Humanities 2.0: How Web 2.0 is Changing the
Humanities Classroom
Andrea Eastman-Mullins
August 8, 2007
Table of Contents
• My background & Alexander Street Press
• “Humanities 2.0” tools
• World Literature: text analysis
• Music: playlists
• Theatre: annotated video clips
• History: document projects
• Interdisciplinary: Synchrotext
• Summary
Alexander Street Press…
• Based in Alexandria, Virginia
• Founded in 2000, now 68 people
• Publishes high quality digital collections in the Humanities
and Social Sciences.
• Primary materials, audio, video, some journals
• Published and previously unpublished
• Won awards from CHOICE, Library Journal, The Charleston
Advisor.
What we do…
North American History
Latino / L.A. Studies
Drama
Black History and Literature
Religion & Social Thought
Women’s History and Literature
Music
Psychology
Technology & the Humanities
World Literature
• Search features for text analysis
• PhiloLogic software developed at the University of Chicago
Answers questions like… (in Latino Literature)
– How many times do Cuban authors use island or homeland versus
Puerto Rican authors?
– Show me all works written in the 1880s that discuss
esclavatura/escravidão (slavery).
– Give me all works written in Spanish with the word dictadura/ditadura
(dictatorship) within 5 words of guerra (war).
– Show me the novels of Chicano women authors who were born in
California.
World Literature: Text Analysis
Can the gender of Shakespeare’s characters be determined by word use?
Sobhan Raj Hota, Shlomo Argamon, Rebecca Chung (Illinois Institute of Technology)
http://lingcog.iit.edu/doc/hota_dhcs2006.pdf
Music: Playlists
• Playlists on Alexander Street’s music products – over
19,000 users
• Over 100,000 playlists created so far
– 800 created by Alexander Street editors
– 38,000 user created
– 70,000 derivative playlists
• Playlists in the classroom:
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Organize tracks around a theme, i.e. Minimalism
Add to Blackboard using permanent URLs
Use for listening tests
Students use for self-tests
Music: Playlists
Music: Playlists
Music: Playlists for Listening Tests
Theatre: Annotated Video Clips
Theatre in Video
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250 full length productions & over 100 documentaries
streaming video
User-generated clips
Playlists
In the Classroom
– Isolate and compare the storm scenes in different productions of
King Lear.
– Organize a playlist around a theme (Theatre History: Changes in
style from Molière to Ibsen to Miller)
– Have students add their own clips to a production (impressions of
seeing a production vs. reading the play in Theatre Appreciation)
– Group plays and clips of interviews with playwrights, directors, etc.
History: Document Projects
Kathryn Sklar & Tom Dublin, SUNY Binghamton
General Editors
Women and Social Movements, 1600-2000
– Began at SUNY Binghamton
– Primary documents, books, images, scholarly essays, book reviews,
Web site reviews, and teaching tools
– Documents the multiplicity of women’s activism in public life
Over 75 “Document Projects”
– Pose interpretive questions (“How did women participate in the
Underground Railroad?”)
– Answer the questions by examining 20-50 primary documents
– Model the process of historical analysis for students
History: Document Projects
Examples:
• How Did the Ladies Association of Philadelphia Shape New
Forms of Women's Activism During the American Revolution,
1780-1781?
• How Did White Women Aid Former Slaves During and After the
Civil War, 1863-1891?
• How Did Black and White Southern Women Campaign to End
Lynching, 1890-1942?
• How and Why Did the Guerrilla Girls Alter the Art Establishment
in New York City, 1985-1995?
• How Have Recent Social Movements Shaped Civil Rights
Legislation for Women? The 1994 Violence Against Women Act.
History: Document Project Assignments
Professor Nancy Page Fernandez
California State Polytechnic University at Pomona
Write a 10-12 page memoir assuming the persona of a
woman living in 1859 using, in part, resources from
the following document projects:
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Oberlin Women and Antebellum Social Movements
The Appeal of Female Moral Reform
The Nineteenth-Century Dress Reform Movement
Bible Communism and Women of the Oneida Community
Lucretia Mott's Reform Networks
History: Document Project Assignments
Professor Joyce Hanson, California State, San Bernardino
Threaded discussion on suffrage movement documents.
History: Second Wave Wiki
http://scholar.alexanderstreet.com
Interdisciplinary: Synchrotext
http://performedwords.org/
Interdisciplinary: Synchrotext
http://performedwords.org/
Summary
Questions?
Andrea Eastman-Mullins
aeastmanmullins@astreetpress.com
http://www.alexanderstreet.com