Digital_Humanities, Critical Reaction #4: The Power of Maps

I'm probably part of a very small group of historians who really don't care for maps. 

I know, I am a disgrace to the field. I understand their importance and know that they can be a vital tool, especially in spatial history, or any history for that matter. They can be interesting to look at, especially as an artifact, but I don't seem to have the same love of it as some of my other colleagues. It's not that I don't like maps, I just am not overly fond of them and do not have the mindset in place to do any real or successful analysis with them.

Take this extreme apathy and add that to a task that requires to make maps, which has primarily filled the time of my Digital Humanities course over the past two weeks. I am dealing with unfamiliar history territory in an foreign digital one. It's a double whammy of difficult. GIS, admittedly, was a lot more difficult to grasp than Google Maps Engine Light, which lays out the features and use fairly nicely (although trying to use javascript in order to embed it onto my webpage was another story). Perhaps, with this easier entry point to digital mapping technology and maps in general, I might find an interest in this field I was never able to find before. Already, I am getting a bit excited about the potential for what kind of maps can be created and the relative ease that they can be put together and presented to the public. 

Of course, in order to create a map, you need an idea and a reason to do so. That is also possibly one aspect that has deterred me from pursuing any extreme interest in maps in history. I've yet to really find a compelling narrative or historical aspect to layout on a map to provide for greater understanding or to point out something that would have otherwise been overlooked. Census data on a map would be the most obvious choice, but I would like to think there is the ability to go a step further than this. This is, in part, why I am especially excited to see what my colleagues produce. I'm sure I will come up with a good map-making idea sometime in the future, but for those who are truly passionate about maps and spatial aspects of history, it'll be intriguing to see how they take these tools and apply them, going beyond what the tutorials we've been looking through provide. 

I'll still keep on pushing through this map section and hope to build up an eventual passion as I progress in my work and research. But, more importantly, I'll be looking to what others produce and excitedly applaud their achievements, techniques, and digital map-making abilities. 

Know Your Limits

Graduate school is a practice of many things. You become well versed in the academia and current scholarship, hone your ability to discuss and write about complex themes and ideas, discover first hand the effects too much (or too little) caffeine can have on the human body, build a strong network of peers and scholars, and, mostly by necessity, learn your limits and the dangers of taking on too much. I've always had a problem with not overloading my plate and saying no, but, as I realized last year, which is quickly being reinforced this semester, the ability to say no, understand your limits, and take a break now and then is a valuable skill to learn, not just to ensure your success in school, but to also ensure your general survival throughout your academic and subsequent career. 

There are dozens of opportunities available out there that can benefit professionally and academically, and many of which can really boost the quality of a CV. Especially at the beginning of the semester, before work picks up and homework is relatively light, it is far too easy to sign up for too much, asserting your own personal capabilities and reasoning that another responsibility really wouldn't be that much work. And this may be true, to an extent. Graduate school should go beyond your general experience in the classroom. Academic and professional enrichment will, in the long run, prove to be a benefit and, for a history major such as myself, diversity in different skill sets is being pressed as a result of the declining job market in academia. The amount of stable, open positions in an academic field for history is extremely low at the moment, so recent graduates are having to look elsewhere for employment, such as at museums or non-profit organizations. Having a diverse set of skills and experience outside of coursework can be valuable to ensure future success and stability and will provide more options in case Plans, A, B, C, and D don't work out, at least not at first. 

However, there is a fine line between going beyond your coursework and taking on some extra responsibilities and overloading your workload, which will inevitably result in declining health, anxiety attacks, a vanishing social life, and the slow and painful crushing of your spirit. I can fully attest to these effects. Every semester during my undergraduate, I would constantly take on too much, nearly kill myself attempting to finish it all, rant about how I would never do that again, then rinse and repeat. As a grad student, I wanted to change my bad habits (which really were affecting my overall health). 

The success of this attempt, however, remains to be determined. As always, I still took on too much, but I was a bit more considerate in thinking about my responsibilities and I spent far more time truly weighing the responsibilities I had and I wanted to have before committing to them. It did take some reinforcement from friends, family, and mentors, many of which told me to just stop when I attempted to take four classes in one semester and adamantly persuaded against taking on more than what I could handle. As a result, I have scaled back my general workload considerably, which was very quickly taken up by my graduate coursework which ended up being more of a mountain than the molehill I originally anticipated. 

I still struggle with saying no to new obligations, however. Last week, I actually had to drop out of a fellowship that I was apart of due to the stress and extra work it required, which really did not benefit me as much as I was hoping and the overall expense of my time and effort was not worth the rewards. I am not saying that quitting was a proper solution; I should have said no from the start if I thought that it was going to be too much. I hate quitting myself and can be very stubborn when it comes to letting something that I've started go uncompleted. However, I do consider it a slight success that I was able to decline a responsibility and acknowledge the detrimental effect it was having on the rest of my work. 

There is no ultimate solution to not taking on too much. You should be open to new opportunities, but mindful of the workload you currently have as well as your own personal limitations. This is something that I am still struggling with and will most likely have to deal with for the rest of my life, which is fine. I'm honestly glad that I am at least more aware of my personal limits and am somewhat alright with saying no and focusing on the work that really matters, as well as trying to enjoy the non-work-related aspects of my life. It isn't easy, but finding this balance or at least being aware of it is vital to learn as a scholar and academic. 

