I. The Basics

Mon., Aug. 23: Introduction to the Course

Wed., Aug. 25: Introduction to the Course II

• Annotate Course Syllabus [Perusall]
• Annotate Hannah Fry, “When Graphs Are a Matter of Life and Death” The New Yorker (June 21, 2021) [Perusall]
• Complete the student survey if you have not done so already (check Canvas announcements for link)
• Sign up for a 10-minute one-on-one meeting with Professor Blevins through Canvas Calendars
• Join the class Slack workspace (see Canvas announcement for instructions), customize your profile picture, and write a post introducing yourself in the #general channel - feel free to include a GIF, picture of your pet, etc.

In Class

• Learning how to use the Command Line

Complete student survey by Sunday, August 29th by 11:59PM

Mon., Aug. 30: Getting Up and Running

• “Choosing Python or R for Data Analysis? An Infographic” DataCamp Team (January 9, 2020) [Perusall]
• Install Anaconda on your computer (instructions for Mac, Windows, or Linux)
• Complete How to Use Jupyter Notebooks tutorial in Melanie Walsh, Introduction to Cultural Analytics & Python textbook.
• Finish Part 2 of Learning how to use the Command Line

In-class:

• Command line review
• Why Python?
• Getting Started with Jupyter Notebooks [link to download in-class notebook]

Wed., Sep. 1: Data and Power (class cancelled)

• “Chapter 1: The Power Chapter” in Catherine D’Ignzaio and Lauren Klein, Data Feminism [Perusall]
• Aditya Mukerjee, “I Can Text You A Pile of Poo, But I Can’t Write My Name” [Perusall]

Mon., Sep. 6: No Class (Labor Day)

Wed., Sep. 8: Navigating Python (Zoom class)

• Anatomy of a Python Script (Walsh)
• Variables (Walsh)
• Data Types (Walsh)

In-class

• Navigating Python

Homework #1 Due Friday, 9/10 by 11:59PM

Slavery and Data

Mon., Sep. 13: Working with Text in Python

• String Methods (Walsh)
• Files and Character Encoding (Walsh)
• Comparisons and Conditionals (Walsh)

In-class

• Working with Text in Python

Wed., Sep. 15: Slavery and Capitalism

• Excerpt from Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox Genovese, The Fruits of Merchant Capital: Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the Rise and Expansion of Capitalism (1983) [Perusall]
• Caitlin Rosenthal, “Slavery’s Scientific Management: Masters and Managers” in Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, eds. Slavery’s Capitalism (2015). [Perusall]

Homework #2 Due Friday, 9/17 by 11:59PM

Mon., Sep. 20: Lists and Loops

• Anelise Hanson Shrout, “(Re)Humanizing Data: Digitally Navigating the Bellevue Almshouse” Current Research in Digital History 2018 Perusall
• Lists and Loops Part 1 (Walsh)
• Lists and Loops Part 2 (Walsh)

In-class

• Lists and Loops Practice

Wed., Sep. 22: Numbers, Narratives, and Historical Evidence

• John E. Murray’s Introduction and Alan L. Olmstead’s review of Edward Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism in: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 74, Issue 3, September 2015, pp. 919-923. Perusall
• Selections from Daina Ramey Berry, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave (2016), pp. 1-9, 33-57. Perusall
• Look at Professor Anelise Shrout’s website

In Class

• Class visit from Professor Anelise Shrout

Homework #3 Due Friday, 9/24 by 11:59PM

Mon., Sep. 27: Dictionaries and Functions

• Dictionaries (Walsh)
• Functions (Walsh)
• Common Python Errors (Walsh)

In Class

• Teddy presentation
• Dictionaries and Functions Practice (Jupyter Notebook file)

Wed., Sep. 29: Bodies, Archives, and Data

• Jessica Marie Johnson, “Markup Bodies: Black [Life] Studies and Slavery [Death] Studies at the Digital Crossroads” Social Text, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2018). Perusall

In Class

• Max presentation
• Transatlantic Slave Trade Database

First Self Assessment Due Sunday, 10/3 by 11:59PM

Government Data

Mon., Oct. 4: Creating Data

• “Chapter 4: What Gets Counted Counts” in Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020) Perusall
• Spreadsheet readings Perusall
  • Robert Kosara, “Spreadsheet Thinking Versus Database Thinking”
  • Sandhya Kambhampati, “Cleaner, Smarter Spreadsheets Start with Structure”

In Class

• Keira presentation
• Creating and Structuring Data

Homework #4 Due Tuesday, 10/5 by 11:59PM

Wed., Oct. 6: Government Data I: Origins of the U.S. Census

• “Chapter 4: The Census and Industrial America in the Gilded Age” in Margo Anderson, The American Census: A Social History (pp. 86-114) Perusall

In Class

• Creating and Structuring Data

Data Biography Due Friday, 10/8 11:59PM

Mon., Oct. 11: Data Analysis / Pandas I

• “Chapter 6: The Numbers Don’t Speak for Themselves” in Data Feminism Perusall
• Pandas Basics Part 1 (Walsh)

In Class

• Pandas I Practice

Wed., Oct. 13: Government Data II: Census Stories

• Historian Dan Bouk will be joining us in class for a Q&A. Annotate the following collection of posts that are part of his Census Stories project Perusall:
  • “Standing on the Crater of a Volcano”
  • “Political Solutions to Imperfect Data”
  • “The Partners of Greenwich Village”
  • “8 Miles through Alaska, as Mrs. Parrott Rows; Or, Into the Archives!”

