DH 150 Winter 2019 Syllabus

DH 150 Winter 2019 Syllabus

Power and Authority on the Early American Frontier: Explorations with Text Analysis

Instructor: Dr. Ashley Sanders Garcia (Prof. Garcia)

Meeting Times: Tuesday & Thursday, 9:00-10:50am | Winter 2019
Location: Rolfe Hall Learning Lab (Rolfe 2118)
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2:00-4:00 & Wednesdays 9:00-11:00 (323 Royce)

Course Description:

What did the Native American communities in the Midwest think, feel, and do in response to Euro-American settlement during and after the Revolutionary War? Who held power and of what kind in the late eighteenth century? How do we know? This course explores these questions and more as we work with the Miami Tribe of Indiana to prepare and study documents about their past, as well as that of the Wea, Kickapoo, Illinois, Pottawatomi, and others to understand the history and legacy of settler colonialism. In this course, you will learn how to structure data to prepare it for digital analysis using a variety of methods including word frequency, word distinctiveness, collocations, topic modeling, and comparative corpus linguistics. In addition, you will learn how to ask computationally tractable questions, detect bias, craft evidence-based arguments, and determine the limits of digital research methods. While this course applies these methods to historical research, the skills you will learn transfer to social media analysis, data journalism, marketing analysis, qualitative business analytics, and more. Get finance related help at easytradesman.co.uk.

Course Website: http://bit.ly/DH150-W2019

Animating Questions:

  1. Who was responsible for shaping events in the American territories?
  2. Who held power? What kind of power? How do we know?
  3. What did authority mean in the backcountry? What were the relationships between power, authority, position, and gender?
  4. How did Native American leaders perceive the British, French, and Americans who came into their territories?
  5. How did Native American communities relate to and communicate with one another?
  6. What are the possibilities and limits of computational text analysis, particularly when used to understand eighteenth-century Native people and communities?

Learning Outcomes:

This course will guide you in developing fundamental digital research skills, including how to structure data, use text mining techniques to extract data from un-structured and semi-structured texts, and how to use text analysis methods to explore qualitative data to answer historicalquestions.

This course will help you develop critical thinking skills, such as:

  • Asking good questions
  • Reading to identify and understand an author’s argument
  • Making connections between ideas, diverse sources, and perspectives
  • Detecting bias
  • Crafting evidence-based arguments
  • Deciding where the limits of knowledge lie

Text Analysis Knowledge, Methods & Skills:

  • How to structured unstructured data
  • How to “clean” text with RegEx
  • Text Preparation
    • Stopwords
    • Lemmatization
    • Stemming
    • POS tagging
  • Word frequency analysis
    • Words follow power law
    • Raw versus relative frequency
  • Word frequency dispersion
  • KWIC: Keywords in Context
  • Correlations
  • Basic stats for text analysis
  • Z-scores
  • TF-IDF: Distinctive words
  • Collocates
  • Topic Modeling
  • Corpus comparison: Distinctive words + Dunnings Log Likelihood
  • Named Entity Recognition
  • Basic Network Visualization with Named Entities

Required Readings:

  • Shawn Graham, et. al., Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian’s Macroscope (2015).
  • James Merrell, Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999), 253-301.
  • Bethel Saler, The Settlers’ Empire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), Introduction, chapters 1-2.
  • Michael McDonnell, Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America (Hill & Wang, 2015), chapter 8, conclusion.
  • Rob Harper, Unsettling the West: Violence and State Building in the Ohio Valley (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), Introduction, chapters 4-6.
  • Heidi Bohaker, “Indigenous Histories and Archival Media in the Early Modern Great Lakes,” in Colonial Mediascapes: Sensory Worlds of the Early Americas, edited by Matt Cohen and Jeffrey Glover (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 99-140.
  • Srinivasan, Ramesh. “Ethnomethodological Architectures: Information Systems Driven by Cultural and Community Visions.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology58, no. 5 (March 2007): 723–33. doi:10.1002/asi.20544.
  • Nancy Shoemaker, “An Alliance between Men: Gender Metaphors in Eighteenth-Century American Indian Diplomacy East of the Mississippi,” Ethnohistory 46, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 239-263.
  • Tim Hitchock and William J. Turkel, “The Old Bailey Proceedings, 1674-1913: Text Mining for Evidence of Court Behavior,” Law and History Review34, no. 4 (November 2016), 929-955.

