PUBLIC AND DIGITAL HISTORY MOD.2

The course of Public and Digital History Mod. 2 is part of the Master’s Degree Programme in ‘Digital and Public Humanities’ and is connected to the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH) in the Department of Humanities.
The course Public and Digital History Mod. 2 (FM0489-2) is a course on Digital History. It can be combined with the second part of the homonymous course (FM0489-1), centred on Public History, with a total credit weight of di 12 CFU, or chosen as single course, with a weight of 6 CFU (Digital History, FM0491).
The objectives of the course are the acquisition of Digital History tools and methodologies and the understanding of the issues related to the production and consumption of history in digital public history, through applied practice based research.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
• Knowledge of relevant theoretical and intellectual debates around digital public history, with a focus on spatial approaches.
• Knowledge of the main techniques and methodologies of historical research carried out with the public and in public, with a focus on spatial approaches..
• Knowledge of the main techniques and methodologies of historical dissemination carried out with the public and in public.
• Recognise and understand relevant historical and digital humanities terminology and concepts

2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
• Ability to apply the practice of digital public history to a specific case study.
• Ability to solve the problems connected to the dissemination of historical studies in non-academic contexts, through the framework of place based interpretation.
• Through groupwork, acquire and apply skills and tools related to spatial and digital humanities to a real-world context.

3. Judgement skills:
• Ability to critically analyse a historical source and adapt it to the uses of digital public history.
• Ability to develop critical thinking skills with reference to the issue of the public use of history and the alteration of historical memory in non-scholarly contexts.
• Research independently and interpret information based on a range of primary and secondary sources

4. Communication skills:
• Ability to interact with the peers and the professor and communicate the outcomes of the student’s work.
• Based on groupwork activity, communicate ideas effectively in both oral and written forms for a wider audience.

A basic knowledge of history or art history is, if not required, desirable.

This course provides an insight into how digital tools and location-based methodologies can combine to create digital public history. The course considers the early modern period (c. 1450-1700) in the urbanised heart of Europe, with particular attention to drawing out evidence from Venice as a working case example. In addition to traditional historical methodology, we will work with locative media technologies to co-create a GPS-enabled smartphone app (using the Hidden Cities content management system) that enables an engagement with histories of place, adopting an innovative place-based research methodology. Thus, while historical enquiry is at the heart of the course, through digital tools and field work, we will explore and communicate the memories and meanings of public space in cities through practical application of place-based interpretation.

Fabrizio Nevola, Street Life in Renaissance Italy, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2020

Fabrizio Nevola, David Rosenthal and Nicholas Terpstra (eds.), Hidden Cities: Urban Space, Locative Apps and Public History in Early Modern Europe, Routledge (London), February 2022

Further reading
D. J. Bodenhamer, ‘The Potential of Spatial Humanities’, in David J. Bodenhamer, John Corrigan, and Trevor M. Harris (eds.) The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the Future of Humanities Scholarship, Indiana University Press 2010

Filippo de Vivo, ‘Walking in Renaissance Venice’, I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 19 (2016), pp. 115–41

Jason Farman, ‘Site-Specificity, Pervasive Computing, and the Reading Interface’, in Jason Farman ed., The mobile story: narrative practices with locative technologies, London: Routledge, 2014

I. N. Gregory, D. DeBats, D. Lafreniere, The Routledge Companion to Spatial History, London : Routledge, 2018

Henri Lefebvre, ‘Plan of The Present Work’, in The city cultures reader, edited by Malcolm Miles, Iain Borden, and Tim Hall, London : Routledge, 2000, pp. 260-68

Todd Presner, David Shepard, and Yoh Kawano, ‘Lexicon’, in HyperCities: Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities, Harvard University Press: Cambridge Mass., 2014, pp. 12-22

Faye Sayer, ‘History beyond the classroom’, in Public History. A practical guide, London: Bloomsbury, 2019, 1-18

Victoria Szabo, ‘Guidebooks and Mobile Apps: A New Mode for Communication’, in K. L. Huffamn, A. Giordano and C. Bruzelius, Visualizing Venice Routledge: London 2017, 100-110

All the articles and other didactic materials will be made available through the Moodle e-learning platform.

1. Attendance, contribution to discussions and the course activities, including presentations
2. In class contribution and write-up of the group research project (feedback provided), supported by the workshop activities
3. Final written exam revolving around the project and the topics discussed in class.
Non-attending students need to contact the lecturer about the assignments and prepare additional reading.

Classes with activities in and outside the class, and interaction between professors and students.
Attendance is strongly recommended.
The required reading and additional material will be made available through the Moodle e-learning platform.

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