t really know about non-English language platforms. There are opportunities for people to communicate with international student and non-English people in the school. Anonymous survey were useful and effective that could gather information and thoughts from people.

Snapchat Study

Adam Weickersheimmer-Austad, Anthropology

Snapchat is used as a way to document ones life and the lives of those around them. It’s also a portal to observe the habits of friends and strangers. People have the propensity to share their daily activities for their digital tribe. Snapchat gives individuals the ability to be the narrator of their own life. In a two week study of the behaviors of Snapchatters, I started a study that I will continue for the duration of my undergraduate career. By using participant observation, I believe we can better understand the motives behind why people snap what they snap.

When Cows Tweet

Scout Calvert, MSU Libraries

The labor of new data production comes in the form of a promise of information technologies that facilitate bovine-human communication. In one project, cattle tweeting is made possible as an affordance of a milking robot, activated by RFID collars that identify the cow to the robot so that it can guide its laser-sighted milkers to the specific teats on the particular udders of the cow who wears the collar. Data about the milking session are stored and tweeted under the Twitter handles of the cows. Automatic Milking Systems (AMS) are devices that enable a cow to concentrate on making milk and farmers to attend to cattle in more direct, yet highly mediated ways. In another project, Dell Technologies offers to let cows tell farmers how they feel by text message. Dell promises to aid rural Indian farmers through technologies for dairies to report milk data back to smallholders by text message, bringing cows and farmers both into global high tech production. Tracing the assemblage of technologies, relationships, and meanings that make texting and tweeting cows possible, this presentation on work in progress considers cattle as Harawayan cyborgs. Cows laboring as data, milk, and gamete producers do so globally. This paper explores the lives of cows in high tech assemblages globally and asks what we can learn about bovine lives from their tweets.

Dark Patterns of Social Media Participation

Liza Potts, WIDE

In this talk, I discuss how social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, reddit, wikis, and others can be used by network actors in positive and negative ways for community building and knowledge production. First, I will point to research that showcases positive uses of social media by participants near and far during times of disaster. Then I will discuss negative uses of social media, illustrating methods that can trap unwilling targets and willing participants in an unending cycle of rhetorical invention through a mechanism of aggressive, hostile, mob-like activism. In both cases, everyday people and network actors worked to share information and spread knowledge. However, through the deployment of dark patterns, the ways in which participants are enrolled and knowledge is produced diverges dramatically across these two examples. These dark patterns–user experiences that can convince people to participate in ways they may not want, need, or intend–can create realities that become unstoppable if platform owners are unwilling to act. This higher level of abstraction makes this an important topic for researchers grappling with issues of methods, ethics, and scholarship in social media.