I met with Veronica before the Easter break to discuss the first steps in creating the site for this project. She showed me how to create the Excel spreadsheet that DH press would use to populate my page. We want it to be non-linear, and multidimensional. I’m going to work on the spreadsheet during the break.
Beginnings: DH project for CORE II
Since reading and engaging in core texts is important to the University Core (as well as First Year Writing and many other disciplines) I would like to build a tool for use in my Core II class so that students could develop a more deeply felt connection to the more ancient texts like 1 Corinthians or the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas. I believe that they will be able to think more critically about the issues therein if they have a better sense of the historical, social, religious, and philosophical contexts of the texts and authors. At first I wanted students to be actively engaged in developing the resource as part of their coursework, and envisioned setting up a framework for it and having them work on creating the content. This, I felt, would do much to bring these vital readings in the humanities to life for our students. However, after seeing some of the projects featured on the Scalar website, I decided to work on creating a site for both course readings and materials (images, maps, etc) that would provide students with a better sense of the context of the texts and their authors both in space and time. I changed my approach in this way after I realized how important contextualization for each period we would study would be, and how this would help students better comprehend the readings and see their connections to other thinkers of their time and of past and future times. So Veronica has suggested that we consider using DH Press to create this project.