The Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities recognizes students who have expertise in digital approaches to teaching and research. This year, four graduate students received the certificate, each bringing their own unique perspective and experience to their work.

Mary Currin, Family Recruitment Coordinator at UNC, applies her data management and research expertise to medical fields, but her work in the program required her to branch out. “The Digital Humanities Certificate offered me the chance to explore data in a different context,” she says. “The majority of my courses were taken in the Information and Library Science Department, and I also had the opportunity to complete a placement at the State Archives.” Her work incorporated studies such as programming, metadata, and data curation.

Carlos Vázquez Cruz worked to complete an online edition of the picaresque gay novel from Puerto Rican writer Juan Antonio Rodríguez Pagán, Ondergraund.com. The novel began on a blog, but Pagán died before he was able to complete the full story. “While taking the courses leading to the DH Certification, my idea of completing Rodríguez Pagán’s work changed drastically,” says Carlos. In an effort to honor the “hypertext version initially proposed by Rodríguez Pagán,” Carlos added hyperlinks and tooltips. “But this is not the end of it,” he says. “I would like to join a DH community in the future to turn this project into a hypermedia novel.”

Kristen Foote, a PhD student in French and Francophone Studies, has been working in the digital humanities for years, most recently in the Digital Innovation Lab on campus, gaining experience with digital pedagogy, text analysis, and the administration of digital humanities programs. She is currently pursuing a fellowship in France, continuing her work to develop a digital corpus in order to analyze a disputed sixteenth-century French text.

Laurel Foote-Hudson, PhD student in English and Comparative Literature, has worked with several disciplines and digital tools while pursuing the certificate. “Over the years, I have worked with methods such as cultural and literary analysis,” she says, “but this program provided me with a new context to pursue several of the technical skills I have, but have not directly applied to my research.” Her first project involved establishing “a database and related taxonomy to build a comparison-focused data visualization (using tools such as D3 and Tableau),” while her second project saw “the development of an original short demo of an adaptation of the Japanese kabuki play Chūshingura using the Unity 3D game engine.”

This year’s recipients report that the Graduate Certificate Program has helped them leave their comfort zones and find new ways to approach their work. “I found I really enjoyed working in this program because I could directly apply the skills I learned as a comparatist in a totally different way,” Laurel says. Due to the nature of the digital humanities, the program often finds participants crossing over into other disciplines and working with students and professionals in different fields. Mary says, “I found it surprising that the fundamentals and practice of data and data management translate so seamlessly between disciplines.”

The program also brings students into a larger digital humanities academic community. Kristen believes that one of the program’s main rewards is “exposure to the variety of DH-related projects that people are doing right now at UNC and in the Triangle.” So while these digital humanities projects require a student’s unique personal perspective, many elements of the program are collaborative in nature. Laurel describes the importance of working with fellow students and faculty, saying, “Some of the most rewarding moments for me involved working on projects with peers in Information Science to resolve problems affecting healthcare workers, as well as working on a separate project in education technology to build a chatbot interface prototype for Rhetoric and Composition instructors interested in lesson plans related to 3D printing.”

Collaboration is also necessary between students and professors, and Carlos says that a key factor of his success in the program was the availability of his teachers. “In my case, pursuing the DH Certificate required intensive individual attention,” says Carlos. He cites Dr. Alicia Rivero, “who first introduced [him to] digital literature and talked about the DH certificate in 2015,” as well as Dr. Whitney Trettien, Dr. Laura Ruel, and Dr. Daniel Anderson.

The benefits of the Graduate Certificate Program continue long after graduation. When discussing her experiences in the program, Kristen says that they “opened my eyes to new possibilities for projects, directions, and collaborations that I hope to pursue in the future.”

“One of the largest benefits was that the certificate served as a segue for my volunteer and freelance projects after graduating,” Laurel says. “This has grown my professional network and ultimately shaped the disciplines in which I would like to further expand my career.” Carlos has also seen the advantages to working in the program, and is excited for his future work. As the result of his Digital Humanities Project, he was invited to be the keynote speaker at the 2020 Caribbean Literatures Conference at Marquette University. In regards to Digital Humanities work, Mary stated that, “I hope to continue with this course of study by exploring the ways that data is shaping the future of public history and the preservation of information over time.”

