ST235A - Digital Projects in History

Author: Adam Zarfos

Project Proposal

April 8, 2019 / / 0 Comments

For my research project I plan to do a comprehensive history of Colby Fraternities describing each Fraternity and what activities these Colby students used to perform as members of Greek Life. The significance of this project is dual in nature because it is extremely relevant to us as Colby Students in our contemporary age but it is also a relevant topic for millions nationwide. Over nine million people nationally are a part of Greek fraternities and 85% of executives for fortune 500 companies are fraternity men.

For historical sources I will be using the Colby Archives and Special Collections to search for records on activities and events the Fraternities used to partake in at Colby. I will also use these resources to get more personal sides to these fraternities and hopefully be able to hear some reflections from prior fraternity members on what their experience was like and whether or not they think it has helped them on their career paths.

In terms of technical requirements I would like to make a map of Colby’s campus with the fraternities labeled based on where they were located on the campus before they were abolished in 1984. I need help creating this map as I have never done this before but I think this would be a really cool way to show how the campus used to look in comparison to how it looks now without fraternities. I also want to pair descriptions of each individual fraternity with a picture of the members of that fraternity on the website to make it a more personal account for Colby. If there was archival footage of Greek life members available that would be super interesting and useful to look at and include in the website as well. It might also be interesting to compare what Greek life was like at Colby with another school but this will be time dependent.

So far I have found a list of all Colby fraternities and sororities and when they were established and abolished. This includes a list of Academic Fraternal Societies, which I found particularly interesting, as I hadn’t heard of these societies before. An example of these academic societies was Sigma Pi Sigma, which is an academic recognition society that was focused on acknowledging academic excellence in Physics. There is also the Beta of Phi Beta Kappa which recognizes students in the top 20% of their class. These academic societies are the only remnants of Greek life at Colby and I found it particularly interesting I had never heard of these until I began researching this topic.

Challenges remaining include collecting a lot more research and hopefully getting some more personal accounts of fraternity experiences at Colby. Also the challenges of creating an appealing and informative webpage with all of the moving pieces I want such as an interactive map, archival photography and video.

Initial Research Project Idea

March 18, 2019 / / 0 Comments

After thinking over several ideas and visiting special collections as a class, I have decided I definitely want to center my research project on some aspect of Colby College. Off of this line of thinking I was thinking of interesting topics throughout Colby’s history that are still somewhat relevant in our modern day and age. Immediately my mind was drawn towards the Fraternity life that used to be present here at Colby College and the history of Fraternities coming to an end at Colby College officially. I think this is an interesting topic for wide audiences of potential readers because many people know friends in Fraternities at other schools or had members of their family participate in Greek life. I think this would also be particularly interesting for members of our modern age at Colby because we have recently been hearing more and more about underground Fraternity life during our current stay here on the hill. Comparing the things the Fraternities used to do and say with what is happening now would be interesting, but also just viewing reactions to the banning of Fraternities compared to how these underground Fraternities are being handled nowadays would also be interesting.

If it is too difficult to imagine a comparative analysis of Fraternities then perhaps I will just make a history of Colby College Fraternities from then until now following the history of these groups and their actions. It makes me nervous to claim I will attempt to cover an entire history of Colby Fraternity life because I do not know the scope of the information available and I don’t want to try to manage more material than I can handle. In terms of technicalities I will mostly need written textual documents of photographs depicting what activities were occurring within Fraternities at Colby and I will also need valid historical documents discussing any legal issues they might’ve dealt with throughout the Fraternities history.

There are many ways I could think to display this history or comparison of Fraternities at Colby, but I think most certainly a multi-media website that can present photography; video, and textual information in a seamless fashion is where I am headed with this project. Having support from ITS and Special Collections in finding videos and photographs and implementing them well into my project will definitely be helpful and I think they will probably be able to help me better determine what the actual scope of this project should be. By this I mean they will hopefully be able to give me a better scope of the material available to me so that I will more easily be able to determine an accurate thesis or goal for this project to cover. In conclusion, I wish to create a document comparing Fraternity life throughout Colby’s history with underground Fraternities nowadays and how these are being handled. I think this topic is rich with information that is appealing to a wide audience and I think it is an important history at this school that should be told and remembered.

