UH-Clear Lake to host digital humanities ‘unconference’

October 25, 2017 | Jim Townsend

The University of Houston-Clear Lake is hosting its first The Humanities and Technology Camp, or THATCamp, to bring together researchers, educators and others who use digital means to study human society and culture. Called an “unconference” for its mostly free-form structure, the theme of the Nov. 3-4 event is data visualization, the practice of giving data visual context to make it more easily understandable.

A pre-conference is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 3, 1-5 p.m. in the UH-Clear Lake Bayou Building. Four speakers will kick off conversations related to data visualization, including one from Assistant Professor of Writing Christal Seahorn, who will discuss her search for a cultural reason why Shakespeare’s historical plays are less popular in modern times, employing graphic models of the data she has collected.

“When you think of humanities, you think of books or history projects,” Seahorn said. “We don’t tend to think of it as data in the same way that scientists might. So this is, ‘What is data? What counts as data?’ Or ‘How can I take a corpus of Shakespeare’s texts and turn that into data that you can then visualize.”

THATCamp Clear Lake is Saturday, Nov. 4, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. in the Bayou Building. “It’s a good mix of faculty, grad students, undergrad students and some people from the surrounding area. University of Houston and Rice have signed up, too,” said UHCL’s Scholarly Communications Librarian Clarke Iakovakis, co-organizer of the event. “It’s open to everyone. Anyone with an interest in humanities and technology is invited.”

THATcamps are held around the country, making it possible for humanities researchers, faculty, students and others to meet, share their findings and collaborate on projects, said co-organizer and Research and Instruction Librarian Linsey Ford.

“Humanities is a very collaborative field,” Ford said. “Asking ‘How did you do this?’ is pretty common. But the issue is finding each other, or even knowing where they are, or who’s doing this sort of work.

“Being able to put a call out and get everybody in one place just lets you put a name and a face together and let you know what kinds of collaborations are possible,” Ford said.

Registrants can use the event website to propose topics for discussion, provided they come prepared to facilitate the sessions they propose. Coffee, breakfast and lunch will be served.

The event is free thanks to sponsorship by UHCL’s Alfred R. Neumann Library and the Center for Faculty Development.  For registration information, email Ford at ford@uhcl.edu.