This blog, in a lot of ways, is the result of putting into action my previous blog, and to get a better gist of what the workshop itself entailed, please see that blog.

In running a workshop on GIS mapping using 3D-printed maps and pins, one conclusion, point of error, questions to consider (call it what you will) came to mind: when practicing a Digital Humanities workshop aimed at teaching a specific digital tool without the digital, while also using Latinx materials, what is it that gets missed? Is it possible to do due diligence on both fields in a limited time with an audience of mixed knowledge? Does the digital tool come before the context of the world in which it is used? And why do these questions trouble me so much? Am I alone in my concerns?

By all of these questions, what I mean to ask, reworded, is there and does there have to be a difference between teaching the workshop I did in a future Latinx class with a DH section on the syllabus versus running a workshop with a general DH group on a Latinx topic while focusing not on the Latinx portion but instead the mechanics of a tool? Theoretically, in a Latinx topic class, the history and specifics of what is being plotted, which in this case were different Latin American migrant experiences in the country of Mexico, would already be explained in lectures and readings. There are no underlying assumptions of knowledge left open in the conversation fostered in a classroom with students. A general workshop functions a little differently, especially given time constraints and the fact that it’s a one-day event, and, at the end of the day, a single skill or specific point is valued.

Admittedly, in the last post, I left out the details of the sixteen flashcards in part because making them took a bit longer than I expected. Just like any other teaching material, the details and specifics mattered an unbelievable amount. So, I did what any literature major would do: I drew on my training and tried to ensure that the stories/narratives were as centered as possible. In practice, this means that nearly all the sixteen flashcards are snippets from documentaries, novels, memoirs, and government documents. This project, at its heart, was one of critical making, using 3D printing to embody the work of literary studies.

Once again, in a Latinx studies classroom, I would never run the workshop before spending time on the histories of Latin American migrations and the differences across decades. For example, in the early 2000s, into the turn of the second decade of the 21st century, there was an increase in unaccompanied children from across Central American countries fleeing gang violence, which was a direct result of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), which is a different moment, with its own specifics, of a broader history (Arias 2012). What is being written about and documented reflects this period. Therefore, the flashcards also aim to reflect not only the different migrant experiences in Mexico but also who is migrating. In my previous blog post, I used Ana Patricia Rodriguez’s framework of accompaniment to argue that, by plotting the flashcards onto the map, a participant is also “positioned, if not prodded, to question the conditions.” The hope in a classroom is that students can see the differences across decades as they plot the snippets and be “prodded” to make connections. Turns out, in a workshop, this is slightly harder to pull off successfully.

Answers to my Questions

I didn’t realize just how much I would appreciate the act of running a workshop, the practice it would provide, and all the questions it would raise for me as a teacher. I say this not as a value judgment but as a point of improvement and awareness: in many ways, the workshop failed. I failed. And I love the fact that I failed. And next time I might fail again, and I might not, but I look forward to it nonetheless. Because in failure and in writing this blog, the answers to my own questions, at least for myself, become slowly clearer and clearer. So, I will now answer the questions using the experience of the workshop itself. What gets missed? I learned that if we center a digital tool too much and not the world it is situated in, the Latinx histories fall a little to the side. Once again, my failure. Is it possible to do due diligence on both fields? That one is a little harder for me because the reality is similar to Environmental humanities, where Priscilla Solis Ybarra, David Vazquez, and many more have demonstrated gaps of Latinx representation in other fields, but also a mirrored gap in Latinx studies. These gaps complicate one’s ability to do full diligence in a limited time. I repeat, my failure. Does the tool come before the world? On the day of this workshop, it did. In part because the intent of the workshop was to teach the tool, and I focused on that too. Why do these questions bother me so much? Question for a later day. Would I teach it differently in my future Latinx studies class? Absolutely.

As part of my tradition, a place of thanks. I am so very grateful to have had the opportunity to run this workshop and to find joy not only in critical making but also in failing. I want to not only thank my praxis group and those who were there for the workshop, but also my amazing advisors who encourage all my side-quests, even when they include ducks.

