Category: Projects and Courses

Web pages for presentations given during the 2019 in-person CDHI.

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Projects and Courses

Exploring Caribbean Literature through Archival Research & Creative Writing

Dr. Rosamond S. King (Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York)

The archive assignment for Caribbean Literature asks students to examine how historical constructions of race are reflected in photography.

Goals: Archive Assignments

  • Use online archives and databases to conduct image or photo research
  • Conduct photo analysis on chosen images
  • Consider the motivations and identity of the photographer, the photo’s context, and how race is depicted in the photos
  • Learn about metadata, and what the metadata reveals about the images
  • Bridge creative writing and analysis through poetry

Outcomes & Deliverables

  • An effective photo analysis of the chosen image, improved metadata for the chosen photograph, and an essay on the analysis and their chosen revisions to the metadata.
  • An original poem inspired by an archival photograph

Resources

Photo Analysis Assignment

Student assignment to analyze race and positionality in archival photographs. (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)

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Poetry Archive Assignment

Guidelines for Dr. King’s unit assignment on writing ekphrastic poetry inspired by archival photographs. (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)

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Caribbean Photo Archive

A rich collection of over 3,000 photographs amassed by archivist Patrick Montgomery, now held by the Art Gallery of Ontario

Browse on Flickr

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Projects and Courses

A Connected Classrooms Project: Transoceanic Experiences of Indenture

A row of women seated at a long table

Dr. Anita Baksh (LaGuardia Community College) and Dr. Laëtitia Saint-Loubert (Université de la Réunion)

Students will study experiences of indentured labor in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature from a transoceanic perspective and work together with an international partner to analyze, interpret and produce a translation of a literary text related to Indian indentureship writing.

Project Goals

  • For five weeks, students will develop projects with international partners using a variety of digital tools and platforms as part of a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) model.
  • Focuses on narratives of indenture in Indo-Caribbean, Indo-Mauritian and Indo-Reuinionese writing.
  • Each week, students will learn key terms and themes related to experiences of indenture such as working conditions, inter-ethnic relationships, gendered experiences, languages, and Indian culinary and cultural traditions.
  • Students will be exposed to French and English languages through project literature as well as introduced words and expressions from various Creoles, Hindi, and Bhojpuri.

Outcomes & Deliverables

The project encourages digital engagement between institutions with various linguistic backgrounds to learn about indentured labor from a transoceanic perspective and further decolonize curricula. Students will submit final translation projects and a reflection.

Resources

Project Lesson Plan

Schedule with descriptions of assignments and suggested bibliography (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)

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“Coolies: How Britain Re-invented Slavery”

A video that helps introduce key themes in the project’s first week.

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Institute Reflection

Laëtitia’s perspective on the institute experience.

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Projects and Courses

Storytelling through Oral History & Digital Timelines in a High School English Class

Dr. Erin Zavitz
(Bosque School)

We’re focusing on learning more about ordinary people’s lives and understanding how everyone has a story to tell even if it’s not one that makes it in a book.

Project Overview: Oral History

  • 10th Grade (private High School) English course project
  • Conduct an oral history interview with an individual of your choosing
  • Create an interview plan, including description of the narrator, interview location, interview technology, letter to the narrator, and questions
  • Obtain informed consent
  • Complete a video reflection in which you reflect on your experience and what you learned through the oral history interview

Outcomes & Deliverables

Students reflect on the importance of storytelling in the context of the texts they read in class, and acknowledge the importance of how we tell stories as well as how those stories get told.

In the past I have had students make their own timelines, but I’ve found that having too many people on one spreadsheet is a disaster. This time, I entered their data in Timeline JS and shared the versions with them for a peer review. . . By having them work in groups and share their work, they were more engaged with the entire process.

Project Overview: Timeline Biography

  • Group activity in which students create a timeline of William Shakespeare’s life in preparation for reading The Tempest
  • Conduct biographical research and compare important life events and their relevance
  • Data is entered in Timeline JS and reviewed by class

Outcomes & Deliverables

Students learn about Shakespeare’s life and the historical context when he lived, better understanding how he may have been influenced when writing The Tempest.