In Class

• Class visit from Dan Bouk

Homework #5 due Friday, 10/15 by 11:59PM

Mon., Oct. 18: Data Analysis / Pandas II

• Pandas Part 2 (Walsh)

In Class

• Class visit from Melanie Walsh

Wed., Oct. 20: Government Data III: Privacy & Surveillance

• Sarah Elizabeth Igo, The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America, p. 57-71, 83-98, 221-223, 232-247. [Perusall]

In Class

• TJ Presentation

Homework #6 due Sunday, 10/24 by 11:59PM

Corporate Data

Mon., Oct. 25: Text Analysis

• Pandas Part 3 (Walsh)
• Text Analysis: TF-IDF with Scikit-Learn (Walsh)

In Class

• Pandas III Practice

Wed. Oct. 27: Corporate Data I

• Josh Lauer, “Plastic surveillance: Payment cards and the history of transactional data, 1888 to present” Big Data & Society (2020) Perusall
• Margaret O’Mara, The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (2019), Chapter 5: The Money Men, p. 67-82. [Perusall]

Mon., Nov. 1: Data Visualization I

• “Chapter 4: Data-Ink and Graphical Redesign” in Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Perusall

In Class

• Charlie Harper, “Visualizing Data with Bokeh and Pandas” The Programming Historian (2018)
  • Read Overview but skip the Getting Started section on installation and virtual environments and go directly to The Basics of Bokeh
  • Ignore parts that say to save or run new .py files - just create a single Jupyter Notebook and insert code into code cells.

Wed., Nov. 3: Corporate Data II

• “Chapter 3: On Rational, Scientific, Objective Viewpoints from Mythical, Imaginary, Impossible Standpoints” in Data Feminism [Perusall]
• Primary sources on 1990s smart rooms and ubiquitous computing: [Perusall]
  • Alex Pentland, “Smart Rooms” (1996)
  • Mark Weiser, “The Future of Ubiquitous Computing on Campus” (1998)

In Class

• Class visit from John Tinnell, Director of Digital Studies Certificate
• Teddy presentation

Homework #7 Due Friday, 11/5 by 11:59PM

Second Self Assessment Due Sunday 11/7

Mon., Nov. 8: Data Visualization II and Spatial Data

• Walsh chapters on Mapping in Python:
  • Mapping Intro
  • Mapping and Geocoding
  • Custom Map Backgrounds

In class:

• Class visit from Diane Fritz, Geospatial Data Scientist at Auraria Library

Project Proposal due by Tuesday, 11/9 by 11:59PM

Wed., Nov. 10: Corporate Data III | Project Proposals

• Jerome de Groot, “Ancestry.com and the Evolving Nature of Historical Information Companies” The Public Historian (2020) Perusall
• Prepare a short presentation on your project proposal

In Class

• Project proposal presentations

Mon., Nov. 15: The Data Economy Today

• “Chapter 5: Unicorns, Janitors, Ninjas, Wizards, and Rock Stars” in Data Feminism Perusall

In Class

• Class visit from Colin Schoppert, Product Manager at DoorDash

Wed., Nov. 17: Computer Vision

• Lauren Tilton and Taylor Arnold, “Distant Viewing: Analyzing Large Visual Corpora” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (2019) Perusall

In Class

• Class visit from Lauren Tilton

Research Project Data Biography due Friday, 11/19

Mon., Nov. 22: No Class (Fall Break)

Wed., Nov. 24: No Class (Fall Break)

Research Projects

Mon., Nov. 29: Project Workshop

• “Sort and Filter Data” and “Calculate with Formulas” from Chapter 2: Strengthen your Spreadsheet Skills in Jack Dougherty and Ilya Ilyankou, Hands-On Data Visualization. (Optional lesson: “Match Columns with VLOOKUP”)
• Lesson: “Indexing, Slicing and Subsetting DataFrames in Python” Python for Humanities
• Before you start this lesson:
  • Create a new working directory in data-a-user-manual called python-humanities-lessons and create a new Jupyter Notebook in this folder called 02-index-slice-subset.ipynb. Use this notebook to go through this lesson.
  • Download and extract/unzip the zipped folder data distributed on Slack that contains the data files for this lesson, making sure the unzipped folder is in your working directory python-humanities for this lesson.
  • Read the two short sections “Alex’s Processing” and “Our Data” to get an introduction to the data you’ll be using.

In-class

• Markdown Practice

Wed., Dec. 1: Project Workshop

• Complete the first three parts “For loops”, “Automating data processing using For Loops”, and “Writing Unique Filenames” from the lesson: “Data workflows and automation” Python for Humanities (stop at “Building reusable and modular code with functions”).
  • Create a new Jupyter Notebook in your python-humanities-lessons folder called 05-loops-and-functions.ipynb and use it to go through the lesson.

Rough Draft of Research Project due Sunday, December 5th by 11:59PM

Mon., Dec. 6: Final Project Presentations

• Prepare 7-10 minute presentation on the draft of your research project

Wed., Dec. 8: Wrapping Up

Final Research Project Due Tuesday, December 14  by 11:59PM

Final Self Assessment Due Tuesday, December 14  by 11:59PM