Workshop Proposal–The Classroom as Humanities Lab and Digital Research

I am new to THATCamp and new to most of the tools of digital literacies. The impetus for this workshop proposal is specific. This coming fall, as part of NC State’s English department, I will be running a seminar for seniors on the circum-atlantic eighteenth-century world. The course will use the transatlantic slave trade–in particular one incident with a slave ship, the Zong–as a way to open up into a larger discussion of persons and personhood, economics and finance, politics and revolution, all focused through the writing of the period. I would like to teach this class as more of a research lab (rather than a discussion-oriented seminar) with archival research–particularly electronic research–as central to its methods and rhythms. I offer this seminar proposal not because I feel expert at facilitating these topics, but because I am not. I would like to collect discussants to hear about alternative ways to integrate digital research into the course and classroom space. I hope to hear from others about alternatives to the course paper/research paper model, about possibilities of students creating their own annotated electronic editions, ideas for in-class electronic and digital exercises, and more. I hope the discussion will range from the pedagogical and theoretical to the practical (what software may help; how to arrange students in classes and move from paper to computers to verbal discussion). I am also interested in planning ahead about how to pitch the relative degrees of technical knowledge that are required. I have relatively little beyond basic digital and computer knowledge and will assume my students do as well.