The End of the World

March 14th 2024

I teach DH-oriented project management as a tabletop role-playing game, dubbed the #DHRPG. Participants each play a different institutional role than their own: one undergrad playing a librarian, another playing a grad student... read more

Alla

January 19th 2024

There were several years when I read a lot of "Captain Underpants", years before the kids could read the books themselves, and before they lost interest, save whatever nostalgia looks like to an 8-year-old... read more

Sorry This Is So Late (Mourning Braids)

January 8th 2024

The downside of always weaving data is that there's less place to just screw around with technique. I tried introducing a few leno twists into the end of my Gideon the Ninth weaving, but they didn't really work out like I'd hoped... read more

Weaving Spanish Moss

January 2nd 2024

With winter break starting so late this year, we went to central Florida to visit my father. On one of the first days, we took the kids to a park where the trees were lined with Spanish moss. I've always loved Spanish moss... read more

The Locked Loom 1: Gideon the Ninth

December 21st 2023

I've declared this academic year the Year of the Loom at the Textile Makerspace. Last March I replaced my desk with a floor loom without knowing the first thing about them, but since September I've been making a lot of progress on making sense of weaving as a textile craft... read more

Finding 'close enough' text

September 7th 2023

For people new to text analysis, it can be hard to wrap your head around the gap between what's completely obvious to you as a human and what's easily detectible by a computer. Especially when working with humanities data... read more

Coming to Terms with IDEs

August 23rd 2023

This week Brandon Walsh finished up his summer of blogging, a series I very much enjoyed following along with. It was a refreshing reminder that a blog post doesn't need to be a whole production: jotting down and sharing a few thoughts or a tip or a workflow can have a lot of value for yourself and others... read more

What If...?

July 4th 2023

This is the first time I've typed it: my high school Russian (and choir, and theater, but most of all Russian) teacher, Valerie Navarro, has died. There's a long list of high school friends and classmates I need to reach out to... read more

Missing Threads in a DH Origin Story

June 21st 2023

The "DH origin story" has become a genre, as I'm reminded by Brandon Walsh's recent Scholars Lab post on his. I've written mine too, including a couple takes on coding at the Data-Sitters Club at the Data-Sitters Club... read more

Celebrating a Labiversary

April 24th 2023

I woke up this morning to the news that it's Amanda Visconti and Brandon Walsh's 6-year anniversary at the Scholars' Lab. Were I closer to UVA, I'd have spent lunchtime hunting down whatever local variety of celebratory snack is the custom... read more