Faculty Development Programme on Digital Humanities Approach to Literature and Language
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Day 1: The Faculty Development Programme for the Department of Languages commenced on June 30, 2023, with an inauguration ceremony. The session began with a silent prayer, setting a solemn and focused atmosphere. Dr. Richa Srishti, the Head of the Department of Languages, delivered an introductory note, emphasizing the importance of active participation and engagement from the faculty members throughout the programME.
The inauguration marked the official commencement of the Faculty Development Programme for the Department of Languages, highlighting the department's commitment to enhancing the skills and knowledge of its faculty members. The programme was designed to provide a platform for professional growth, exchange of ideas, and collaboration among the faculty.
The first session of Day 1 began with introductions and everyone discussing their areas of specialisation. The speaker of the first session was Dr Ashok Thorat, addressing the topic, “The Journey and Emergence of Digital Humanities in India''. He discussed his experiences in the exploration of digital humanities. He addressed that the interaction of humanities with digital technologies is called digital humanities. He discussed with the attendees that to be a good digital humanities scholar should ask questions and seek answers. He suggested that an interesting read would be Anne Berdick’s ‘Digital_Humanities’, which tells readers to enter the hood and start from the beginning till the end. The speaker emphasised the five important aspects of digital humanities. The first is that it incorporates technology and generates productivity. The second is that digital humanities differs from humanities as it involves employability. The third characteristic is that digital humanities is a skills-oriented programme. Fourth is that it is collaborative, and fifth is that digital humanities are democratic in nature. He concluded by stating that he believed digital humanities to be an expansion of humanities.
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| Dr. Richa Srishti, the Head of the Department of Languages |
The second session was by a PhD scholar, Mr Samya Bhrata Roy. The scholar addressed the topic of “E-literature”. He mentioned that he currently is a member of DHARTI and suggested the attendees, if interested, may join similar associations. He stated that hebelieved community building demands expansion. He addressed certain
content and concepts from articles
such as “cybertext”, “digital manipulability and digital literature”, “print is flat, code is deep”, “digital
poetry”, “hypermedia”, and “flickering signifiers”. He emphasised that it is not about what you read but how and why
you read the text. He also introduced
to the attendees the third-generation electronic literature such as bots,
electronic poetry, locative
verbs, virtual reality,
augmented reality, Twine, memes etc.
The sessions were interesting, and attendees gained insights into the different concepts in digital humanities and texts and research papers that attendees can read to gain in-depth information.
Day 2: The second-day FDP session led by Dr Dinesh Nair on July 1, 2023; Saturday, was titled “Tenets of Digital Environmental Humanities”. The session was attended by all the faculty members of the Department of Languages in the presence of the Head of the Department, Dr Richa Srishti. The session was online, and all the participants actively took part in the meeting.
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| Dr Dinesh Nair |
Dr Nair shed light on the environmental implications of Digital Humanities. His talk mainly pointed out
the fundamental elements of technology to understand the surroundings better. He also aimed to build a dialogue between human beings and nature. Moreover, the talk preciously pondered upon the lexical vocabulary shared by Digital Humanities and Digital Environmental Humanities. Dr Nair explored related themes under the broad umbrella of DEH that opened varied scope in the field of research. Seminal works of well-known educationists like Dr Shawn Morrey, Lauren Klein and so on were discussed, whose works were focused on methods to reduce carbon footprinting and how nature influences Digital technology. The talk was concluded by concerns prevailing in DEH and questions on sustainability and ways to process it, which led all participants to study its realms and patterns further.
the fundamental elements of technology to understand the surroundings better. He also aimed to build a dialogue between human beings and nature. Moreover, the talk preciously pondered upon the lexical vocabulary shared by Digital Humanities and Digital Environmental Humanities. Dr Nair explored related themes under the broad umbrella of DEH that opened varied scope in the field of research. Seminal works of well-known educationists like Dr Shawn Morrey, Lauren Klein and so on were discussed, whose works were focused on methods to reduce carbon footprinting and how nature influences Digital technology. The talk was concluded by concerns prevailing in DEH and questions on sustainability and ways to process it, which led all participants to study its realms and patterns further.
The session was concluded with a Vote of Thanks by Prof Christine, with a few insightful questions from the participants.
Day 3: The Third day began with the session "Mapping Digital Humanities in India" by Ms P.P Sneha took place on 3rd July 2023 at the MBA Block of CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Pune Lavasa campus. Ms Jessia Saji introduced Ms Sneha, who was the keynote speaker. Ms Sneha discussed the emergence of new digital cultures in India and emphasised the need to understand their impact on digital humanities. She explored the historical and contextual background of digital humanities in India, highlighting its interdisciplinary nature and evolution. Mapping the digital humanities landscape in India was a focal point of the session. Ms Sneha provided an overview of ongoing initiatives, research projects, and collaborations and identified key institutions and scholars contributing to the field. The speaker also addressed the relationship between texts, textuality, and the digital realm, examining the implications of digitisation on textual studies and the challenges and opportunities presented by digital texts.
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| Mapping Digital Humanities in India" by Ms P.P Sneha |
Digitisation and archival practice were emphasised as significant aspects of digital humanities, highlighting their role in preserving cultural heritage and enabling interdisciplinary research. Ms Sneha concluded by discussing future directions in digital humanities in India, emphasising the importance of critical thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration, and inclusivity. The session concluded with a question-answer session, followed by a vote of thanks by Ms Elizabeth Varkey. Overall, the session provided valuable insights into digital humanities in India, promoting knowledge exchange and discussions among participants.
