Cheryl Ball

Tonight (2/5/2015) Cheryl Ball gave a public lecture entitled “The Asymptotic Relationship Between Digital Humanities and Computers and Writing”. This title was very confusing to me as I’m sure it is to many others who did not attend the lecture. However, Ball uses this title as a segue into many interesting topics. She discussed the history of both the digital humanities and the computers and writing “fields”. For me, this was a very enlightening experience. Prior to the lecture I knew very little about both of these fields.

Ball talked specifically about the similarities and differences of the two fields. This is where the title comes from. Historically there has been what appears to be an “asymptote” dividing these two fields. However, as the years have gone by the differences between the two fields has decreased but not yet merged. The idea that they may never merge seems to be realistic. That is why it appears to an asymptote. The two fields may forever grow closer, but they may never meet.

 

, Greer Howard

Cheryl Ball’s Public Lecture

Dr. Cheryl Ball’s public lecture called “The Asymptotic Relationship Between Digital Humanities and Computers and Writing” was very informative and really allowed me to understand the different areas of Digital Humanities: Electronic Literature, Media Studies, Rhetoric & Composition, and Literary Studies. Dr. Ball talked a lot about the pedagogy and emphasized the “evolution” of writing. Starting from the 1950s with writing as just a process and then going on to 1960s where they began student-centered teaching and then peer review. In the 1990s, people started using multimodels, visual rhetorics, and digital technologies as a way to teach students and for delivering presentations. I found it really interesting that the first dissertation on comps & writing was completed by Hugh Burns at UT Austin (yay Texas :D). I was able to learn about designing and assessing multimodal assignments from her presentations and enjoyed her humor.

Cheryl Ball Lecture

I attended the lecture by Cheryl Ball titled “The Asymptotic Relationship Between Digital Humanities and Computers and Writing.” In her talk, she discussed the histories of Digital Humanities and Computers and Writing. The focus on the lecture was how the two separate fields in writing are actually similar and seems to be coming together, hence the “asymptotic relationship.” The lecture give me a glimpse of how large and diverse writing. I did not realize there were so many subfields within writing. It was interesting to see the histories of these fields laid out and how there have been defining moments in each that occurred just a few years ago. Ball made a point that I thought was particularly interesting that how over the years the so-called “generations” in writing have started to change a lot quicker. The lecture encompassed the categories in which this class falls in so learning about the history and how each shift has lead to where we are today was intriguing. Ball ended the lecture by answering a question on whether she thought this asymptotic relationship was figurative or literal.  I can’t say whether I agree or disagree because I still don’t know that much about both fields but she said she thinks it is both.

Looking ahead to the fourth week

photo of fireworks over Cinderella's castle at Disney World
4 2/2 Persepolis 135-172 (“The Shabbat” through “Tyrol”)
2/4 Persepolis 173-206 (“Pasta” through “The Horse”)
2/6 Writer/Designer chapter 3

This week we’ll be continuing our discussions of Persepolis on Monday and Wednesday. Be starting to think about which pages you’ll want to trace.

Remember that Cheryl Ball, one of the authors of Writer/Designer, will be on campus this week on Thursday and Friday (2/5 & 2/6) leading discussion and workshops for faculty and grad students around designing and assessing multimodal assignments. She’ll also give a public lecture on Thursday evening, starting at 6:00pm in the Jones Room on the 3rd floor of the library, entitled “The Asymptotic Relationship Between Digital Humanities and Computers and Writing.” I’ll offer extra credit to anyone who attends the lecture and then writes a paragraph or two on your blog about the event–summarize what she spoke about, what you learned, anything you found interesting about the talk. Ball is a very dynamic and fun speaker, and that title is meant to be at least a little bit puzzling and provocative, so you should consider attending if you can.

You do not need to publish a Sunday Funnies assignment this week. However, as we discussed in class Friday, you need to gather data that you’ll use for your personal infographic assignment next week. Track your daily schedule, noting throughout the day the times you spend on the following activities:

  • Sleep
  • Class
  • Study
  • Work
  • Exercise
  • Leisure
  • Other

The more detailed and accurate your notes are, the more you’ll have to work with when you go to visualize that data. You won’t need to show anyone your raw data unless you choose to do so, so for this week just keep as careful track of how you spend your time as you can.

So you can begin to get a sense of what you might do with this data, here are two examples of daily routines infographics:

(image credit: “Happy July 4th” by Flickr user Don Sullivan)

Week 3

the number 3 in different fonts as a collage
3 1/26 Persepolis 33-102 (“The Letter” through “The Key”)
1/28 Persepolis 103-134 (“The Wine” through “Kim Wilde”)
1/30 Writer/Designer chapter 2
2/1 Due: Sunday Funnies 3

I hope you’ve all had a great weekend. The coming week will be our first “normal” one, since we had no Monday classes in the first two. We’ll spend some significant time discussing chunks of Persepolis this week and get into what will be our fairly regular rhythm: Mondays and Wednesdays focused on reading, analysis, discussion and Fridays focused on your own writings.

On Friday, we will actually spend some time discussing the first two chapters of Writer/Designer. Cheryl Ball, one of the authors of that book, will be on campus next week on Thursday and Friday (2/5 & 2/6) leading discussion and workshops for faculty and grad students around designing and assessing multimodal assignments. She’ll also give a public lecture on Thursday evening, starting at 6:00pm in the Jones Room on the 3rd floor of the library, entitled “The Asymptotic Relationship Between Digital Humanities and Computers and Writing.” I’ll offer extra credit to anyone who attends the lecture and then writes a paragraph or two on your blog about the event–summarize what she spoke about, what you learned, anything you found interesting about the talk. Ball is a very dynamic and fun speaker, and that title is meant to be at least a little bit puzzling and provocative, so you should consider attending if you can.

(Speaking of looking ahead and extra credit. You might want to mark your calendars now for another event: British Poet Laureate Carol Anne Duffy will be giving a reading in Glenn Auditorium at Emory on February 21 at 4:00pm. I’ll offer extra credit if you attend and reflect upon her reading too.)

I’ve been really enjoying your triptychs this week! We’ll talk briefly about them in class tomorrow, so please take a few moments to scroll through your classmates’ photographic comics–and leave comments in response.

I believe almost everybody’s eng101 subdomains are now linked from the Student Work page and are syndicating. The syndication plugin checks for updates about every hour, so if you post something on your subdomain and it’s not showing up after a couple of hours or so, let me know, please. If you’re running into troubles with creating those posts or with configuring your sites, besides just finding time to work on it, then let me know.

By the way, if you’ve been just pasting URLs into your blog posts so far, then it’s time now to start learning how to create links instead. It’s not terribly complicated, but using links is a fundamental web literacy that you need to know how to do. (I’m not going to force you to learn the manual HTML for using links in comments, even though it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to do so. I am going to require that you use links instead of URLs in your posts and pages.)

Note that for your next Sunday Funnies assignment, you might need to plan ahead a bit because you’ll be turning one set of class notes into a set of drawings or visualizations. These do not need to be polished or elaborate, but you’ll need to make sure to take good notes in one class (besides mine) this week and if you’re going to hand draw your visualizations (which is perfectly fine), you’ll need to build in enough time to go scan your drawings to insert into a post.

(image credit:”3 Mosaic” by Flickr user Leo Reynolds)