Author Archives: (Martha) Joy Rose

Twitter Workshop Overview/Sept. 30th

Hi –
In class last week I suggested that we might want to share overviews from the workshops here since not all of us can make the Thursday evening DH workshops.

I suggest we keep these reports broad in scope and brief in text. Here’s my overview of the twitter workshop last week.

The workshop format was pretty informal. Approximately 12 students sat at computer lab portals in the subbasement library while we perused the twitter-sphere.
*(Make a note) Some of these labs are only accessed through the library, not the main elevators.

  • The teaching fellows (is ‘fellows’ the masculine use of the word?) flipped through various accounts demonstrating how twitter can increase your profile on the web.
  • For example: If you have a common name, your name may be associated with several people on the search engines, including criminals. To mitigate this, think of distinguishing yourself by adding a middle initial to your name and tweeting often to raise your visibility. Go to google. Search your name. See what comes up.
  • We noticed that Micki Kaufman got a big burst of twitter attention by way of a recent sharing of information and images. Congrats.
  • Suddenly one can become a “Twitter Star” as in the case of many prominent professors who have written books and have a great number of followers. In these cases a great many more people may be following you, than you are following.
  • Check out platforms like Hootsuite if you want to schedule your tweets ahead of time, put all your social platforms in one place, and measure your social media results
  • I’m attaching a twitter quick tips sheet here. It was for an event a year ago, but if you substitute #DHpraxis14 as the hashtag, and our classmates twitter handles (their accounts) to your tweets, you can use this good and simple guide to make some practical twitter sense.

Good Luck!
And, FYI – you do not need to be a twitter fan to have a small amount of success. I don’t really “love” twitter, but I “do” it, simply because its part of the digital world in which we live.

TWeet_Sheet

Theorizing Motherhood In DH

This week I am requesting permission to create an Individualized MALS degree that combines Digital Humanities with Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The purpose of this combined major is to weave DH praxis (theory and practice) and feminist maternal perspectives into a thesis project that identifies “Mother Studies” as potential new area of inter-disciplinary coursework within the academy.

ps3-sixasis-wireless-control-umbilical-cord-small-18242

As we all know (here in this class and on the blog) — Digital Humanities is a relatively new field that is currently exploring its relevance, theory, and action. “Attempts to define the digital humanities represents a foray into contested terrain” (Matthew Gold, Digital Humanities), and yet DH has been successful in a) accessing funding, b) perpetuating a discussion of itself, c) offering classes at universities around the world. While MOOCS are just one arena where DH exercises its muscle, there is much to explore that could be useful in examining and developing “Mother Studies.” A few of those platforms are: interactive texts (such as the ones featured on the Commons), feminist archives, online exhibits, and projects like UCLA’s Hypercities; which could facilitate a mapping of history that includes aspects of HERstory (populations that have not been included in normative discussions of the recorded past. See also, Cold Spring Harbor Library.

If Digital Humanities offers a glimpse into theory and practice of “Mother Studies,” then the starting place for accessing content will be drawn from existing sources in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies literature, popular culture, and identity politics. These things shaped the feminist movement(s) of the sixties, seventies, and eighties and have continued to inform subsequent generations of procreators. GC’s own Barbara Katz Rothman has been writing about birth and motherhood since the 1980s. I suggest multiple perspectives can be added as theoretical and material resources expand to include a social, philosophical, psychological, economic, and global discussion as it pertains to m/otherhood, fatherhood, and family study.

An examination into “Mother Studies” is the logical symbolic daughter of the ever expanding, and microscoping feminist discourse. In 2011 Sage Publishing released The Encyclopedia of Motherhood. The three-volume work included feminist arts organizations, activist agencies, and academics spearheading new work about motherhood. At the same time here in New York City I began a three-year museum project on the Upper East Side. The Museum of Motherhood focused on exploring and exhibiting academic and artistic works about women, mothers, and families.

Intellectuals who believe this subject has merit have laid much groundwork. In conclusion, by combining Digital Humanities with Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies I aim to construct my thesis project interactively. I will take an interdisciplinary approach to shaping the theory and practice of “Mother Studies” by a) pulling from existing sources, b) engaging the academic “collective,” c) establishing a framework with which to view the topic as a scholarly endeavor, b) utilizing DH theory and tools to enhance evaluation and discussion.