The digital humanities continue to expand, especially at Carolina, and the opportunities for students will only increase. As Kristen says, “[The Digital Humanities] are so broad and flexible that anyone in the humanities with an interest can get involved!”

This year marks the beginning of the DIL’s support for the People, Ideas, and Things (PIT) Journal. The journal provides a platform for undergraduates to experiment with digital publishing. As part of our inaugural collaboration, we have been working on a first special issue, focusing on the observations of UNC undergraduates while shadowing in the Emergency Department at UNC Hospital. During the 2018 Fall Semester, Professor Marc Cohen’s English 105 class was allowed to spend time in the hospital and follow its doctors and nurses as they worked through their regular shifts. Using what they saw, the students went on to write articles in the observational style of journalists such as Sheri Fink. These articles were fascinating, offering a look into the complex lives of both emergency department employees and their patients. The experiences documented were incredibly diverse, and the themes varied from opioid addiction and homelessness to elderly care and noise pollution. Then, Professor Cohen’s Spring 2019 English 105 students wrote foreword articles that introduce these themes and observation pieces.

Together, these foreword and observation articles give readers a glimpse into the daily routines of emergency department professionals as they deal with everything from mundane issues to complicated social problems. The articles can be found here, on the PIT Journal website:

http://pitjournal.unc.edu/cycles/special-issue-er-observations

Bradley Erickson completed the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities in Spring 2018. Current DIL student staff member Henry McKeand checked in with him a year later.

What was the subject of your Certificate research? Did your work in the program differ from what you had done before?

For my certificate project, I created 3D models of a series of cuneiform tablets housed in the special collection of Wilson Library. Because these tablets are delicate and housed in special collections, it can be difficult for other scholars or the public to access them. The end product was a display of the series of 3D models online (they can be viewed here: https://skfb.ly/6wwvF) as well as a series of 3D prints of the tablets.

To make the models, I used the process of Structure-from-Motion and photogrammetry to complete the models. These processes involves taking and using 2D photographs to generate a 3D object. I have been practicing photogrammetry since learning about it, and I have used a similar method in creating 3D models for my dissertation, which explores the ancient Jewish use of astronomy in the architecture of the ancient synagogue.

While completing the digital humanities certificate, I was fortunate to take a range of classes that let me explore creating 3D models, making maps, and using a number of different programming languages to complete tasks. Taking courses for the completion of the certificate has made it possible for me to engage with research that I never knew was possible before coming to UNC.

Describe your experience in the program. What were the challenges and rewards?

The series of courses that I took while completing the digital humanities certificate taught me new, critical ways to approach large projects. For example, before beginning a digital project a number decisions must be made about how the project will be presented at conferences, to the general public, and how the digital components will be preserved. Thinking about the ultimate end of a digital project forced me to structure the project’s work in a way to address those end goals. For example, one project included the fabrication of ancient glass oil lamps that would have hung in an ancient monumental building. I was interested in measuring the light output of such a lamp to envision how many light sources would be required. To complete the project I created a polycandelon (i.e. an ancient chandelier) and then built and 3D printed a series of oil lamps. I met with a glass blower who turned the 3D prints into actual pieces of glass. A colleague and I then filled the oil lamps with olive oil, wove flax wicks, and lit the lamps. We measured the light output using a luxmeter, which I then incorporated into 3D models of ancient synagogue buildings. This project is nearly complete and will be available for anyone to access the process and data. Such a large project took a lot of planning, and at the same time, it also took flexibility.

What was your biggest takeaway from the program? In what ways, if any, has receiving the Certificate benefited you?

The biggest take away from the program has been the spirit of collaboration between so many different fields. Digital humanities is not a solitary field, but requires everyone to bring skills to the table for mutual benefit. New jobs have opened for me both on and off campus that I would not have been able to do before completing the digital humanities certificate. I appreciate the professors and certificate directors who have opened these new career doors for me.