Day 4: The fourth day of the Department of Languages’ FDP included guest lectures from Dr Shobhana Matthews and Dr Mithilesh Kumar from CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore Central Campus and Dr David Joseph Wrisley from New York University, Abu Dhabi. The morning session included lectures from Dr Shobhana and Dr Mithilesh while Dr David addressed the faculty in the afternoon session.
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| Dr Shobhana who briefed the faculty on the topic of spatiality and how it factors in a digital landscape |
The first session for the day was conducted by Dr Shobhana who briefed the faculty on the topic of spatiality and how it factors in a digital landscape. The lecture included an overview of the works of the philosopher Henri Lefebvre and his theories on spatiality. Dr Shobhana talked about how spaces are constructed in such a way that certain hierarchies are established and that the dominant group in these hierarchies assume what is best for everyone without consulting them and unilaterally making decisions and judgments. She then advised the faculty to look into how this factors in the digital space as well, since the current and future generations of students are raised in a digital landscape and need to be able to understand the spatial hierarchy of that landscape.
Dr Mithilesh conducted the second session, which was mainly focused on the pedagogical approach the Department should take when it comes to teaching Digital Humanities. He advised the Department to consider their approach carefully and what they teach students since Digital Humanities is a fairly new area. Dr Mithilesh then went on to talk about how even though Digital Humanities is new, it is because of that that it is poised to ask questions that have not yet been asked and/or explored and that it is forcing scholars and teachers to reconcile the differences between science and humanities. He wrapped up the session by asking the faculty to ponder on the type of infrastructure needed to teach Digital Humanities effectively.
The afternoon session and the final session for the day were conducted by Dr David Joseph Wrisly from New York University, Abu Dhabi, who joined via an online meet. Dr David’s session was divided in two parts: the first part focused on a theoretical discussion on what Digital Humanities is, what it is used for and how helpful it will be to the students. The second half of the session focused on tools the faculty could use to teach Digital Humanities to the students effectively. Some of these tools include story mapping apps and websites, where people can upload photos to a map and add comments about the same to map data analysis tools that are able to display statistical information. Dr David’s speech helped provide the Department with a plethora of tools to utilise in their pedagogy.
Day 5: The first session of Day 5 of the FDP comprised a hands-on activity, taking on from the previous day’s talk on “Digital Mapping of Space” by Dr Shobhana Mathews. The participants of the FDP worked in pairs to map the various spaces of the campus. The photos and videos captured by the participants and short descriptions, were then incorporated into an elaborate story map by the end of the day. It was a fruitful exercise since the story map could serve as a great tool for students who are new to the University, aiding them in navigating various spaces within and without the campus. Aligning with the larger vision of the Digital Humanities, the aim was to create a vast digital corpus or “big data”, in this case in the form of multimedia and narratives, that could then be employed for a variety of informative and analytical purposes in the future.
The second session on “DH Pedagogy” by Dr Mithilesh Kumar took forward the ideas proposed by him in the previous day’s talk. He elaborated upon the debates between Classical and Digital Humanities, urging us to think of the “discontent” that could arise among humanist scholars and academicians owing to changes in how we study and analyse texts today. Drawing upon Heidegger’s idea of Dasein, he argued how technology has changed something essential to human beings. Nevertheless, we need to adapt to new methods and modes of being. He emphasised on the need for developing assessments that would do justice to the MA programme keeping in mind the fact that we are offering MA in English with DH.
The third session on “Corpus and Digital Humanities” by Shanmugapriya T offered an introduction to text mining. The resource person shared various DH methods and tools, such as distant reading and macroanalysis, that would be useful both in pedagogy and research. She also introduced us to various open-access tools, techniques and technologies such as Blackout Poetry Tool, Tapor, Programming Historian, The Data Sitters Club, Sketch, Voyant, WordSeer, SameDiff and Recogito.
The three sessions helped the participants gain a bird’s-eye view of the various aspects of DH pedagogy and research.
Day 6: The sixth day of the FDP consisted of a guest lecture delivered by Dr Lexi Webster, the Deputy
Director of Digital Humanities, University of Southampton. Dr Lexi, an expert on social media analytical research, particularly the usage of Twitter data to conduct research, briefed the department on how social media sites could be leveraged to conduct research. She discussed the ethical considerations of using social media sites to harvest data, stating that while it may be legal, it might be unethical to use data from people who have not consented to having their data utilized for research. Dr Lexi also talked about the future of the Twitter platform, particularly with regard to changes in its structure, and the future of social media research on the platform. The session ended with a quick Q&A session wherein there was a discussion on which avenues future research on social media sites could take. Overall, the session was highly enlightening for the faculty as many from the Department were not too familiar with social media analytics and were eager to conduct research on the same.
Day 7: On the seventh day of the FDP, Dr Mayurakshi Chaudhary from Flames University, Pune, engaged the audience with a session on "Gender and Society Through a Digital Lens. In this session, Dr Mayuraksh highlighted the issue of biased data in AI platforms and its impact on gender representation. She emphasised that while AI itself is not biased, the data it learns from reflects the biases present in society. Visual means of communication, particularly in advertisements, were identified as carriers of significant responsibility in message decoding. The images used in advertising can either reinforce or challenge gender stereotypes, making it crucial to examine their portrayal of gender roles and identities critically. To mitigate bias in AI, Ms. Mayuraksh stressed the importance of promoting diverse and inclusive datasets that accurately represent different genders and perspectives. Additionally, she emphasized the need for diverse teams of developers and researchers to minimize biases and bring multiple viewpoints to AI development. By addressing biases in data and representation, we can work towards a more equitable and inclusive digital landscape.
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