*Photo credit:

Photo Credit:
Company: TBWA\, SPAIN, Madrid
Executive Creative Director: Guillermo Gines and Juan Sanchez
Creative Director: Bernardo Hernandez
Copywriter: Vicente Rodríguez
Art Director: Bernardo Hernández and Ely Sánchez
Account Supervisor: Inés DIaz-Casariego
Advertiser’s Supervisor: Criistina Infante and Jorge Huguet
Photographer: Sara Zorraquino
Producer: Nuria Mazarío
The Outdoor Advert titled UMBILICAL CORD was done by Tbwa\ advertising agency for brand: Sony Playstation in Spain. It was released in the Apr 2007. Business sectors are: Cannes 2007 Press Bronze, Cannes 2007 Press, Point of Purchase posters.

Can Feminists Find DH Helpful?

Yup. I dove into the pool and didn’t check to see how deep the water was.

I’m still afloat, but holding my breath.

underwater-swimming-13634282841HsLYNDA.com is playing in the background. (S)he’s a man talking code, programming the new language of my life — and I’m not sure exactly what (s)he’s saying?

The twitter copy of tags is a little mysterious too. #InTheDarkAges #TwitterHelp #JustKidding #DHfeminist (There’s one tweet)

The “theory” of DH inspires me. Materially speaking, I’m sure most everyone in the group heard about the 3D printed car? (LINK to the story). I probably don’t need to say why it’s relevant, but I will. This technology rests at the intersection of exactly what we have been exploring in the theory and practice of DH.

I’ve been playing with some of this theory in my area of interest to see how DH might facilitate theorizing “New Maternalisms” and “Mother Studies.” I know it seems like a weird combo, but that’s how I got into all of this — A MOOC course out of Minnesota State last summer taught by feminist Jocelyn Fenton Stitt that set me on my current course.

The ways information can be digitized and shared across platforms seems like an amazing opportunity. That possibility includes disseminating valuable education to people who are performing caregiving work in institutional and private settings. We DO believe education makes our lives “more informed” if not “betta” — right?

So why not apply some “maternal thinking’ (Sara Ruddick) to an “emerging politics of peace,” and every other damn thing that really matters. Like, raising the next generation of DH’ers? Can feminists find DH helpful? I’m finding out! Here’s an interesting article on “Assessing Feminist Interventions In Digital Archives.”

Swimming slowly, but I’m doin’ it. As usual, before I found out how much I didn’t know, I felt pretty smart. (Sigh)

 

The Importance of Place

By, Martha Joy Rose (you can call me Joy 🙂

Screen shot, Madonna, Material Girl video (1985)

Screen shot, Madonna, Material Girl video (1985)

To quote Madonna, “we live in a material world.” Bodies are the containers for our intellectual, sensation-filled, pleasurable, and of course painful lives. My material body is the place from which I interact with the world. The biological shape it takes interprets data and responds accordingly. It is my home, and its receptors process my life experiences. That’s why I titled this first blog for the Digital Praxis Seminar “The Importance of Place.” For people wishing to push past the limitations of the material world, online portals provide unique opportunities to connect beyond the place and space individuals physically occupy.

During the first Digital Humanities Seminar class participants wrote one-sentence definitions of DH. My short and sweet assessment was, “DH is the intersection between information and technology.” Expanding on that idea is the notion that every subject within the interdisciplinary humanities has the potential to be available via the internet. These systems have already begun to change the learning landscape through MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses) and digital libraries. Optimally the internet expands opportunities and enhances the physical/mental landscape into information highways, hyperrealities and more. This is a fascinating new frontier with its own possibilities and limitations. We are still at the forefront of this burgeoning new “place” learning to manage the opportunities presented and the pitfalls created.

This summer I watched Morgan Spurlock’s special on CNN delving into Futurisms. You can see the YouTube video here. The episode is a sometimes-frightening glimpse into humanity’s technological future, of which each of us plays a part, like it or not.

Because I still live in a body, but because my body lives in a world of rapidly developing technologies, I embrace the importance of both spheres relatively. I exercise my body, eat right, and love my physical form (in all its stages), but I am diving full steam into the new important space of digital humanities where information and connections find scope and life online. I absolutely think it is the next important place to be.

(If anyone needs extra help getting in the wordpress groove, I’m happy to help. Just write me at my gmail address and we’ll set up a chat time by phone)
My Twitter Handle is: TheMediaMom
E-mail: MarthaJoyRose@gmail.com
Website: MarthaJoyRose.com