References

Arias, Arturo. “Central American-Americans in the Second Decade of the Twenty-First Century: Old Scars, New Traumas, Disempowering Travails.” Diálogo, vol. 15, no. 1 (2012): pp. 4-16.

Vázquez, David J. Decolonial Environmentalisms: Climate Justice and Speculative Futures In Latinx Cultural Production. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2025.

Ybarra, Priscilla Solis. Writing the Goodlife: Mexican American Literature and the Environment. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2016.

Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping attaches a dataset to a specific space and place, substantiating a relationship between the two as not only directly related but as affected by or moved to that specific point on a map. However, when thinking about how to teach a workshop on mapping to a group, one problem came to mind: we are in a generation with a profound lack of relationship to and with maps and the locations of countries. Which, in general, is its own point of discussion; however, when considering migration and mapping, a recognition of this lack became a focus for me. The question formed: how do I first get people not only to see, but really understand this non-relationship?

As students, we shape our own archives, perceptions, and pedagogy through the scholars we read and encounter. The scholar whose work inspired this very workshop, and answered the questions I wrestled with, is Ana Patricia Rodriguez. I was guided through my approach by both her first monograph, Dividing the Isthmus: Central American Transnational Histories, Literature, and Cultures, and her article, “The Art of (Un)Accompaniment: Salvadoran Child Refugee Narratives in the Twenty-first Century.” (10 out of 10 recommend others read both)

First The Non-Relationship

Rodriquez begins her monograph’s introduction with an activity she runs in her classroom. I pull that activity and use it as my own introduction to not mapping, but maps. The assumption I make is clear- Latin American countries do not and will not register as located within the group’s imagination. The lack is made evident. Now, no spoilers, go read her book. This part of the workshop will use 3D-printed or woodcut materials, is theoretically brief, and allows me to transition from map to mapping by asking them questions. I don’t know what I will ask quite yet, but they will be fantastic questions.

Accompaniment as Pedagogy

Next point of inspiration. First, the question. How can I make a GIS mapping workshop interactive and include a dataset based on migrant experiences in Mexico? Rodriguez’s article introduced me to the work on accompaniment. In this article, her reading of Javier Zamora’s Unaccompanied (also a book everyone should read), theorizes “a poetics of un/accompaniment” where,

The poems create a path of accompaniment of critical empathy for readers to follow literally and literarily the migratory routes of child migrants … It is in this process of accompaniment that readers are positioned, if not prodded, to question the conditions that produce child migration and the legal violence of migration policies, which shape the outcomes of arrival, detention, exclusion, and deportation, especially for women and children.

The accompaniment that Rodriguez traces in Zamora’s works and literature builds on scholarship and research on accompaniment in movements and research, but ties it to migration. Poetry and narratives create a different space for “readers to follow” migrants on their route to the United States. This, along with the ways readers are “positioned, if not prodded, to question the conditions,” prompted me to consider how a hands-on GIS workshop almost inherently, and unintentionally, seeks to enact an accompaniment. This is not to claim that there is a perfect or unflawed relationship between mapping and accompaniment. The accompaniment will shift a bit in its movement to the digital and/or in the making of narratives into data points. However, through accompaniment, what became clear was that what I considered to be simply an inherent relationship between place and data was flawed when I maintained it as inherent rather than as something to be questioned and interrogated.

The reality is that datasets can risk reducing humans to bodies in the very act of transforming information into points plotted on a map. That risk is exacerbated when the lack of relationship to a map is already present, and all a viewer intakes is a map filled with marks, even when they attempt to filter and narrow the scope of what they are looking at. With that, can embedding the mapping of points as a process of accompaniment shift how a viewer or a mapper processes a large, complex dataset? And is this shift my pedagogical framework? No clue, I will get back to you on that one.

The Actual Workshop

The nitty-gritty part of this actual blog post. Bear with me. In groups, people will be given a 3D-printed or woodcut of México, with holes already embedded into the country. These will be the data points (holes, literally just holes already made in the map) and pins, sized to fit them. The holes are rendered as a permanent facet of the map due to the nature of 3D printing, which makes me consider how the stories and narratives the map represents are always present, whether they are pinned and mapped or not. Which, by no means, should be uncomplicated, we should always consider why data gets mapped, what it is meant to demonstrate, what ends up entering, and what is left out and excluded.

