Day and Time: Th 2–4:50pm
Room: 318 Cathedral of Learning
Instructor: Benjamin Miller
Class Number: 31842

What does it mean to "join a discipline," and what methods or evidence can we marshal to find out? What does a disciplined approach to data-gathering or analysis look like in a humanistic context? In the first part of the course, we will use these and related questions to interrogate the two key terms of the title in relation to one another. Readings will be drawn from Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies (e.g. Mueller;¿Kynard; Malencyk et al), Digital Humanities (e.g. D'Ignazio and Klein; Goldstone and Underwood; Sugimoto and Weingart), and critical theory (e.g. Foucault; Ferguson), but the methods are applicable to any disciplinary self study, and all are welcome. The final project for the course is a draft of a data-supported article investigating questions about a discipline or subdiscipline, which we'll develop together starting around midterm. Students are encouraged to work on these article drafts in groups, depending on shared interest. In the second part of the course, we'll work through data labs and writing studios to develop the skills to translate questions into analyses and outputs into arguments. Students will leave the class with a better understanding of how datasets are constructed, with what ethical trade-offs; how to filter, sort, merge, and summarize rectangular datasets using R and/or OpenRefine; how to visualize and summarize simple networks in Gephi and/or Cytoscape; and how to visualize various aspects of textual corpora using VoyantTools. No prior experience with any of these tools or platforms is necessary.