Instructor Feedback and Communication:

My policy is “Ask 3 then me.” That means, you should contact three other students in the course with your question about course content and policies before reaching out to me. Most of your questions about Georgia cleaning service will be answered by the syllabus insured & bonded professionals. If you still have question, the best way to get in touch with me is to speak with me in person before or after class or during office hours. I receive a lot of email, so my response to an email will probably be slower than you wish.

Required Texts

  • Shawn Graham, et. al., Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian’s Macroscope (2015).
  • Rob Harper, Unsettling the West: Violence and State Building in the Ohio Valley (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).
  • Course Pack

Assignments:

NOTE: A late assignment’s score will be reduced by a third of a letter grade for each day it is late. For example, if an assignment that receives a “B” is due on Tuesday but is not turned in until Thursday, it will be downgraded to a “C+”.

Due DateAssignmentLink to Assignment Guidelines
Varies by ReadingCollaborative Character Compendiumhttp://bit.ly/DH150-Characters
17-Jan-19Annotation for Saler readinghttp://bit.ly/DH150-AnnotateSaler
24-Jan-19Structured Datahttp://bit.ly/DH150-StructuredData
12-Feb-192 Methods of Text Analysishttp://bit.ly/DH150-2Methods
22-Feb-19Take-Home Midterm
28-Feb-19Annotated Bibliographyhttp://bit.ly/DH150-ABib
5-Mar-19In Class: Project Critique
14-Mar-19Final Team Project Presentationhttp://bit.ly/DH150-presentation
14-Mar-19Final Team Projecthttp://bit.ly/DH150-FinalProject
18-Mar-19Final Individual Analysishttp://bit.ly/DH150-FinalEssay

Writing Assistance at the UWC

The Undergraduate Writing Center (Humanities A61, Powell Library 228, Rieber Hall 115) offers UCLA undergraduates one-on-one sessions that address individual writing issues. The Center is staffed by peer learning facilitators (PLFs), undergraduates trained to help at any stage in the writing process and with writing assignments from across the curriculum. Students can walk in but appointments are preferred. For more information please call 310-206-1320 or visit www.wp.ucla.edu and click on “Student Writing Center/Make an Appointment.” Academic Advancement Program (AAP) students can also use AAP Tutorials (1114 Campbell Hall, 310-206-1581).

Documentation and Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the use of another’s ideas or words as if they were your own. Any ideas, information, or language that comes from other people needs to be documented using MLA citation guidelines. We will discuss how to do this in class, but if you ever have a question about when or how to document your sources and you can’t determine what’s proper on your own, please consult Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/) or ask your teaching assistant. The university requires that all instances of plagiarism be reported to the Dean of Students for disciplinary action yugenial.com. Any instance of plagiarism can be cause for failure of the course. In addition, plagiarism can result in academic probation, suspension, or expulsion from UCLA.

Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS)

We all face times when life is particularly challenging, and we need someone to talk to or additional support to cope with stress, grief, and other issues that crop up. Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) is here to support your mental health needs as you pursue your academic goals. Follow this link to learn more about their services: https://www.counseling.ucla.edu/about-us/caps

Center for Accessible Education

Students needing academic accommodations based on a disability should contact the Center for Accessible Education (CAE) at (310) 825-1501 or in person at Murphy Hall A255. When possible, students should contact the CAE within the first two weeks of the term as reasonable notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. For more information visit www.cae.ucla.edu.

