During these past two weeks, I’ve begun to narrow my attention on two topics and the specific digital humanities tools and archives I would need to complete them. I’m very happy to finally be in a place where I can clearly see the directions I have to take to complete either project. Despite this, I’ve come across problems in pursuing both avenues of scholarship.
The first project I’d like to complete is a network analysis based project that maps out and visualizes a wide range of activities and events co-sponsored or accomplished by Amherst College affinity groups working together within the past 50 years. The ultimate goal of this project is to allow students to see the many ways their organizations have accomplished together. The main problem I’ve encountered thus far has surprisingly not been collecting data on co-sponsored events, but has been in visualizing them using the limited range functions of available in the network visualisation tools I have used thus far.
The second project I’d like to complete is text analysis and topic modeling project focused on Black Men of Amherst by Harold Wade and Black Women of Amherst by Mavis Campbell. The problem in completing this project has not been in visualising the information with the tools I’ve been given or interpreting the information I’ve received by running these books through software. It has been navigating the stories and controversies surrounding the publication of Black Men of Amherst and deciding what I’d like to say or contribute regarding the two texts.
I am confident that I’ll be able to solve these two problem during the time I have left, but I am still unsure about what the final project will look like.