Abstract
Union College has yet to offer an introductory course in the Digital Humanities (DH), one of the fastest growing interdisciplinary academic fields. However, a grassroots effort by faculty and students has begun to incorporate DH into our curriculum. This individual video presentation surveys the continuing work in DH at Union and explores the integral role that the field will play in preparing Union for multiple tomorrows. My independent DH study projects serve as a synthetic narrative of the state of DH at Union and also address the evolution of the field in general. Over the past year, with Union's support, I have worked with Professor Andrew Burkett to conceptualize and develop an introductory-level DH course through summer research, including a trip to England to attend the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School, in addition to two terms of independent study in DH. Although a valuable case study for the growth of DH at Union, my experience constitutes only part of our existing MakerWeb, which incorporates digital scholarship across Union's disciplines. Union's current DH framework includes the Digital Scholarship team at Schaffer Library, the 3D Printing Lab, various MakerSpace labs across campus, in addition to a handful of courses and ongoing digital research and pedagogy across academic disciplines. As Union looks to balance its commitment as a liberal arts institution, fostering the growth of the whole individual while preparing students for a rapidly evolving job market, DH provides valuable perspectives on integrating theory and praxis in teaching and research.
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VideoObject
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In Copyright - Educational Use PermittedAbstract
The Irish Free State's narrative of independence proclaimed "Bold, Fenian, Men." This study challenges this male-centered history by focusing on women involved in the early twentieth century anti-colonial struggle. I explore the lives of the Gifford sisters, Grace, an artistically-gifted political icon, and Sidney, a trans-Atlantic journalist and paramilitary organizer, relying on historical and literary analysis of unconventional texts including pension records, witness statements and political cartoons. The sisters' self-portrayals destabilize the traditional categories that characterize modern Irish nationalism: combatant versus noncombatant, revolutionary versus mother, and feminist versus nationalist. In turn, this challenge forces a rewriting of the Irish State's foundation, twentieth-century Irish feminism and a falsely monolithic Irish identity. My Steinmetz presentation will focus on the connections between Sidney's and Grace's feminist and nationalist activism and how their confrontations with the mid-century Irish state expose the inherent complexities between individual feminine identities and collective national identity.
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VideoObject
Rights Statement
In Copyright - Educational Use PermittedAbstract
Having Hairs on Your Teeth? - Throughout our daily lives, we all rely on communication to express ourselves and connect with others. However, when trying to convey an idea in a different language, the message can get lost in translation. Although a dictionary may help untangle the word puzzle, some ideas are difficult to translate from one language to the next. In this presentation, I will discuss how some culturally-rooted sayings and concepts require artistic liberty and creativity when being translated. I conclude that translation requires more than word-for-word equivalency. It entails linguistic creativity and deep knowledge of the source and target cultures.; Lost in Translation - "What gets lost in translation?" Anyone that has ever attempted to translate a text or speech would know that it is nearly impossible to replicate a sentence word-by-word in a different language. As a trilingual speaker of Italian, English, and Spanish, I have come to appreciate and understand how different people express themselves across languages and cultures. In this presentation, I will use my language background to illustrate some challenges presented in translation, especially when the translator has to consider dialectal differences in Spanish texts. Some difficulties in translation originate from the fact that cultures have different ways of expressing themselves, and lack of cultural equivalency can occur even across different Spanish dialects.; Translating Gender - How do translators translate gender in languages that are not gender-specific? The use of grammatical gender in a language varies greatly, which makes translating gender a challenging and abstract task. Spanish is a language where gender plays a significant role in its grammatical structure, whereas English is not-gender specific. The main challenges of translating gender from Spanish to English (or English to Spanish) arise due to the differences in nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. In this presentation, I will discuss some of the challenges of translating Spanish, a gendered language, into a not gender-specific language (English) and vice versa, and explain how I, and my translation team, resolved these issues.; The Nuances of Translation - I will examine the lack of cultural equivalence in translation that I, as part of a translation team, encountered while translating various chapters from Ãngel A. Rivera's novel, La rabia útil de los muertos (Una novela de zombis), and the application form for Liberty Partnerships Program (a collaboration of 46 higher education institutions across New York State to support at-risk middle and high school students in their academic, social, and emotional development.) I will discuss our process of translating the novel, and how we worked as a group, using intimacy, original and authorial intent, and cultural significance as our guiding principles when making group decisions. I will explain unexpected difficulties for translators that appear in the form of culture-based lingual inequities, such as choosing between the more literal "word" equivalent versus the potentially briefer, protracted version that better captures the significance of the original word or phrase. I will discuss the benefits of each choice, and explain how and why we ultimately decided to translate certain parts of the texts the way that we did.; Found in Translation: Language, Meaning, and Global Citizenship - The study of translation constitutes interdisciplinary learning par excellance. It showcases the creative power of heterogeneity, most effectively in group settings which model the complexity of human experience. Translation study requires critical analysis of the source language, the target language and the creative space in between, revealing as much about home culture and language as other cultures and languages. Engaging with translation fosters a humble assertiveness, grounded in the ability to see oneself truly.
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