ST235A - Digital Projects in History

Author: Ali Rami

Internationals on Hill, a Multimedia Collection of a Group Memory

April 8, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Project Description

Colby has struggled consistently at addressing the issues of peoples from marginalized identities, but what about those who don’t fall into traditional special interest backgrounds. Recognizing the lack of focus, in this case International Students, Reggie and I would like to propose to create, curate, and refine the existing multimedia collection that would document and chronicle the memories of international students at Colby College by collecting and organizing existing materials including multimedia assets, print documents, objects from their home countries.

Over the past couple decades, the presence of International students on campus has shifted dramatically. Colby is currently recruiting a more diverse international student body with particular focuses on nationality, race and social class. Although this push for increased diversity is definitely beneficial for Colby’s creation of a more inclusive community, the stories and struggles of international students seem to fade after 4 years. These stories, containing the struggles, the joys, the moments of growth, even the moments of calm, are all valuable and integral in the documentation of students on this campus, and more broadly, US post-secondary schooling systems in general. Thus, both Reggie and I see immense value in creating an anthology of experience, if you will, depicting “internationals on the hill.” We also foresee this project as a topic of interest that directly appeal to past international alumni, current international students, and even perspective international applicants.

Historical References

Due to the fine scope that Reggie and I have chose to adopt for this project, the brevity of historical resources on the subject matter is indeed limited. At the moment, there are a plethora of groups currently expressing interest and conducting projects all about the international student community. More specifically,. Although these materials may be unable to individually depict the story of international students on campus, we foresee that through weaving these stories together using a documentary style video as our glue, we can begin painting a more complete picture. Additionally, we plan to meet and talk with Qiam Amiry ’09 and his other colleagues in Advancement Office, who are currently working on fostering the relationships with many international alumni. Lastly, we plan on integrating Sue McDougal’s, who has been working as the Dean for International Students for a long time at Colby, story. Thus, we intend to communicate between all of these parties to collect the multimedia resources necessary. Also, we wish to give credit to some past students works that inspired this project including Uzoma Orchingwa ’14’s film Black on the Hill, Annie Lee ’20’s film Popul[asian].

Technical Difficulties

As we continue to refine our focus, we envision that this project will exist in the intersection between a documentary style video and a digital published multimedia website. More specifically, we hope that this Frankenstein creation between the resources procured from special collections, including pictures, recordings, and publications, and a short documentary-style video on Dean Sue McDougal will create an interactive and extensive story that anyone with internet can access. Additionally, we foresee that procuring a technical resource that can combine the elements of an animated storyline and more manual solution will be slightly more challenging. However, if there is still great difficulty with procuring a tool that can accomplish this, we have been thinking about using a storyboard/interactive map model that can accomplish something closely resembling an animated timeline.

Current Achievements

At this moment, we have begun to initiate contact with individuals in the Advancement office and have already had the chance to sit down with some international students and hear their stories. Additionally, we anticipate having a sit down meeting with Sue McDougal expressing our vision for this project and gauging her interest. Furthermore, we have coordinated with the Office of Communications to use their photo studios as a place to conduct any interview or more formal video B-Roll. With all of this, we have had our fair share of challenges. One of the hardest thing with this project is addressing our technical conundrum. Although there are a bunch of alternative solutions that might be able to produce content, our vision requires something extremely specific. Furthermore, reaching out to Alumni and garnering their support for this project is also becoming more of an issue than anticipated. In order to document a holistic experience of as many international students as possible, we require interviewees from all walks of Colby; those who valued their time here, those who never want to step foot on campus again, and those who are still unsure about their sentiments.

Existing and Anticipated Content

  • Special Collections – Maggie Libby, Mansi Hitesh ‘19
    • Graduating International Seniors’ Oral History
    • Photo Archives built by self-submitted photos, Sue McDougal’s album
  • Colby Echos
    • Digital/Print Stories from Colby Echos
  • Colby Magazine – Gerry Boyle
    • The coverage of International students and alumni
    • Stories of achievement, experience, or research
  • Admission Office
    • The admission stats of where students were from
  • Advancement Office
    • The data of International Alumni
  • In-depth Interview with Sue McDougal, Director of International Student Programs
  • Partnering with Special Collections on curating and organizing the existing contents

Term Project Proposal

March 18, 2019 / / 0 Comments

For my term project, I plan to digitize stories of love at Colby- including familial, romantic, and platonic -and demonstrate the ways in which the expression of love has evolved on campus over the past couple of decades. Additionally, I will document this experience via the production of a documentary style short-film that would conclude with an interview with the student who wrote/received the letters. By better understanding the different ways that love, and more broadly emotions in general, have allowed students to emotionally survive on campus, we can see how the struggles of students have remained static. Furthermore, by moving the letters onto a new platform I can ensure that all members of the Colby community, including staff, faculty, and students, can enjoy these artifacts which may otherwise be forgotten.

Thus far, I have identified a treasure trove of letters sent to and from a former Colby student to their family back home. In these letters are the stories of a person of color braving the new frontier, faced with challenges they couldn’t have expected. These letters allow us to empathize and understand the experiences of this student. By documenting the narratives that this individual shares with his mother, we are left with an immortalized online exhibit that demonstrates the inheritance of struggles from one generation to another. This work would also provide a lens that illuminates the lack of institutional memory at Colby. More specifically, if the struggles of Colby students today are the same struggles that students of the past faced, then there is a larger problem that the Colby community must address.

