{"id":7703,"date":"2024-07-09T09:02:15","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T14:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/?p=7703"},"modified":"2024-07-10T09:51:45","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T14:51:45","slug":"python-for-english-majors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/2024\/07\/09\/python-for-english-majors\/","title":{"rendered":"Python for English majors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My original goal for the Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio\u2019s Fellowship was to learn how to code in Python, with the end goal of using machine learning in my scholarship. However, one question that\u2019s emerged during the summer is: how do<\/em> you teach humanities majors to code? At first, I was asking this in more of a \u201cmeta\u201d way\u2014  since I am, in fact, a humanities PhD student teaching myself how to code. Pedagogy wasn\u2019t initially at the forefront of my mind, but after reading Nick Montfort\u2019s \u201cExploratory Programming in Digital Humanities Pedagogy and Research,\u201d I realized that it would be a missed opportunity not to consider the benefits and potential roadblocks to implementing coding (among other specialized technology) in an English major classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the high barrier to entry in the Digital Humanities\u2014or, more accurately, the perception of needing hard skills such as IT or coding\u2014deters many humanities researchers away from engaging with digital methodologies in their research. This is especially prevalent at the PhD level, since graduate studies mainly focus on intensely honing skills previously acquired in undergrad (such as critical thinking, reading, and writing) rather than learning new ones. However, what appears to be a stark dichotomy between the quantitative and qualitative fields lie two faulty assumptions that 1. it\u2019s too late\/difficult to learn these skills and 2. these skills are only for aggregating hard data rather than evaluating artistic merit and historical significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While quantitative methodologies in literary studies such as distant reading do offer a novel approach to an otherwise subjective field, this is only one potential use of coding. In \u201cExploratory Programming in Digital Humanities Pedagogy and Research,\u201d Montfort advocates for an alternative view towards coding, seeing it as an enlightening process rather than a means to an end. Interestingly, this aligns well with the learning objectives in my classroom. Yes, you probably won\u2019t ever use your rhetorical analysis on a Taylor Swift song or publish your essay on how monstrosity is depicted in Frankenstein<\/em>, but these papers are just outcomes of practicing critical thinking and arguing persuasively. Similarly, Montfort purports the use of computation as \u201ca way of inquiring about and constructively thinking about important issues\u201d and to develop an \u201cappreciation of how complex ideas can be imagined and expressed as a set of formal procedures\u2014rules, models, algorithm\u2014in the virtual space.” And most importantly\u2014learning to code is fun, and offers a break from the fantastically murky realm of challenging literature that requires full-throttle brainpower. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My original goal for the Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio\u2019s Fellowship was to learn how to code in Python, with the end goal of using machine learning in my scholarship. However, one question that\u2019s emerged during the summer is: how do you teach humanities majors to code? At first, I was asking this in moreContinue reading “Python for English majors”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":366,"featured_media":7640,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,32],"tags":[],"syndication":[21,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7703"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7729,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7703\/revisions\/7729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7703"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=7703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}