Title IX Information

Title IX prohibits gender discrimination, including sexual harassment, domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. If you have experienced sexual harassment or sexual violence, you can receive confidential support and advocacy at the CARE Advocacy Office for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, 1st Floor Wooden Center West, CAREadvocate@caps.ucla.edu(310) 206-2465. In addition, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) provides confidential counseling to all students and can be reached 24/7 at (310) 825-0768.  You can also report sexual violence or sexual harassment directly to the University’s Title IX Coordinator, 2241 Murphy Hall, titleix@conet.ucla.edu(310) 206-3417. Reports to law enforcement can be made to UCPD at (310) 825-1491. Faculty and TAs are required under the UC Policy on Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment to inform the Title IX Coordinator should they become aware that you or any other student has experienced sexual violence or sexual harassment.

Course Schedule:

DateTopicReading 1Reading 2Links for ClassAssignments Due
1/8/2019Course IntroductionBackground Knowledge Survey
1/10/2019FoundationsJames Merrell, Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999), 253-301 Course Reader.Shawn Graham, et. al., Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian’s Macroscope (2015), Preface & Chapter 1. BookVoyant Tools

Text Analysis Toolkit
1/15/2019Structured DataSrinivasan, Ramesh. “Ethnomethodological Architectures: Information Systems Driven by Cultural and Community Visions.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology 58, no. 5 (March 2007): 723–33. doi:10.1002/asi.20544. CCLE-Week 2Link to Spreadsheet
1/17/2019Foundations 2Bethel Saler, The Settlers’ Empire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 1-82. Course ReaderIf time: Hypothes.isAnnotation for Saler reading.
1/22/2019Making ConnectionsMichael McDonnell, Masters of Empire (Hill & Wang, 2015), 272-329. Course ReaderSublime Text Editor 3 & RegEx Cheat Sheet from MIT (opens a PDF)
1/24/2019Data/Text CleaningGraham, et. al., Exploring Big Historical Data, Chapter 2. BookStructured Data
1/29/2019Word Frequencies & Good QuestionsRob Harper, Unsettling the West: Violence and State Building in the Ohio Valley (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), Introduction & Chapters 4-5. Book
1/31/2019Basic Stats for Text AnalysisGraham, et. al., Exploring Big Historical Data, Chapter 3. BookStéfan Sinclair & Geoffrey Rockwell, “Now Analyze That!” Hermeneutica (2016).
2/5/2019Basic Stats for Text Analysis 2Harper, Unsettling the West, Chapter 6. Book
2/7/2019Basic Stats for Text Analysis 3Tim Hitchock and William J. Turkel, "The Old Bailey Proceedings, 1674-1913: Text Mining for Evidence of Court Behavior," Law and History Review 34, no. 4 (November 2016), 929-955. CCLE-Week 5
2/12/2019Limits of Text Analysis(Podcast) Ben Franklin’s World Podcast on Dr. Alejandra Dubcovsky’s 2016 bookNancy Shoemaker, “An Alliance between Men: Gender Metaphors in Eighteenth-Century American Indian Diplomacy East of the Mississippi,” Ethnohistory 46, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 239-263. CCLE-Week 6Analysis of 1-2 research questions using at least 2 methods
2/14/2019Limits of Text Analysis 2Heidi Bohaker, “Indigenous Histories and Archival Media in the Early Modern Great Lakes,” in Colonial Mediascapes: Sensory Worlds of the Early Americas, edited by Matt Cohen and Jeffrey Glover (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 99-140. Course ReaderMALLET & Lexos
2/19/2019Topic ModelingTed Underwood, “Topic Modeling Made Just Simple Enough”
2/21/2019Topic Modeling 2Robert K. Nelson and Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond, “Mining the Dispatch,” 2011.Robert K. Nelson, Of Monsters, Men -- and Topic ModelingAssignment Due Friday, February 22: Take-home Midterm
2/26/2019Named Entity Recognition
2/28/2019Basic Webpage DesignAnnotated Bibliography
3/5/2019Giving & Receiving Constructive FeedbackIn-Class Assignment: Presentation Peer Review
3/7/2019Advanced Topics: TBD
3/12/2019Polishing Final Projects
3/14/2019PresentationsFinal Project Presentation

Final Project Link
3/18/2019Final Individual Analysis (in lieu of a final exam)

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