Description. Hands-on exploration of the processes that give shape to texts, turning texts into objects that we can access, read, archive, catalogue and retrieve. We’ll study the history of editorial and publication processes, from early printshops to digital publishing. We’ll focus on the extraordinary migration underway in recent decades of existing printed texts into digital formats, where these texts can now be accessed instantly online and addressed at scale in databases. What are the impacts for how we read, do research and study the past? What political, legal, economic, and cultural factors shape what gets included in this digital migration and what gets left out? How does the digitization process reshape earlier works and collections?
We’ll learn to work with early books and create our own small digital editions using the guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) – a widely-used XML standard for encoding texts for digital preservation and publication. We’ll explore platforms and some processing techniques for manipulating and publishing these editions on the web. We’ll also work with librarians and library protocols for digitizing and digitally cataloguing print materials, working with materials in UW Libraries Special Collections. No prior experience necessary. Please contact gt@uw.edu with any questions.
- TXTDS 404 is a core course in the Textual Studies and Digital Humanities minor. This curriculum offers training both in working with historical textual materials, from medieval manuscripts to early printed books to archival documents to artists’ books, and working with digital text, textual data, and digitization technologies.
The program is geared to students interested in careers in publishing and editing, in libraries, archives, and special collections, as well as in cultural institutions and in professions or graduate programs that require working with cultural and literary texts in digital environments.
See below for more information about the Textual Studies and Digital Humanities Minor.
- TXTDS 404 counts as a "Data Studies" course in the Data Science Minor. More information about the Data Science Minor here.
- TXTDS 504 counts towards the Graduate Certificate in Textual and Digital Studies. The TDS certificate is a 16-credit program open to any student enrolled in a graduate program at the UW. For more information, see here.
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Course goals include:
-- introduction to techniques for digitization, digital editing and text processing: including transcription (manual and using OCR tools), text encoding using TEI (an XML vocabulary for the digital encoding of literary, historical and cultural texts) and related XML-based technologies, such as XPath, XSLT, and XQuery; other encoding/digitization techniques and processing options using programming languages like Python.
-- philosophical and critical reflection on the digitization of literary works and historical materials, including original editions: the benefits and pitfalls of digitization. Questions of access, openness, what does and doesn't get digitally preserved; understanding historical texts as data and as items in databases; metadata and cataloguing; the role of search engines and indexing. The role of copyright: remediation and text reuse. The challenges of time: maintaining books, websites.
-- introduction to histories and theories of literary editing and textual scholarship from the Renaissance to today; working with early editions, primary sources and historical documents (including in UW Special Collections); how to define the text of a literary work in light of the history of its editions, variations, and reception; how to develop an editorial apparatus, situating a work in context.
-- basic introduction to digital publication: platforms for publishing TEI-encoded documents; basics of web-publishing: HTML and CSS, and to how the web works: web-servers, HTTP, etc. The role of XML databases, such as eXist-db or BaseX. Reflection on interface and “reading” in a digital vs. non-digital environment.
-- better understanding of early printed books and the history of print: how printed books were produced, circulated and read; how to study them today, as historical artifacts.
-- introduction to the history, present and future of the public sphere, shaped by print and now the internet; the role of “publication” in the formation of the public sphere; its role mediating between individuals and communities, from groups with like-minded interests to professional networks to national communities and beyond.
-- project-management; collaboration within a small team: working with collaboration tools like Github and Google tools.
For graduate students in TXTDS 504:
-- practice and training teaching complex materials to undergraduates and experience working with undergraduates as mentors
-- a project that will enrich the graduate student's work towards their home degree; this might be a digital complement to a research paper; an edition of a work that student is working on in a dissertation; or simply a new methodological dimension to their work.
-- the ability to present and articulate a project and original argument in a scholarly professional context
Undergraduate students can pursue a minor in the interdisciplinary study of the history, present, and future of texts — from scrolls, manuscripts, and printed books to archival documents, digital texts, and textual data (now used to train Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT).
Students can explore how texts have been written, published, read, circulated, stored, and archived from antiquity to today. Courses include hands-on work with historical texts, archival sources, and contemporary artists’ books, as well as with methods for editing, digitizing, exhibiting, and publishing texts. Students will also gain experience building and analyzing text-oriented databases and archives, exploring the implications of accessing texts algorithmically in massive databases now available, and applying data-science techniques to the study of literature, history and culture (exploring the opportunities and limitations of such approaches).
The minor will be of interest to students thinking about further studies or careers in editing and publishing, libraries and library science, archives and cultural institutions, and in contexts that involve working with cultural and literary texts in digital and/or archival environments.
25 credits total.
Including at least 2 course from the course sequence of courses:
TXTDS 401 Text Technologies (5, max. 10) A&H/SSc
TXTDS 402 Book Arts (5, max. 10) A&H
TXTDS 403 Archives, Data, and Databases (5, max. 10) A&H/SSc
TXTDS 404 Texts, Publics and Publication (5, max. 10) SSc/A&H
TXTDS 413 Texts, Data, and Computation (5, max. 10) A&H/RSN
TXTDS 414 Digital Editing and Text Processing for Publication (5, max. 10) A&H/SSc
2 additional courses from our list of approved electives. These include any of the core courses above (which may be repeated once). And courses from the following list:
TXTDS 224 Histories and Futures of the Book, Texts, and Reading [Offered SP 2024. See MyPlan]
TXTDS 267 Data Science and the Humanities [Offered AU 2023. See MyPlan]
FRENCH 224 Histories and Futures of the Book, Texts, and Reading [Offered SP 2024. See MyPlan]
JSIS A 224 Histories and Futures of the Book, Texts, and Reading [Offered SP 2024. See MyPlan]
ENGL 266 Literature and Technology
ENGL 267 Introduction to Data Science in the Humanities [Offered AU 2023. See MyPlan]
ENGL 309 Theories of Reading
ART H 400 Art History and Criticism: Re-Reading American Photographs [Offered AU 2023. See My Plan]
ASIAN 404 Writing Systems
ASIAN 498 Special Topics: Early Chinese Texts and their Datafication [Offered AU 2023. See MyPlan]
ITAL 262 Dante’s Divine Comedy [Offered AU 2023. See MyPlan]
ITAL 355 Culture Politics, and Media in Italy
ITAL 354 Travels, Migrations, and Exile: Encounters with the Other in Textual and Digital Archives [Offered WI 2024. See MyPlan]
HSTCMP 202 World Wars I and II Digital Histories
HSTCMP 292 Exploring History through New Media and Technologies
AFRAM 360 Black Digital Studies [Offered AU 2023. See MyPlan]
MELC/NEAR E 286 Themes in Middle Eastern Literature: Middle East Illustrated (offered in 22-23)
MELC/NEAR E 371 Love and Empire
MELC/NEAR E 485 Digital Media: The Middle East and Central Asia
MELC 340 Translation Studies: Gulliver's Travels Among Muslims and Jews
MELC 351 Royal Literature in the Bible and the Ancient Near East: Rebels, Kings, and Wanderers
CHID 370 The Cultural Impact of Information Technology
INFO 101 Social Media, Ethics, and Automation
And TXTDS 405 Capstone (5cr). The capstone will entail a quarter-long project — an edition, exhibit, traditional research paper, portfolio, or another type of project pertinent to the topics and goals of the minor, including potentially an internship — undertaken over the course of a quarter, under the guidance of a chosen faculty advisor or a librarian. The capstone can be completed in any quarter, including the summer.