Along with the country, they will also be given a mix of 14 notecards; on the front, each will have a year, the migrants’ nationality, and gender. In a longer workshop, I would leave parts of the data set unlabeled and have participants read the narrative on the other side and fill in the data themselves. Making data collection part of the activity and including a brief interrogation of what we synthesize and ultimately prioritize.

Slowly but surely, they will place a pin on the 3D map at the final location in Mexico mentioned in the narrative, where the hole already exists. By this point, the idea is that each pin they place on the map will serve as an act of accompaniment.

After they finish plotting all the index cards, the hope is that the participant will also be struck by the magnitude and scatter of a map filled with data points everywhere. It is here that the final questions address an essential part of GIS mapping: how does one filter through large datasets? How important were those labels at the front of the card to begin with? How do all the parts work together? Does this data filtering return us to a different directionality of accompaniment? These questions, along with this workshop, are truly a work in progress. While the process of prototyping countries and pins has taught me so many things (like patience and a love of failure), there is still so much I cannot yet estimate. And any comments or suggestions are always welcomed with gratitude.

Finally, I have a big rule about recognizing the role people play in helping me make a chaotic idea from my imagination feel and become tangible. None of this would have been possible without the Makerspace, Ammon, Shane, Brandon, and, lastly, David Coyoca, the man I bother with all my questions about teaching, and who helped me sort through the chaos that is my brainstorming. This final version-in-process would not have been possible without the team effort that praxis encourages. 10 out of 10. Thank you.

References Rodriguez, Ana Patricia. 2009. Dividing the Isthmus: Central American Transnational Histories, Literature, and Cultures. Austin: University of Texas Press

———— 2025 “The Art of (Un)Accompaniment: Salvadoran Child Refugee Narratives in the Twenty-first Century,” Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: Vol. 49: Iss. 1, Article 8. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.2281

The questions I have received while in grad school: What field and discipline are you in? What is your research specifically focused on? What is the topic of your dissertation? All great questions. Questions that know how to give a student a certain amount of anxiety, depending on what year they are in. But great questions nonetheless. These are the questions I have been trained to answer. I expect them. I have varying answers depending on who is asking. So, imagine my surprise when, instead, I am asked by Praxis: What is it that you want to get out of this program? What does community look like to you, and what goes into maintaining a group’s wellness? At the heart of it, what is it that you care about? Finally, truly, the most important question of the bunch- what is your individual superpower? And if it has not been made evident quite yet, mine was deemed sarcasm. And that is the only question and answer that matters. And if I believed I could end this post exactly here (without vaguely getting scolded), I absolutely would. But, alas, probably not a good idea in the first couple of weeks. So, instead, I finish with honesty. I can honestly say that Praxis has left me with more questions than ever. I don’t know that I can answer all the questions quite yet, and I am okay with that. For now, I know with certainty that I care about my community more than anything. And that, that is enough for me.

Our center is happy to be one of the sponsors of this one-day conference on the relationships between humans and machines organized by our membre Marcello Vitali-Rosati, Carla Canullo and Tiberio Uricchio (Università di Macerata) :

What is a machine? What is a human being? Is there a clear, stable boundary between the two? The many discussions about AI have recently renewed interest in these questions, which have haunted us for centuries. It would seem that in our relationship with machines, in the way we define and understand them, and above all in the way we identify how they are different from us, our very essence is at stake. As human beings, we define ourselves in opposition to machines. This symposium aims to question this demarcation line by challenging the oppositions between human and machine, artificial and natural, quantifiable and non-quantifiable, calculable and non-calculable.

The full program is available on the conference website.

This summer, Dr. Darren Wershler, the Acting director of the Centre for Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) at Milieux Institute and professor in the faculty of Arts and Science, will be leading a two-week three (3) credit course on interdisciplinary research at Concordia University. The course will be co-taught with guest faculty Dr. Lai-Tze Fan, Canada Research Chair in Technology and Social Change (Tier 2 SSHRC) and Director of the U&AI Lab at University of Waterloo, and will introduce students to a range of contemporary critical and philosophical approaches to interdisciplinary research.