Resources

Oral History Assignment

Rationale and instructions for oral history assignment (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)

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Shakespeare Timeline Assignment

Complete instructions for timeline assignment (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)

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Tools & Topics: Oral History

Learn more about the oral history presentations from the 2019 institute, and find relevant resources

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Projects and Courses

A Phenomenology of Gede: Thinking with the Dead in Haiti

Dr. Nathan Dize (Vanderbilt University)

This course proposes a study of Haitian literature through the lens of Gede as authors transgress temporal, spatial, and linguistic boundaries to communicate with and through the dead.

Course Goals

Three objectives for this course:

  • to familiarize students with a broad spectrum of Haitian writing about and through the memories of the dead;
  • to facilitate student exposure to Haitian modes of thinking and religious praxis;
  • and to develop skills in identifying, interpreting, and constructing historical narratives that foreground the voices of the dead through written and presentational assignments

Outcomes & Deliverables

The course emphasizes student research in digital collections of Caribbean primary and secondary sources to facilitate close reading of textual and visual materials.

Resources

Course syllabus

Schedule with descriptions of assignments and links to digital resources (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)

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Vodou Archive

The course made heavy use of this collection, which includes over 300 photos, texts, video, and scholarly works.

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Institute Reflection

Dr. Dize’s perspective on the institute experience

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Projects and Courses

Roots of the Commonwealth: Caribbean Provisions from the British Empire to the 21st Century

Dr. Keja Valens, Salem State University

We will consider literary, historical, and archival materials as we work to chart the ways that provisions have been planted and transplanted, prepared and consumed, imagined and depicted in relation to ideas of indigeneity, independence, and community in the Caribbean and its diaspora.

Course Overview

  • ENG 715: Topics in Digital Studies, a graduate-level course
  • Examine and use concepts and practices of postcolonial digital humanities to trace literary, culinary, agricultural, and economic paths of ground provisions with a focus on provisions such as yuca, yam and plantain in and through the Caribbean from the 15th through the 21st centuries.
  • Draw course materials from the Early Caribbean Digital Archive, the Digital Library of the Caribbean, HathiTrust, the Internet Archive and other similar sources to develop digital projects that include mapping, timelines, and curated exhibits.

Outcomes & Deliverables

Students completed a series of assignments focused on critical analysis of primary sources and interpretation through digital tools. They completed reflective writings and developed “Provisions,” a multi-exhibit Omeka project.

Resources

Course Syllabus

Spring 2020 schedule with links to additional resources and readings (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)

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Assignment: Mapping & Meaning

Designed to support critical and conceptual thinking about maps (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)

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Assignment: How are West Indians Represented in the Archive?

Reflecting on Lady Nugent’s Journal (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)

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Exhibit: Provisions

A series of student-created Omeka exhibits on the role of ground provisions such as yams in Caribbean foodways

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New Digital Worlds

Students read Dr. Roopika Risam’s book throughout the semester.

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Institute Reflection

Keja discusses how the institute impacted her course.

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Projects and Courses

US Caribbean & Ethnic Florida Digital Newspaper Project

Collage of Florida and Puerto Rico newspapers

Melissa Jerome (University of Florida)

Collage of newspaper pages

Project Goals

This project was developed through a partnership between the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries, the University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras library system, and University of the Virgin Islands to provide free online access to historical newspapers from the United States and territories. It is part of Chronicling America, hosted by the Library of Congress and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities National Digital Newspaper Program.

Outcomes & Deliverables

Since 2013, over 44 titles and 270,000 pages have been made accessible online. They are available through the Florida Digital Newspaper Library, the Digital Library of the Caribbean, the Biblioteca Digital Puertorriqueña, and the Library of Congress – Chronicling America. Updates and continued initiatives are also shared on the project’s website and social media platforms.

Resources

Melissa’s presentation

Slides from the institute, with an overview of Chronicling America with links to relevant collections

Access via dLOC

Project blog

Updates and highlights

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Teaching resources

Including K-12 lesson plans

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Projects and Courses

Challenging Colonialism Through Archives & Digital Humanities

Margarita Vargas-Betancourt, Ph.D., University of Florida

Project Goals

  • To critically analyze the history of the University of Florida’s Latin American & Caribbean Collection (LACC) and Panama Canal Museum Collection (PCCM) as examples of hegemony and colonialism.
  • To evaluate how library specialists have challenged colonialism and highlighted underrepresented communities through exhibitions.

