It’s been a while since I’ve written anything – mainly for lack of time and other writing deadlines, but also because I’ve been unsure what to write about in this space. I was hesitant to write about the course I taught in the fall while I was teaching it, and I’ve been cautious about writing anything professionally-oriented: so many people are writing (oftentimes articulately and also at times in incendiary tones) about alt-ac and DH and the state of higher education and the lack of jobs and and and … I just don’t feel like getting into a social media exchange about it. So I’ve just done a lot of sharing of other peoples’ FB posts and tweets.
But now spring is (supposedly) coming, and I’m starting to think about co-presenting on the first iteration of Humanities 100 with Katie Faull this summer at ACH and DH, and thought it might be a good time to write about teaching and learning again.
[Read more…] about Linn: the Next Generation
Developing a Digital Resource
Once upon a time there lived a man named James Merrill Linn.
He was a lawyer, a member of a prominent family in town, a soldier, a collector of historical factoids and memorabilia. He wrote. And wrote. He wrote letters and journals and memoirs and essays. He wrote contracts and deeds and wills. And, it seems, he saved everything. He saw himself as a witness to history, as someone whose actions and observations were of value in the documentation of that history. After his death someone in his family gathered all of these life papers together and donated them to his university, thinking – perhaps – that someone else would recognize the importance of his words and deeds.