Students from diverse academic and experiential backgrounds are encouraged to apply. All are welcome, and no particular technical knowledge is necessary. Guest lectures (to be confirmed) will include talks by Steven J. Jackson, Associate Professor in the Department of Information Science and Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University; and Phil Reilly from Right to Repair.

For more information on « ENGL 602: Mess and Method – Maintenance, Repair and Sustainability Edition, 2024« , please visite the course website.

En collaboration avec le Groupe de Recherche sur les Éditions critiques en contexte Numérique (GREN), notre centre est heureux de recevoir Dino Felluga (Purdue University) pour un atelier dédié au projet COVE :

Prof. Felluga will introduce attendees to COVE, including the new tools and abilities made possible because of his current $350,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant. He will illustrate how you can use COVE with undergraduates for active learning; with co-authors for peer-reviewed publication; and with other scholars for conferences and international networking. Activities he will discuss include text annotation, image annotation, anthology-building, timeline-building, map-building, and gallery-building.

[Prof. Felluga donnera aussi une conférence intitulée « Open Assembly and the Collective: Digital Humanities after the Collapse of the Humanities » le jeudi 28 mars à l’université Concordia.]

On April 20, 2020, the Digital Innovation Lab (DIL) will hold a Colloquium on Computational Poetics and Data Aesthetics, as an extended investigation and celebration of the relationships between humans and machines and the works of art, literature, and visual knowledge they produce together.

The advent of computing has changed the work of artists and writers. Tools for working with data have similarly foregrounded aesthetic choices when representing knowledge. This colloquium seeks to showcase exciting and original work and research at the intersections of digital humanities and arts, expand our horizons through a roundtable and workshop led by working artists, scholars, and digital practitioners, and discuss emergent ethical questions in the field, as they relate to labor practices, data, and digital infrastructure.

Proposals for roundtable presenters are welcome on any aspect of these themes, in particular, but not limited to:
—The relationships between humans and machines
—The relationships between computation, quantitative methods, and aesthetics
—Ethical questions related to visualizations and computation
—E-poetry and the frontiers of poetry at intersection of technology and literature
—Digital labor practices, digital infrastructures, and funding mechanisms
—Art and digital practice, digital aesthetics
—The relationship between digital arts and digital humanities

The deadline is March 16 to submit a proposal for the roundtable.

For more information about the Digital Innovation Lab or for any questions about the upcoming colloquium, please contact Dan Anderson (iamdan@live.unc.edu) or Carly Schnitzler (cschnitz@live.unc.edu).

Notre centre est heureux d’accueillir Dino Felluga (Purdue University) pour une conférence intitulée « Open Assembly and the Collective: Digital Humanities after the Collapse of the Humanities » à l’Université Concordia le jeudi 28 mars à 16h :

Given the ways that universities and government agencies have increasingly limited the amount of money available for humanities projects, this talk asks, “how can we build sustainable resources at a time of collapse?” Rather than bemoan the current situation, the talk proposes that we need to rethink how we fund and maintain the work that we do.

Bio: Dino Franco Felluga is Professor of English at Purdue University. He is also the general editor of BRANCH: Britain, Representation, and Nineteenth-Century History at http://branchcollective.org and of COVE: Collaborative Organization for Virtual Education at http://covecollective.org. His talk extends the argument of his next book, Novel-Poetry: The Shape of the Real and the Problem of Form (forthcoming Oxford UP, 2024), to the building of real-world, digital-humanities resources.

[Prof. Felluga donnera aussi un atelier sur le projet COVE le mardi 26 mars à l’université de Montréal.]