Digital_Humanities, Critical Reaction #3: The Dangers of Complacency and Frustration

I've been working on my website for the past two hours, and all I have to show for it is a domain name (giannamay.org, which I am slightly regretting; should've gone with giannamay.net instead), a css file that has yet to be filled, and a headache. I can't exactly seem to figure out how to actually start working on my website (I've been slowly working through the process thanks to a ton of help from Justin Larsen -- definitely glad to have Twitter as a troubleshooting resource), but it is taking far longer than I anticipated. Once I get started, I'm sure, I'll be able to do things at a faster pace, but until then, I think I will have a lot of frustration to deal with in my future. 

For one, I don't like to spend too much time on something without feeling like I am making some sort of progress. Staring at a blank screen and jumping between tabs, in this case, does not count. Second, because I'm fairly familiar with different tools to create webpages without use of HTML and CSS such as Wordpress and Google Sites, it is hard to not just take shortcuts and make a webpage the easy way. This is a learning process and I'm eager to figure out how to use these new tools, but sometimes the time it takes from initial startup to actually learning and creating something takes too long for comfort. Further, I always feel as if I am missing a step in the instructions and that somewhere between step 1 and 2, I got lost. 

I suppose these frustrations are inevitable. This blog post itself will be the closest thing to a rant post that I am bound to publish (but time and frustration will be the test of that). I guess my greatest frustration at this point is the general start up. Once I actually get the hang of a program, I can generally find my way, but if I have to spend more than an hour just trying to figure out how to begin, it is easy to want to throw in the towel and find something easier to attend to that won't be nearly as time consuming or stubborn. 

But I suppose that's why I am in this Digital Humanities course: to be frustrated to some extent. I have been using digital tools for a while, and while my ability with it is still rudimentary, my use of it and its application to my research may have allowed for some sense of complacency without the additional pressure to really try new things. Now that I am required to do so for a class, the feelings of frustration harken back to when I first started to play around with technology. It's been a while since I tried to do something legitimately new. But this frustration and sense of newness is good, as much as my mental state might disagree at the moment. At least it means that I am trying to work through the problems and somewhere over the horizon there is  a solution which will result in a greater understanding of HTML and CSS and ultimately will open new opportunities and venues for me to practice digital humanities and apply it to my research and career. 

Digital_Humanities, Weekly Update: Curriculum vitae

I spent far longer on this than what I originally intended to, and I honestly could work longer on it, but for now, here is my C.V. constructed using HTML and CSS. It took me a while to figure out the margins, line spacing, and indentation (I actually originally had bulleted points, but I removed them for a cleaner look) and I could add more information and digital elements and interaction, but for now, I am proud with the product. It isn't perfect, but it's a step in the right direction and really improved my HTML and CSS skills quite a bit, as well as my general understanding of it as a "language" of sorts. The image doesn't translate well into Blogger, so I've included a screenshot, which should hopefully suffice.

On a small note, I will add that if the HTML was working, if you click on my picture, it would take you to my LinkedIn profile. I am way too proud of this achievement.

Digital_Humanities, Critical Reaction #2: Digital Tools for History and the Future

It's no secret that the amount of tools to display and do history has vastly expanded with the use of technology, mainly through digital tools on the internet. The main purpose of this week's assignment for Digital Humanities, I feel, was to start acquainting us with those tools and perhaps bring to question why there are so many that do very similar things, but in their own distinct ways. Of the five different tools that we had to review for class, one theme came out of all of them: making history visual through technology. Most of these manifested in maps and timelines that utilized multimedia sources, integrating basic historical knowledge, archival material, and the physical landscape of specific areas. While these tools, as I'm sure we will discuss in class, can be problematic and each one has its assorted pros and cons, I believe it is an excellent example of how history is one of the most approachable fields for the general public to enjoy. This practice is not new; William Cronon, in his article "Getting Ready To Do History," (Link to Article) asserts historian's use of ordinary vocabulary and accessible language, which allows the texts to have a higher readership from outside the academy than other disciplines. The use of technology is just an extension and continuation of this. 

That being said, delving into the world of technology can be scary, confusing, and daunting. Today, I spent a good few hours just trying to figure out how to create a new HTML file. Apparently you can do this by using any basic word processor. I kind of cheated and just copied the index file from the WAMP Server and worked from there. My own skills in terms of using HTML are extremely limited to what I have picked up over the years to edit specific things (usually only text-based documents for game design), and I still am not sure (and very intimidated by) the concept of creating a viable webpage that looks professional to some degree and can do more than just be a wall of text. I'm still trying to figure out how to center words using HTML and I got way too excited this afternoon when I figured out how to insert gif images into an HTML page. I'll put a copy of my own HTML page below just to prove how basic it is (and also for my own personal bragging rights to say I kind of did something with technology that required HTML). I'm even still trying to fully comprehend how, after the page is designed, it can go online and be presentable for everyone else to see. Naturally, my first inclination is to use other sites that host webpages, such as Google Sites and the like, but any actual webpage creation outside of that is a sheer mystery. Luckily, Digital Humanities is about testing, failing, trying again, and eventually learning how to use these tools. In a way, the knowledge of how to use technology is empowering; the vast amount of uses for one small aspect of design, such as the knowledge of HTML, is staggering. And, when one tool doesn't exactly fulfill a need, there is always the ability to start again, find something new, and learn about it. Perhaps that is why there are so many different kinds of tools to create and view visual history using technology. It ultimately expands and transforms the way we complete scholarship and research and present public history. They test not only the bounds of our knowledge but of our own imagination. It can be frustrating at times, but it truly is powerful. 

And now, as promised...

Hello, Power!

Do you feel the power?