Class Notes for October 24

Model Graphical Representations of Data

Reading

  • Frederick W. Gibbs and Trevor J. Owens, “The Hermeneutics of Data and Historical Writing,” in Writing History in the Digital Age, 2012.
  • What does “hermeneutics” mean?
  • New methods of interacting with data demand new transparency from historical presentation
    • Process important (methodology)
    • Why?
    • What is potential cost to narrative history?
  • What are data?
    • Evidence for historical argument
    • More than evidence: creation of data, interaction with data, interpretation of data
    • Combining different kinds of datasets enables “new way to triangulate historical knowledge.”  Is this new?
    • “Historians must treat data as text….”
  • Visualizing data
    • “Aesthetic provocation”; dynamic process
    • The “value of screwing around”: quantitative data more than just math and statistics: discovering, framing, identifying trends
  • Failure

Group Work