This is the 2016 site. Please go to the 2017 site: gainesville2017.thatcamp.org/

Proposed Talk Session:

Is there room for failure in digital humanities? Of course! But most people don’t advertise their failures. This proposed talk session provides an opportunity for a community of fellow travelers to share turning points that could not be foreseen, paths taken and then retraced, and dead ends that resulted after promises of success.

We learn from failure. We can gain resilience, perspective, and capacity by attempting what we have not done before. But not every failed project teaches great lessons. Introducing a collegial space for contemplation in project planning, operations, and evaluation can help.

The conversation could be structured by looking at several ways of contextualizing the social meanings of undertaking projects. How does failure (or fear of it) affect relationships, relate to resource allocation decisions, reflect or shape perspectives, or testify to the power of ego?

Suggested quotes for starting the discussion:

• “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” (Alexander Pope)
• “You break it, you own it.” (Colin Powell)
• “It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.” (Ellen DeGeneres)
• “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.” (Sophocles)

There is currently a new academic field emerging in social science which focuses on using strategic communications to strengthen social movements and to create effective campaigns to achieve social good. This new field is called Public Interest Communications. University of Florida is leading the charge in this emerging field:  Each year at the end of February, Gainesville becomes the site of the annual frank gathering (frank.jou.ufl.edu) of 300 leading social movement builders and change makers – the people who use communications to drive social change. The frank team also organizes

• the interdisciplinary frank (scholar) academic conference
• changeville, a documentary virtual reality and music festival, featuring artists who share a passion for driving positive social change through their works
• frankology — summaries of recent peer-reviewed research from multiple disciplines,
• frank finds — a collection of headlines and links to great content from the interwebs
• speak frankly — our blog that features insights from practitioners in the field
• 7 Minutes in Heaven with a Scientist – a podcast series

If people are interested, I (and hopefully my colleague Barbara) would hold a THATCamp talk session to give you an overview of what makes Public Interest Communications different from other fields and what is going on right now in the field, particular at University of Florida.

We will then focus on having a workshop style discussion on how you can use your expertise to best achieve social change (and how we can perhaps help).

Initiatives such as the creation of STEAM from the widely known STEM Collaborative (Science, Technology, Engineering, ART, Math) recognized that art and the humanities are irrefutably core components of any production of knowledge. The affects of art and aesthetics are not easily qualified or quantified so they become easily dismissed.

Yet, you know when it is gone.                                                                                                                                                         The project, the experiment, the writing, the building, the meeting feels… off, or less than. No one knows what it is and it feels wrong, but something is missing, a certain je ne sais quoi that would make it right. This proposed session will attempt to discuss and explain the inexplicable. Through examples across the humanities (science to art) we will try to tease out the aesthetics that collectively balance the senses of perception and emit a signal of ‘rightness’ to the observing  majority.

The focus and structure of this presentation/poster/session/?  is guided by a Question

(Are there people who don’t appreciate a good view?)………………… and a Joke

(Q: How many Surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A:Knock-Knock).

Proposed by: Marissa Selena Molinar, MA (Comparative Art & Archaeology)                                         PhD Candidate_Archaeology. University of Florida                            

The crux of the digital humanities project I’d like to discuss is a multimedia, interactive book and documentary project that revolves around the collaborative formation of images, stories, memories, and experiences. Using social network sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr where people of different ages, ethnic groups, religions, and experiences with the Silver River in the Ocala National Forest can upload their own photographs, sound files, videos and commentary to help answer the inquiry: how can we envision humaNature entanglements through a decolonial, feminist lens to explore otherwise silenced counter-narratives to hegemonic conservation and development rhetoric?

Professors Laura Heffernan (English), Anne Pfister (Anthropology) and Clayton McCarl (Spanish) would like to propose a session to discuss their work on a variety of recent and ongoing digital projects at the University of North Florida. They will be joined by a group of  students and recent alumni who are involved in these endeavors.

The co-founders of Self Narrate (myself and Dr. Jaron Jones) propose to share a talk on the power of storytelling, both personally and organizationally.

Is there anyone out there using DH in a K-12 classroom?

Is there anyone doing oral history work with Internet tools?

Is there anyone exploring snapchat and DH?

Is anyone building mobile apps with cultural or critical goals in mind?

The Florida Digital Humanities Consortium (FLDH.org) is a network of higher education organizations across Florida that advocates for and coordinates digital work and the humanities statewide. How might we use FLDH to build shared digital Florida projects that have multiple contributors statewide? And how can we use FLDH to enable diverse students from more educational institutions to learn and participate in DH work? This is a brainstorming session. Come and share your thoughts on how we support more DH happening everywhere, not only in higher ed!

Libraries host exhibitions and speaker events to promote collections and engage communities. The UF Libraries deployed innovative technologies to connect with and patrons through exhibits and speakers to enhance research, learning, and communication. Previously, patrons attending an exhibit or presentation benefited from the experience. However, they often did not have an opportunity to ask questions, share comments, request more information, or be further engaged. In 2015, UF developed the new open source Community Engagement Engine (CEE) for iPads (handheld and kiosks) for use in exhibit and presentation spaces. Now, visitors may submit questions and comments in an unmediated and unfiltered process. This interaction allows the visitor to receive, by automated, graphic-intense email, additional relevant materials, such as speaker slides, digitized primary source documents, or readings and multimedia files, which are selected by the exhibit curator or speaker to increase the learning impact and further engagement with the library. Additionally, visitors may register to receive updates about the subject area of interest; for example announcements of new acquisitions, or notices of future speaker events or exhibits. Importantly, CEE allows libraries to aggregate and organize patron contact information collected through these exchanges to develop specific communities of interest which can be oriented by geography, subject matter, etc. This enables targeted outreach, development, and assessment. This presentation will serve as a case study of innovation for community engagement, and will include discussion for other institutions that may be interested in deploying CEE or a similar system of their own.

This is being presented by Brian W. Keith, Lourdes Santamaria-Wheeler, and Laurie Taylor.