For the first week of class, we were able to go through a snapshot of the beginning of the 20th century and reviewed many of the important events that occurred. We began the teachings of the class at the start of the Great Depression and learned about the history of the Digital Humanities. I was originally interested in seeing how technology has changed through time, but after learning that this class is centered around the 1930s specifically, I feel that this will be an interesting era in which to relate the growth of tech.
We learned how closely connected ideas from the past are with innovations of today and saw this brought to life by looking at a piece of technology that we all use frequently (computers). This part of the lecture stayed in my mind as I was able to picture the advancement of the computer, and how the icons we see today are interpretations of what was originally used at the beginning.
Through Miriam Posner’s framework, I investigated the source, processing, and presentation of my assigned project, the “Passamaquoddy People” (Posner, 2019). Just like in her video, I started at the about page. The source of the project is a collection of wax cylinder sound recordings designed to teach the future children of the Passamaquoddy people about their ancestry through their own words, and to welcome the world to their heritage (Soctomah, et al, 2018). The information is processed through the transcription of the recording, done so by a language specialist, David Francis (Soctomah, et al, 2018). For human viewing, the project is presented as modern voice recordings of phrases. On the right side of the page, an introduction into who the Passamaquoddy are is outlined in both English and their native language. These recordings, both the transcriptions and newer translations, are vitally important to these people, as they feel it connects them to their ancestors (Soctomah, et al, 2018).
I like the combined use of audio and text. As a visual learner, it helps me to see what information is being relayed, and the written section with both languages made me feel connected with the message that was being presented. It was interesting to be able to listen to the translations of the cylinder recordings, and this concept further defends the topics from last week’s class where we learned about the progression of technology.
References:
Posner, Miriam. (2019, August 28). How Did They Make That? Retrieved from
Soctomah, D., Apt, M., Soctomah, M. D., Davis, G., Homan, L., & Leavitt, R. (2018, April 10). Passamaquoddy People. Retrieved from https://passamaquoddypeople.com/
