Week 5 - Oct. 19
Location Our normal classroom
Theme Data Wrangling in the Field; Consolidation 1
Have Read for Today
If you haven’t read something from earlier in the course, now would be a really good time.
The Plan
- A review of what we’ve explored so far, contextualized in current disciplinary praxis.
- Consolidation 1. In the second part of today’s class, you will write, by hand, a reflection on your work to date, addressing the following kinds of questions:
- How does the human past become data?
- What does it mean to turn the different kinds of traces we have into something that becomes… counted?
- How does the act of counting change what gets valued? (And note that ‘counting’ can mean more than literal 1..2..3..4..)
- What has been most challenging for you so far, and why is that?
- What are the implications for ‘doing’ digital archaeology, in the light of these challenges you’ve identified (tie this to broader trends in the discipline as evidenced in the readings)?
- What are some of the ethical dimensions to the work you’ve encountered so far, in the light of that ‘doing’?
- How does the human past become data?
Your consolidation should discuss these questions in the context of at least one ‘fail’ and one ‘win’ that you have encountered. Explicitly situate your discussion with reference to the readings, and to any conversations you’ve had with others in the class, or if appropriate to things you’ve read/done in other classes.
Skill Building
You’re off the hook this week, although I encourage you to revisit activities: digital archaeology is all about practice.
Homework
The evidence for all of your weekly activities for weeks 1 - 4 should be in your Github repository by Friday at noon. Anything for weeks 1 - 4 submitted after that point will not count towards completion of the ‘activities’ portion of the gradebook.