Teaching
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Teaching #
Examples #
Materialities of the Digital (University of Cambridge) #
This optional module is offered as part of the MPhil in Digital Humanities and taught by Anne Alexander. The course explores the materiality of digital culture through an investigation of the ‘things’ that undergird our networked world. It also introduces ways of thinking about how these things are made and connected with each other through networks, systems, infrastructures, and architectures with weekly sessions on topics such as cables and networks, data centres, sensors, drones and autonomous vehicles, borders and categories and crowds.
The overarching framework for the course engages with Andreas’ Malm’s theorisation of Fossil Capital, paying particular attention to the idea of “seeing power as power”, in other words recognising that the choices made by the designers of machines and systems which convert energy sources into ‘work’ are shaped by capitalist social relations as much as technical constraints and possibilities.
We explore these themes both in the classroom and through other forms of learning, for example through a walking-tour and field trip to the West Cambridge Data Centre, to examine the adiabatic cooling system and experience the heat and noise of the data halls firsthand. Students have also taken up the challenge of relying on a solar battery to charge their mobile phone for a week. This exercise is designed to prompt greater awareness of which types of phone activities consume the most energy and reflection on the relationships between user behaviour, design choices and social processes (such as the desire to be part of an ‘always on’ society).
The Battery Game - teachers’ instructions and sample reflections from students in the 2023/4 cohort
Data Environmentalism (University of Southampton) -#
This second year elective module (that is, it can be taken by any Humanities student) run by James Baker draws on scholarship from digital media studies, environmental history, computer science, science and technology studies, climate science, creative practice, and archival science, to examine the past, present, and future intersections of data and the natural environment. It starts with some simple statements - that data is material, is produced by people, is made possible by resource extraction, needs power to survive, and inhabits and resculpts the landscape - before expanding out into a range of topics (TESCREALism and the ‘Californian Ideology’, the sacking of Timnit Gebru, pollution as a form of colonialism, energy (dis)proportionality) that encourage humanities students use their skills and perspectives to illuminate and challenge the ecological impacts of computational technologies.
The module ran for the first time in 2022/23. The latest reading list is available here. A few reflections from James:
Three things stand out from my experience of teaching Data Environmentalism. First, students - in the main - really cared, really wanted to know more, and enjoyed the challenge of working in a multi-disciplinary space. Second, they loved the week hooked around Crawford and Joler’s “Anatomy of an Amazon Echo”: I printed a huge copy for us to pour over in class, and that proved really generative. Third, it was extra work, but making the assessment activist focused - a ‘public outcome’ and a reflexive essay on producing the public outcome - was a big win, as it enabled the students to express their interests/fear/anger in forms that they felt had the potential to change things - such as a film on greenwashing in the tech sector or a magazine on NTFs.
Resources -#
This section could use your input. Are you embedding climate and sustainability themes in your teaching? Please get involved! Meanwhile, here are a handful of links.
- Full Stack Feminism toolkit: “Full Stack Feminism takes inspiration from intersectional feminist praxis which, stemming from black feminist thought in the 1970s and 80s, highlights the way in which systems of oppression overlap, particularly in relation to race and gender, resulting in privileges for some and marginalisation and oppression for others.”
- Green Software Induction: A great compilation of readings, training and other resources for becoming a green software practitioner.
- Moral IT and Legal IT Card Decks: “These physical cards are a responsible research and innovation tool created to enable structured reflection on legal, ethical, technical and social implications of new information technologies.”
- Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Concepts, Models, and Experiments: peer-reviewed, curated collection of reusable and remixable resources for teaching and research
- GreenIO Podcast: an industry-focused podcast, but shares lots of inspiration and best practice relevant to educational settings too.
- Environmental Variables: another great podcast with a good range of guests and topics related to green software.
- The Programming Historian: novice-friendly, peer-reviewed tutorials that help humanists learn a wide range of digital tools, techniques, and workflows for teaching and research.
- UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association: the DHCC is a Community Interest Group of UK-IE DH
- DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities): tools and services | training and education
- Association for Computers and the Humanities: front page
- Canadian Society for Digital Humanities: front page
- centerNet: resources page
- Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa: front page
- European Association for Digital Humanities: education
- Australasian Association for Digital Humanities: resources
- Japanese Association for Digital Humanities: resources
- Humanistica: page d’accueil
- Taiwanese Association for the Digital Humanities: front page
- Digital Humanities Alliance for Research and Teaching Innovations: front page
- British Computing Society, Net Zero Digital
- Media, Arts and Humanities Sustainability Educator Toolkit: Not specifically about DH, but does explore how to embed sustainability in any subject
E-Learning