THATCamp Liberal Arts Colleges 2011

Guest Blogger, Ryan Cordell, St. Norbert College

As NITLE notes on the front page of their Initiative in Digital Humanities, “the digital humanities are here, albeit unevenly distributed.” Those doing digital humanities work at smaller schools face particular challenges. Without the infrastructure of a digital humanities center (and its attendant support staff), liberal arts college scholars embarked on digital projects can feel very isolated. Indeed, many of you reading this may be the only DHer on your campus, or part of a small cohort working to introduce DH into the research and curriculum at your school.

But we know that digital humanities work serves the missions of liberal arts colleges very well. DH work benefits from collaboration, and offers many opportunities for undergraduate researchers. Many DH projects can foster exciting conversation and work in the classroom. To do DH work well, however, scholars at small colleges often must rely on inter-institutional collaborations. Like NITLE’s wonderful digital scholarship seminar series, often these collaborations themselves rely on technology to connect disparate scholars.

Having just moved from a major digital humanities center to St. Norbert College—a school of around 2,000 undergraduates near Green Bay, Wisconsin—I’ve felt those challenges keenly. Though I brought a digital humanities project with me from my former institution, I’ve struggled to continue developing it without the infrastructure that supported its genesis. Thankfully, NITLE started actively working to bring DHers from small colleges together just as I needed to build a new network. At the same time, I began thinking about creating a face-to-face opportunity for that network.

The THATCamp “unconference” model, which urges participants to work collaboratively on real problems, might help DH scholars from liberal arts colleges think through our particular challenges. Though we usually collaborate virtually, a few face-to-face days would allow new ideas and partnerships to emerge and develop quickly. Maybe by camp’s end we could leave with a stronger sense of community, and with the germs of ideas that could help remake the landscape of the digital humanities to more fully include scholars at liberal arts colleges.

THATCamp Liberal Arts Colleges 2011

Hence THATCamp LAC, which will welcome 75 digital humanities scholars—including professors, librarians, technical specialists, and undergraduates—from liberal arts colleges to St. Norbert College on June 4-5, 2011. There will be two tracks at THATCamp LAC: one focused on the challenges of DH research at small colleges, and the other focused on integrating technology and pedagogy. We hope that a range of scholars with a variety of interests will apply.

The application itself is simple—you just need an idea. Applications for THATCamp LAC are open now at http://lac2011.thatcamp.org/application/, and we will accept applications until April 18, 2011. We’ll put together sessions on the fly the 1st morning of camp. Our sessions will be fluid, and the schedule may change as new conversations begin. In other words—you should think broadly as you apply. You don’t need a paper or formal presentation—in fact, you shouldn’t propose either of those. Instead, describe issues, problems, joys, or opportunities related to technology, research, and pedagogy that you’d like to discuss with other campers.

While the unconference format is flexible, there will also be 3-4 bootcamps at THATCamp LAC. These will be more focused sessions that aim to give participants a tangible skill they can leave camp with. We’re still organizing most of these—if you have ideas about what you’d like to learn at THATCamp LAC, let us know! We do know that Rebecca Frost Davis from NITLE and Kathryn Tomasek from Wheaton College (MA) will lead one bootcamp on “Integrating Digital Humanities Research into the Undergraduate Classroom.”

Finally, let’s talk about costs.  In keeping with the THATCamp philosophy, THATCampLAC is free to all attendees, but a $20 donation towards snacks and coffee will be much appreciated by the organizers.  We’ve also secured some low-cost (around $35/night) housing options on campus.

Overall, THATCamp Liberal Arts Colleges 2011 is a chance for us collectively to establish a place for the digital humanities at small liberal arts colleges and a place for those colleges in the world of digital humanities.  For more information, visit our website or contact Ryan Cordell at ryan.cordell@snc.edu.

Ryan Cordell is Assistant Professor of English and Director of Writing-Across-the-Curriculum at St. Norbert College.  He is also a regular contributor to the ProfHacker blog.