Notre centre est heureux d’être un des partenaires de la conférence « Horizons de la philologie numérique: L’Anthologie grecque pour repenser [formats], [paradigmes] et [collaboration] »,  subventionné par le CRSH et organisé par nos membres Elsa Bouchard et Marcello Vitali-Rosati, avec Mathilde Verstraete et Serena Cannevale. Durant ces trois journées d’étude consacrées à l’actualité de la philologie à l’ère du numérique, à partir de l’Anthologie grecque, les questions suivantes seront abordées :

Quelles implications découlent de la rencontre entre des textes millénaires et des environnements numériques complexes ? Comment devrions-nous traiter les données engendrées par les projets issus des Digital Classics ? Comment pouvons-nous envisager leur structuration pour les rendre accessibles, les valoriser et les réutiliser ? Ces questions constituent le cœur des trois journées d’étude « Horizons de la philologie numérique. L’Anthologie grecque pour repenser formats, paradigmes et collaboration » (16-18 avril 2024, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II & Université de Montréal). L’objectif de cet événement est d’engager réflexions et discussions sur les fondements épistémologiques des projets d’édition ou d’étude de textes classiques à l’ère numérique, questionnant notamment les choix et utilisations d’outils particuliers, la mise en œuvre de la collaboration, la gestion des données, etc. Cette rencontre se concentrera sur l’étude de cas de l’Anthologie grecque, permettant de valoriser la plateforme et les données issues du projet d’édition numérique et collaborative de l’Anthologie grecque, mené à la Chaire de Recherche du Canada sur les Écritures Numériques depuis 2014. Chaque journée sera dédiée à un des trois axes de l’événement ; les matinées seront dédiées à des conférences et les après-midi à des ateliers pratiques permettant d’explorer concrètement les concepts discutés et d’appliquer certaines des méthodologies présentées.

[Le programme complet est disponible sur le site de la conférence.]

Dans le cadre d’un événement organisé avec le Carrefour en culture et création numériques (C3N) de la Faculté des arts et des sciences de l’Université de Montréal, Glenn Roe (Paris Sorbonne) fera une conférence intitulée « Modéliser les Lumières : Les réseaux de réutilisation des textes dans la France du XVIIIe siècle » le lundi 22 avril à 9h :

Financé par l’ERC, le projet ModERN (Modelling Enlightenment. Reassembling Networks of Modernity through data-driven research) est un projet de cinq ans dont l’objectif principal est d’établir une nouvelle histoire littéraire et intellectuelle « basée sur les données » des Lumières françaises ; une approche à la fois plus complète et plus systématique en termes de relation avec le registre culturel numérique existant, et une qui remet en question les récits ultérieurs de la modernité européenne. Pour y parvenir, ModERN déploie une combinaison unique de technologies informatiques de pointe, un cadre conceptuel qui fusionne la théorie des acteurs-réseaux avec la découverte basée sur les données, et des méthodes critiques et textuelles traditionnelles, qui sont toutes utilisées pour examiner les archives numériques de La période des Lumières en France et ses conséquences. Plus précisément, le projet utilise de nouvelles techniques d’analyse de texte à grande échelle et de modélisation linguistique de réseaux neuronaux profonds développées dans les communautés des humanités numériques et de l’intelligence artificielle pour identifier et analyser les réseaux conceptuels et intertextuels sur une collection sans précédent de textes des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles.

Cette conférence sera suivi, après une pause café, d’une table-ronde présidée par notre directeur à 10h30 avec des présentations de collègues de la FAS : Lisa Dillon (démographie), Marie Martel (école de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information) et Pierrich Plusquellec (École de Psychoéducation).

Un dîner-réseautage sera ensuite offert sur place.

En collaboration avec le département de communication de l’Université de Montréal et nos membres Juliette de Mayer et Ghislain Thibault, notre centre est heureux d’accueillir Katharina Niemeyer et Magali Uhl pour leur conférence intitulée « Les terrains de la solastalgie » :

La solastalgie désigne une forme de détresse qui s’exprime par l’angoisse de voir son milieu de vie (territoire, paysage, habitat, écosystème) disparaitre. Peut-elle aussi être une ressource constructive pour le futur? Dans cette conférence nous retracerons le cheminement épistémologique et scientifique de la solastalgie afin d’introduire le projet collectif Solastalgies Créatrices mené aux Îles-de-la-Madeleine entre 2022 et 2023. Nous allons mettre l’emphase sur les démarches méthodologiques déployées en amont, pendant et en aval des activités menées aux Îles; allant de l’analyse d’une communauté en ligne très active aux Îles et de l’écoute des fonds marins à la fabrication de caméras sténopés et des souvenirs du futur.  La réflexion portera également sur l’apport critique de la solastalgie pour les humanités numériques.