Outcomes & Deliverables

An exhibit about the Panama Canal Zone was developed and used categories of archival materials that documented underrepresented voices: photographs of workers, documentation of systematic segregation, photographs of agency, letters from laborers, yearbooks, and oral histories.

Resources

Margarita’s presentation

Slides from the NEH Digital Caribbean Studies 2019 institute

Access via dLOC

Exhibit: Voices from the Panama Canal

Object list and interpretive labels from the 2014 exhibit

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Panama Canal Museum collection

Access digital collections and the project blog

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Research poster

“Voices from the Panama Canal: Finding the Other in the Colonial Archive,” presented at the 2016 American Historical Association conference

Access via dLOC

Conference paper

“Facing Diversity: Challenges of Curating an Exhibit on the Panama Canal,” presented at the 2015 Florida Conference of Historians

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LACC guide

Latin American and Caribbean Collection at UF

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Projects and Courses

3D Printing Grenada’s Petroglyphs

3D printed yellow and orange petroglyphs stacked on table

Brittany Mistretta (University of Florida), Jonathan Hanna (Heritage Research Group Caribbean), Mt. Rich Youth Culture and Environment Development Organization (MYCEDO)

Stack of 3D printed petroglyphs on table

Project Goals

  • To bring greater awareness to Grenada’s Indigenous heritage and the importance of its preservation.
  • To provide economic opportunity to the Mt. Rich community as part of their grass-roots interpretation center program.

Outcomes & Deliverables

Models of petroglyphs from the Mt. Rich Carib Stone were recreated in Tinkercad, a free modeling program, and were 3D printed.

Resources

Project handout

Access via dLOC

MYCEDO website

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Tinkercad

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Projects and Courses

Using Digital Repositories to Teach DH and Caribbean Studies

Dr. Schuyler Esprit (University of the West Indies, Antigua and Barbuda)

Project Goals

  • To develop academic methodologies that incorporate research, technology, and community work.
  • To build an internship program that gives students experience with formal DH academic research, programming and coding, and creating projects that contribute to online repositories, K-12 content, and social change in local communities.

Outcomes & Deliverables

  • Students in the Create Caribbean internship program at Dominica State College build professional skills and collaborations, and contribute to digital research projects across many disciplines.
  • A redesign of the Caribbean classroom and Caribbean Studies pedagogy.

Resources

Presentation slides

Schuyler’s slides from the 2019 institute

Access via dLOC

Create Caribbean

Create Caribbean Research Institute website

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Digital projects

Developed by Create Caribbean staff and interns

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Projects and Courses

Caribbean Diaspora & Carnival

Nadjah Ríos Villarini (left) and Mirerza González (right) standing behind podium, presenting and smiling

Nadjah Ríos-Villarini and Mirerza González (University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras)

Panorama of Carnival Practices aims to explore migration and the Caribbean diaspora through the lens of cultural practices related to Carnival.

Project Goals

  • To design and develop an interactive webpage with curated content about mobility (of people culture, ideas, etc.) in Carnival.
  • To engage scholars from Linguistics, Performance, Music, History, Communication, Library Studies and Digital Humanities in the planning of reliable and affordable archiving, and preserving and disseminating practices.

Participants attend four workshops to identify project materials and DH support, assess technical aspects, review funding options and draft proposals, and develop a two year work plan.

Outcomes & Deliverables

Collections added to archives, maintaining collaborative networks through oral history and family history archives projects.

Resources

Nadjah & Mirerza’s presentation

Dr. Ríos Villarini and Dr. González offered an overview of their work during the institute.

Access via dLOC

Caribbean Diaspora project website

The website includes an overview of each project phase, meeting reports, and the original grant proposal.

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Caribbean Diaspora dLOC collection

The project collection includes photos, articles, research papers, and other materials in Spanish and English.

Access via dLOC

Archivo Histórico de Vieques

The Vieques Historical Archives (AHV) supports the documentation and preservation of audiovisual materials and artifacts related to the history, development, and sociocultural struggles of the island of Vieques off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico.

Access via dLOC

Culebra Digital Community Archive

The Digital Community Archive for Culebra, founded by the Culebra Foundation, promotes the preservation and sharing of information on the island municipality of Culebra, through photos, artifacts, maps and documents.

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Archivo de Respuestas Emergencias de Puerto Rico (AREPR)

Omeka site supporting and showcasing the work and knowledge production of grassroots community organizations in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of natural and man-made disasters.

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