Toronto Metropolitan University
Centre for Digital Humanities
March Offerings
2024
- CDH events are open to the TMU community and beyond.
- Also, check out the workshops hosted by the Collaboratory!
Currently, the Centre for Digital Humanities (CDH) is between spaces, and will hopefully have its own space in the Library building (LIB) soon. In the meantime, for Winter 2024, the CDH will be holding some of its events virtually (on Zoom) and some in-person at the TMU Library. Some events may be hybrid.
Join us!
DH Certificate
Workshops
10am-Noon EST
Hybrid format
These workshops, offered by Centre for Digital Humanities and the TMU Libraries Collaboratory, typically consist of two sessions totalling 4-5 hours and can be counted towards the Canadian Certificate in Digital Humanities/humanités numériques (ccDH/HN).
Part One: Friday March 15
Part Two: Friday March 22
“Creative DH” with Decker
Instructor: Reg Beatty, TMU Centre for Digital Humanities
This hybrid hands-on workshop explores the playful, experimental side of digital humanities with Decker, a platform created by John Earnest in 2022. Decker is easy to learn, fun to work with, and facilitates sharing work individually or in group and classroom settings. It can be used to create interactive fiction, digital poetry, e-zines, or games, with text, sound, drawings, photographs, and animations. It can also be used for scholarly purposes, such as presentations and interactive essays. The interface and “dither-punk” graphics have been inspired by HyperCard, the highly influential Mac application from the late 80s. Decker has inherited that retro look and feel but re-imagined it for contemporary browsers and touch screens. That constrained approach is one of the design strengths of Decker.
Part One: will cover all the basic features of Decker and how to start using them.
Part Two: will cover more advanced features and provide time to look at any of the participants’ work-in-progress.
In-person will be held at the Library Collaboratory.
This course can be counted towards the Canadian Certificate in Digital Humanities/humanités numériques. More information at: https://ccdhhn.ca/.
Wilde ’82
6:00-8:00pm EST
Thursday March 21
TMU Library (LIB), 4th floor
Wilde ’82 Launch
In 1982, Toronto Metropolitan University (then Ryerson Polytechnical Institute) hosted Wilde ’82, the first international conference bringing together scholars active in the emerging field of Gay and Lesbian Studies. The conference, organized by the Canadian Gay Archives, also commemorated the 100th anniversary of gay icon Oscar Wilde’s 1882 North American lecture tour.
The Wilde ’82 project is an online open access reconstruction of this important event, documenting social and political issues facing Toronto’s queer community in the 1980s and bringing together historical documents from the TMU Archives, The ArQuives, and personal collections.
CDH Virtual
Drop-Ins
Tuesdays on Zoom
Each month, weekly drop-ins will be dedicated to a specific theme. Tiny Tools Tour / DH Workbench are explorations of a digital resource or tool for research, creativity, and/or pedagogy. Unarchived is a monthly podcast associated with the Playable Stories Archive focused on discussing storytelling games. Critical Code Studies discusses coding/programming from a critical perspective informed by the humanities.
DH WORKBENCH
March 12
Noon-1:00pm EST
“When Blogs Were Blogs”
Host: Reg Beatty
Possibly in the wake of social media fatigue, people are asking “why has the internet has stopped being fun?”
Join Reg as he leads us into the hinterlands of “personal computing” where things can, at times, get wild and woolly. We’ll also re-examine the principles of the IndieWeb and see if there might be some guidance there to help us escape the doldrums of our post-twitter world.
Even if you are unable to attend, we’ve love it if you could add the url of a site to our blogroll (use the button) that you find particularly tonic for these troubled times.
INTERACTIVE FICTION: LET’S PLAY
March 19
Noon-1:00pm EST
Foo Foo, by Buster Hudson (2016)
Host: Jason Boyd
Join Jason as he explores Foo Foo, where fairy tale meets hardboiled detective noir.
March 19 / Noon EST
Shadow of the Colossus (Bluepoint Games, 2018)
Season 2, Episode 6 of the Playable Stories Archive: Unarchived podcast:
Shadow of the Colossus (2005; remade in 2018) is often cited as a seminal game that has gone on to influence many many others. The quiet picturesque landscape of the Forbidden Lands is the backdrop for the cruelty, loneliness, and death that pervades Wander’s journey as they locate and destroy the colossi, sixteen massive beings spread across the land. Join members of the Unarchived podcast team as they explore how a simple game provides so much depth.
On March 26th, join members of the Playable Stories Archive: Unarchived podcast collective for a roundtable to discuss the episode!
UNARCHIVED ROUNDTABLE
March 26
Noon-1:00pm EST
Roundtable on Shadow of the Colossus podcast
Join members of the Playable Stories Archive: Unarchived podcast collective to discuss the sixth episode of Season 2 on Shadow of the Colossus (2018).
Listen to Season 2, Episode 6 of the Playable Stories: Unarchived podcast here.