Most Digital Maine projects have been developed through humanities lab courses, often supported by Colby’s Center for the Arts and Humanities. If you are interested in initiating a Digital Maine project or teaching a digital humanities course, visit the Get Involved page for course development suggestions and Digital Maine guidelines.
Fall 2016
AM226: The Cultural Geography of Allen Island
Lisle
Students in this humanities lab will explore the ways that beliefs about Maine, nature, and the past are expressed through Allen Island’s cultural geographies, examining its buildings, pathways, and vistas. They will situate the design and use of the island’s built environment in the broader architectural context of Midcoast Maine. Students will also explore ways that human beings have responded to and represented Allen Island, from English accounts of George Weymouth’s visit in 1605 through more contemporary artistic representations from the Wyeth collection. The course combines geographical fieldwork, cultural studies analysis, archival research, and digital publishing using WordPress and Story Maps.
CL245: Documentary Production
Murphy
In this digital humanities course, students will produce and edit short documentaries about Allen Island and mid-coast Maine which will be included in the Maine Food documentary series. Topics may include lobstering, aquaponics, food co-ops, and food education. Students will learn the basics of video production, although the focus will be on video editing. Students will learn the art of revision, as well as technical skills such as using a camera, shooting a scene, and interviewing subjects. Students’ videos will be informed by best practices in the documentary genre.
Fall 2015
AM120: Living the Good Life, 1965-2015
McFadden
Course URL: http://acad.colby.edu/thegoodlife/
What constitutes the good life? How does one live ethically in a complex, often unjust world? We explore how a diverse group of Americans theorized alternatives to conventional values and ways of living, from Afro-Futurism to Buddhist economics, then investigate people who came “back to the land” in Maine to put their theories about how to live into practice. Critical reading and discussion, archival and oral history research, and analytical writing will be emphasized. Students will use new digital humanities tools to present their research online in innovative ways.
AM221: Mapping Waterville
Lisle
Course URL: http://acad.colby.edu/mappingwaterville/
This interdisciplinary humanities lab combines geographical and architectural fieldwork, archival research, and digital publishing. Waterville is our learning space. Students construct an online archive of Waterville’s built environment using architectural sketches, photographs, interviews, and archival research. We then analyze and interpret the town’s material and spatial character, track and explain changes across time, and publish our interpretations online using innovative digital mapping technologies. The focus of the course in Fall 2015 was urban renewal projects of the 1960s and 70s.
AM297: Made in Maine
Lisle
Course URL: http://acad.colby.edu/madeinmaine/
We examine the “design” of Maine, exploring how Mainers have made meaning through things and space at different scales, from handheld tools to the shape of cities, from owner-built houses to craft beers. As participants in a humanities lab course, we cultivate a “classroom without walls,” combining reading, writing, and discussion with fieldwork, archival research, community engagement, archive building, and digital publishing.
AM322: Imagining Maine
Saltz
Course URL: http://web.colby.edu/imaginingmaine/
This interdisciplinary humanities lab examines Maine’s transformation in the American imagination from a barren wilderness to a “vacationland.” We will collect and analyze representations of Maine in painting, photography, literature, maps, advertising, travel guides, diaries, and historical documents. For our final project, we will work collaboratively to build a website that showcases this material. Research may include travel to exhibitions and archives around the state.
AR358: Photography and Migration
Sheehan
Course URL: http://web.colby.edu/photomigration/
This Arts and Humanities Lab explores human migration and photography. Photography has long been used to document, enable, or control the movement of people across geographical and cultural borders. Photographers put a face on immigration, making visible its associations with transition, displacement, hardship, and opportunity. Engaging with current scholarship, students work with photographs in the Special Collections at Miller Library, Colby College Museum of Art, and Waterville Historical Society. They develop a research project involving their own family photographs and photographs of local immigrant communities. Culminates in an exhibition curated by the seminar participants and a major conference at Colby.
CI248: Digital Publishing: Telling Stories Online
Murphy
Course URL Fall 2015: http://web.colby.edu/human-nature-stories/
Explores the many methods and tools available for creating digital stories. Students learn the basic skills of multimedia production and develop strategies for conceiving original and creative projects. They explore the potential uses of digital storytelling, including promoting nonprofits, marketing a new business, and developing social justice campaigns. Projects include the creation of animated .gifs, photo manipulations, audio soundscapes, digital video mash-ups, and promotional web videos. Students also become fluent in a variety of programs, including Photoshop, Audacity, and Final Cut X, and engage with a variety of publishing platforms including Vine, Flickr, WordPress, Vimeo, and Tumblr.
Spring 2015
CI248: Digital Publishing: Telling Stories Online
Murphy
Course URL Fall 2015: http://web.colby.edu/human-nature-stories/
Course URL: http://web.colby.edu/migrationstories/
Explores the many methods and tools available for creating digital stories. Students learn the basic skills of multimedia production and develop strategies for conceiving original and creative projects. They explore the potential uses of digital storytelling, including promoting nonprofits, marketing a new business, and developing social justice campaigns. Projects include the creation of animated .gifs, photo manipulations, audio soundscapes, digital video mash-ups, and promotional web videos. Students also become fluent in a variety of programs, including Photoshop, Audacity, and Final Cut X, and engage with a variety of publishing platforms including Vine, Flickr, WordPress, Vimeo, and Tumblr.
MU222: Maine’s Musical Soundscapes: Ethnography of Maine
Zelensky
Course URL: http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/franco_american/
What are the musical cultures outside of Colby and what are the communities making this music? We will engage this question through direct interaction and observation of Maine’s ethnic and racial communities. Students will learn ethnographic field methods and take field trips to conduct interviews at sites that make up the rich tapestry of Maine’s soundscape, including Waterville establishments and Penobscot, Lebanese, Somali, Russian, and French-Canadian communities (the group under study will rotate on a yearly basis). Students will present their findings in the form of a documentary film.
Fall 2014
AM221: Mapping Waterville
Lisle
Course URL: http://web.colby.edu/mapping-waterville/
This interdisciplinary humanities lab combines geographical and architectural fieldwork, archival research, and digital publishing. Waterville is our learning space. Students construct an online archive of Waterville’s built environment using architectural sketches, photographs, interviews, and archival research. We then analyze and interpret the town’s material and spatial character, track and explain changes across time, and publish our interpretations online using innovative digital mapping technologies.
Spring 2014
MU222: Maine’s Musical Soundscapes: Ethnography of Maine
Zelensky
Course URL: http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/franco_american/
What are the musical cultures outside of Colby and what are the communities making this music? We will engage this question through direct interaction and observation of Maine’s ethnic and racial communities. Students will learn ethnographic field methods and take field trips to conduct interviews at sites that make up the rich tapestry of Maine’s soundscape, including Waterville establishments and Penobscot, Lebanese, Somali, Russian, and French-Canadian communities (the group under study will rotate on a yearly basis). Students will present their findings in the form of a documentary film.