Bio: Magali Uhl est professeure au département de sociologie de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM, Canada), membre chercheuse au CELAT et chercheure principale du projet Solastalgies Créatrices. Le rôle des images et de l’art dans la connaissance du social est au centre de son programme de recherche, au même titre que les méthodologies créatives et les nouvelles écritures sociologiques.

Katharina Niemeyer, co-chercheure du projet Solastalgies Créatrices, est professeure à l’École des médias à l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), membre du CELAT et co-responsable du mXlab en recherche-création médiatique. Ses travaux de recherche portent sur les rapports entre médias et technologies, mémoire et histoire.

En collaboration avec le département de communication de l’Université de Montréal et nos membres Juliette de Mayer et Ghislain Thibault, notre centre est heureux d’accueillir Whitney Trettien pour sa conférence intitulée « The Deep History of Digital Encoding » :

The story of how the machines we now call “computers” emerged from government-funded research during World War II is well known. But before the mainframe computer could be built, inventors had to work out something more fundamental: how to encode text in electrical pulses and holes punched onto paper cards. In other words, they had to invent a new symbolic system of communication between humans and machines.

In this talk, I sketch the deep history of encoding text. Beginning with late eighteenth-century experiments in weaving and telegraphy, I trace the origins of binary encoding schemes to nineteenth-century innovations in the printing industry, especially to mechanical typesetting machines and printing techniques for the blind. As this history shows, industrial-era printing technologies, designed for European alphabets, nontrivially shaped early encoding schemes and still underlie digital textuality today.

Bio: Whitney Trettien is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches book history and digital humanities. Her first book is Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), available both in print and staged digitally on the Manifold platform. She is currently working on the deep history of text encoding and a digital project on printing in prisons.

Michael Sinatra, CRIHN director, invites you to the third annual Stéfan Sinclair-CRIHN lecture on Tuesday 12 March 2024 @ 3.30pm at the Université de Montréal.

Named in honour of Stéfan Sinclair, one of the founders of CRIHN in 2013, this third annual conference will feature a keynote delivered by Constance Crompton, Canada Research Chair in Digital Humanities at the University of Ottawa, entitled: « Sticking with the things you make: the pleasures and challenges of long-term Digital Humanities development ». 

Pascale Dangoisse, recipient of the 2023 Stéfan Sinclair Memorial Scholarship will also present her doctoral research at this event.

Notre centre est heureux d’être associé de nouveau à la neuvième école d’été sur les humanités numériques du CERIUM qui sera donné par notre directeur avec des interventions de plusieurs de nos membres du lundi 27 mai au samedi 1 juin 2024 prochain.

L’objectif principal de cette école d’été est de familiariser les étudiants avec les humanités numériques dans le domaine des sciences humaines et sociales. Le domaine de recherche des humanités numériques (une traduction de l’anglais digital humanities) s’est développé au cours des vingt dernières années, et est un domaine très vaste et caractérisé par une forte interdisciplinarité. Dans le débat actuel, on essaie de ne pas penser les humanités numériques comme une discipline et de plutôt les envisager comme une approche globale, transdisciplinaire, adoptant une attitude et un point de vue sur la recherche qui devraient impliquer l’ensemble des chercheurs en sciences humaines et sociales. Loin d’être un simple développement technologique ayant uniquement un impact sur le processus de recherche et de visualisation des données en sciences humaines et sociales, les humanités numériques nous amènent à repenser le sens même de la recherche et, par conséquent, l’ensemble du modèle de production et de circulation du savoir.

Les participants à cette école d’été seront initiés à l’histoire et aux théories critiques nécessaires à la compréhension de cette thématique qui révolutionne les disciplines en sciences humaines et sociales, ainsi qu’aux aspects pratiques de la production et l’exploitation des documents numérisés (éditions électroniques, exploitation des réseaux sociaux dans un contexte académique, représentations géographiques, outils d’analyse et de visualisation de textes, etc.).

[Le programme sera disponible courant février 2024.]