Furthermore, through the production of the short film, I hope to encapsulate my own experiences as a student of color on this campus and compare it to the sentiments shared in the letters. A majority of this work would require a video camera, internet access, and a basic understanding of website development. I will also need to have access to the letters themselves. Throughout this entire process, I will be working closely with Special Collections in order to protect the integrity of the artifacts. Additionally, I will be needing their expertise to transfer the pieces into the online realm. The letters shift the impact of paternal bonds to center-stage.

Over the course of this semester, we have identified and interacted with online databases, user-generated models, and creators who share the stories of their creations. Through all of these discussions, I found that what we really lack on this campus is a history; one that includes both joy and love along with the trials and tribulations that college throws at students. Although the aforementioned letters share struggles that a student of color may face, they also show the blossoming of love. During this time in Colby’s history, where tensions are high between students and the administration, I think that it is integral to share the stories of hope.

Darwin’s 21st-Century Revolution

March 5, 2019 / / 0 Comments

It has been over a century since the HMS Beagle, carrying a 22-year-old Charles Darwin, sailed around the world for 5 years studying foreign species. Darwin was famous for his work studying finches in the Galapagos and produced one of the most monumental books in the field of biology – The Origin of Species. To this day, Darwin’s work remains referenced by the academics and scholars in the field, but how does his work affect the average college student? More broadly, how does the lack of accessibility to Darwin’s work, both physically and intellectually, affect the ordinary student’s understanding of the Darwin’s research?

This leads to Darwin Online, one of the largest and most widely consulted anthologies of Charles Darwin’s publications ever produced. In my experience, Darwin Online has removed the barrier to information pertaining to Darwin and made it easier to gain a holistic understanding of the man himself. In layman’s terms, the online anthology has not only quelled my academic pursuits but also contained outside publications about the subject matter. Furthermore, the online collection includes materials that I may not have been privy to otherwise, as the website also contains some of Darwin’s private papers.

Additionally, Darwin Online attempts to allow individuals of all backgrounds equitable access to the information. With all that being said, the online collection has inherent limitations. People need wireless internet and a computer capable of connecting, but in many other ways, it removes the barriers to access. While browsing online, I noticed that the website also has translations for scholars and people to read in their native languages. This allows people to step out of the eurocentric lens and removes the language barrier that may have traditionally limited the opportunity to study these materials.

Darwin Online also ensures that the material is fully formatted for modern viewing. The entirety of Darwin’s works, including new discoveries, are constantly being scanned and uploaded to the web in the most widely accessible format. I mean everything. The website itself claims that “each text is absolutely complete, nothing is omitted (as so often with online texts) including end pages and publishers’ [advertisements].” This unadulterated version of Darwin’s works assists greatly when attempting to write research papers, editorials, and other publications because it removes the influence that another writer might have on the works.

Conclusively, Darwin Online is a tool that removes the inequities form studying the works of Darwin and allows everyone the chance to examine the original manuscripts, papers, and sketches otherwise inaccessible through traditional means.

Nearly Gone, but Never Forgotten

March 5, 2019 / / 0 Comments

World War 1 was one of the deadliest battles in the history of mankind, with over 17 million people dying over a span of 4 years. The atrocities committed on the battlefield continue to echo history textbooks and class conversations, but the impact seems to become more distant with every year. In other words, although classrooms provide a necessary space to learn more about the subject matter, there is no supplement for the immersive experience a movie provides. That is exactly what director Peter Jackson hoped to accomplish through his original rendition of WWI – They Shall Not Grow Old. However, even after recognizing all of this, there remains one question that continues to persist; What impact did the restoration of the archival WWI footage have on the audiences’ understanding of the time period?

As someone who lives in a generation dozens of years removed from the WWI, I think that many people are disconnected from the subject matter. This sentiment changed after watching the film. Rather, the movie bridged the gap between the facts and the feelings that the war-induced over a century ago. Unlike traditional textbooks and editorials, They Shall Not Grow Old, made the experience of the petty soldier accessible to the masses. It vanquished the need to travel to the archives and transformed the experiences into an easily digestible, yet heartfelt and impactful discussion that anyone could partake in, regardless of educational background. The appreciation to detail the director took to ensure the replication of the atmosphere during the war, took the authenticity of the movie to a whole new level.

Furthermore, Jackson’s credibility as a director and the techniques he implemented in order to modernize the footage created a piece easily consumable by the 21st-century citizen. After the credits of the film, Jackson goes into detail explaining the painstaking work that went into colorizing the old footage and cataloging the recordings. This process was only the first step in turning the archives into the movie magic that encapsulated the screen. By removing any hindrances, scratchy film, shaky footage, muffled audio, to the audiences, Jackson sets the scene for one of the most original and creative renditions of WW1. In doing so, he manages to transform raw materials into something much greater than any of the individual parts.

Throughout the film, They Shall Not Grow Old, Jackson incorporates many interesting cinematic techniques and truly shifts the focus away from the digital. Thanks to this, the movie was able to capture the feelings, aspirations, and experiences of the common soldier. By modernizing the archived film, the director transports the viewer into the past where they experience first-hand the soldiers’ feelings about conflict, a combatants experience, and their dreams for the future.

 

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