Preservation of Devastation

March 4, 2019 / / 0 Comments

After watching They Shall Not Grow Old with the class I was uneasy that night. The movie was honestly very powerful to watch and I would argue was one of the better war movies I have ever seen. The most interesting part of the film for me came after the credits when we got to hear the director discuss his plan and the process of making this film. It was really impressive to hear and witness the hours they put in to listening to all the authentic audio from veterans and sifting through the hours of archival footage from the war. I thought it was also particularly interesting to hear about why he chose to specifically follow a British soldier on the Western front and leave out many of the other countries and people involved in the first World War. Also watching them recreate many of the artillery noises and shelling was really amazing because the whole time during the movie before the director’s portion I was completely engulfed and immersed in the battlefield. It truly felt like you were there, and considering it was all repurposed old archival footage from the war itself is just astonishing.

 

There are so many things I liked about this movie but two things in particular that stood out to me were the beginning of the film and the one section with the cuts from living soldiers talking to dead bodies of soldiers on the ground. The beginning of the film was impactful because it wasn’t shockingly repurposed until a while into the film. The beginning started on a smaller screen or winder too and actually expanded until finally filling up the whole frame. I remember specifically when it transitioned into the portion of the film that was colorized and I think everyone had a similar reaction in the audience, which was simply just shock and awe. One man in the theater actually let out an emphatic “wow!” This was incredibly slick by the director and really made me immersed in the film because as soon as it became colorized I was just there on the battlefield absorbed into the war.

 

The second thing that stood out to me was that section that the director discusses after the credits where they show a soldiers face as he is talking and then it cuts to them lying dead on the ground after artillery sound effects. This is repeated for several soldiers and I thought this was one of if not the most influential part of the film. It is really difficult to display the devastating nature of war, and WWI in particular was an extremely gruesome war. I thought by including this specific portion of the film it was really effective at not only relating us to the soldiers in the film but also just by framing how horrible war is. When the director told us these soldiers’ faces had been shown earlier in shots within the film it really sunk in why this part of the film was so impactful and it was because the audience genuinely felt like we knew these men. By fully immersing us in the war and showing us shots of these men from earlier, looking at them then lying dead on the ground was extremely emotional and powerful.

Digital Darwin and Citation

March 4, 2019 / / 0 Comments

The presentation and discussion on Digital Darwin was really informative and interesting to hear about for a multitude of reasons. I hadn’t previously known this was the largest online database dedicated to one singular historical figure, and just admiring the scope of the project was really incredible. I also found the discussion with John Van Wyhe especially intriguing because it was really unique to hear his side of things and his perspective on the site as a whole. Hearing the work and dedication he put into the site personally was also really powerful and really framed the entire project for me as a very large and well-crafted project. In all aspects the website seems like a major success to me because it is very easy to navigate even as a first time user. Things are all clearly labeled and you can really access any information or writings from Darwin that is available.

 

As we learned in the discussion with John Van Wyhe however, this abundance of information can actually lead to some very problematic situations for the website itself. A strong example of this is the lack of citation that the website receives itself. As we learned this is a product of thorough work and persistence on the part of John and others working on Digital Darwin. They were so meticulous that they managed to compile all of Darwin’s works into one website, which as John said is great for educational purposes and surely helps many people find the information they are looking for with ease. On the other hand because all of these sources are readily available on Digital Darwin it is problematic because they provide people with the original work to cite and so this database itself rarely gets the appreciation or recognition it deserves because people can just go directly to the primary source itself through the Digital Darwin website. I thought this was really interesting to consider and was something I hadn’t considered much before our discussion via Skype.

This made me think back on my academic career, specifically here at Colby, and the number of times I have similarly used someone else’s work or writing to find a specific quote or section in a primary source. It seems all too common in our modern world and it makes me almost feel sympathetic for the creators of websites such as Digital Darwin. It seems wrong that so much hard work can go into perfecting a site to only have it utilized for other people’s work without any sort of acknowledgment or recognition. All things considered though, I don’t necessarily see a simple solution to this problem or any way to avoid things like this happening in the future. In our digital age, information is available readily to everyone and it is becoming more and more difficult to receive credit or recognition for the work people put out there. In conclusion it is definitely unfortunate it may not always be cited when it should be, but Digital Darwin is an incredibly well thought out website that truly provides all the information you could want on an incredibly influential man.

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