Happy Tuesday! Welcome back to this week’s LAUNCH newsletter. We hope you are doing well and staying dry. As you begin work on research projects or are considering your finals, make sure to inquire about any digital tools or software that could help with your work.
Text Analysis with Python |
| Working with a set of articles, letters, books, or social media posts? Whether you’re working with a large or small collection of texts, computational text analysis can help you with your research process. In this workshop, we will explore using various Python libraries, such as NLTK and spaCy, to conduct various text analysis approaches such as finding word frequencies, word co-occurrence, topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and more. By the end of the workshop, attendees will have knowledge on how to begin their text analysis project using Python. Attendees should already have experience with Python. |
From the Rock Wall |
| Looking to help out some history organizations? The Marian Cheek Jackson Center is looking for volunteers to transcribe oral histories for their From the Rock Wall oral history project. Some are as short as two minutes. |
| Contact kathryn@jacksoncenter.info for more information. |
Kathleen DuVal tackles history for a broad audience |
| Dr. Kathleen DuVal spent nine years working on her award-winning book “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America.” Now, she’s translating that research for a wider audience. Since the book’s release in April 2024, DuVal has written multiple guest essays connecting her research to modern issues.
“I’ve moved over time to wanting my books to be able to speak to a wider audience,” DuVal said. “So I’ve worked on ways to write that are not just for academics, but are for history readers.” |
Digital Humanities As a Modern Approach to Ancient Texts |
| “Alan Darmawan, a postdoctoral fellow at SOAS University of London examined how to ‘sound’ and present the digital manuscripts through performing arts by considering their social and cultural contexts. |
| Alan’s research mapped manuscript cultures in Sumatra, focusing on Islamic texts. He categorized manuscripts from Aceh, Minangkabau, and Palembang, tracing their journeys and analyzing their material aspects. |
| Alan also highlighted the Resonant Pages Project, which reimagined text presentation for contemporary audiences using digital manuscripts through three repositories, like the Leiden Digital Collection, Qalamos, and EAP.“ |
| Make sure to contact the LAUNCH if there are any skills you want to learn, need support with your own digital history projects, or are interested in our podcast! |
| Thanks for reading, |
| The LAUNCH Team (Cameron, Ha Lien, Dani, & Nicholas) |