Stan Ruecker Delivers Lecture In IIT Humanities Department's Digital Humanities Series
Stan Ruecker, associate professor at IIT Institute of Design (ID), presented a lecture entitled "Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching in the First North American MA in the Digital Humanities: The University of Alberta's MA in Humanities Computing." The talk was the second presentation in a digital humanities (DH) lecture series sponsored by IIT's Department of Humanities.
Ruecker earned his PhD at University of Alberta, where he played a key role in developing an MA program in Humanities Computing in 2001, the first program of its kind. The university offers a two-year MA with Thesis and a combined three-year MA/MLIS.
His lecture included a brief history of digital humanities and the major journals that cover the field, along with information on major conferences and workshops around the world, including the Digital Humanities Summer Institute at University of Victoria that offers a dozen week-long courses and lectures every summer.
Game Studies, "a strong thread at DH conferences," has seen increasing popularity in courses. At the University of Alberta, instructors use "intensity experiences," every year before the regular fall semester begins. These sessions, approximately a week in duration, involve a problem (usually an augmented reality game design) that will have components from as many of the upcoming courses as possible. "The intensity experiences are designed to be very difficult to accomplish–the purpose is to help motivate the students to engage with the material," Ruecker said.
He is the author of Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage: A Guide to Rich–Prospect Browsing.
The humanities department lecture series, "Defining Boundaries and Goals in the Digital Humanities," is a sequence designed to foment discussion on the current state of the art in digital humanities and encourage exploration of the interdisciplinary issues within the field.
The next lecture will be held on February 14, from 1–2:30 p.m., in Siegel Hall 218. Leilah Lyons from UIC will deliver a talk on "The CoCensus Project: Aligning Embodiment with Informal Learning." Her talk will focus on developing interfaces for user interaction with big data in the context of museum studies and public education.
A complete lecture schedule for the academic year is available; anyone interested in the digital humanities is invited to attend.
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