February 16, 2012
Humanities scholars sometimes feel dazed and confused in our rapidly evolving digital age. However, the Culture, Liberal Arts & Society (CLASS) fellowship at Hamilton embraces the new technologies of the 21st century. As an undergraduate research program that is part of Hamilton’s Digital Humanities Initiative (DHi), CLASS was designed and co-directed by Associate Director of Instructional Technology Janet Simons and Associate Professor of Africana Studies Angel Nieves. The CLASS fellowship aims to study three broad fields of humanities and their intersection with new and emerging digital technologies.
The New York Times defines the digital humanities as the method of “using powerful technologies and vast stores of digitized materials that previous humanities scholars did not have.” According to Nieves, DHi is a research and teaching collaboration at Hamilton that “develops methods and tools that enhance humanities research.” The DHi hopes to help students access and share media within Hamilton and between other institutions around the world. Giving an example of a DHi project, Nieves mentioned how students could digitally compare writing samples, such as poetry, side-by-side on a computer screen and easily analyze reoccurring patterns and themes within the poems.
The CLASS program focuses on providing students with the skills and training in digital literacies through intensive research and scholarship. According to Simons, “a faculty member must nominate a student to work collaboratively with them on research that incorporates digital approaches to answering humanities-based research question.” The fellowship begins with two weeks training in Digital Humanities methods, two summer internships, and working in “a DHi research project team” in the year in between. Two Cinema and New Media Studies courses are required as well.
“Directly connecting students and faculty with similar research interests and supporting digital approaches to answering those research questions is part of our mission,” Simons states. “CLASS formalizes this goal with a program that first develops collaborative digital scholarship on campus and then in the second summer, provides students with real world internship experiences in humanities-based efforts.”
“The CLASS program is made possible through a Mellon Grant,” Simons continues, referring to an $800,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in September 2010. “President Joan Stewart received a discretionary grant that endowed the program and allocated money for the first two years.” However, Simon emphasizes that the subject of the class program remains wide open, stating that “the ideas must now come from faculty/student collaborative research projects.”
Although the fellowship is open to any student, Simons stresses that “it requires a strong commitment and requires the student and faculty member to work together.” The most recent CLASS recipients include Sarah Bither ’13, who conducted a study of the power and influence of Japanese silent film on the Japanese culture and film industry with Professor Kyoko Omori, and Brynna Tomassone ’12, who is working on a Digital Humanities project documenting the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa in collaboration with Professor Nieves.