UECE 2011/2

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[1]   Prof. Katherine Rowe‘s blue-haired 

avatar was flying across a grassy landscape  

to a virtual three-dimensional re-creation of  

the Globe Theater, where some students  

[5] from her introductory Shakespeare class at  

Bryn Mawr College had already gathered  

online. Their assignment was to create  

characters on the Web site Theatron3 and  

use them to block scenes from the gory  

[10] revenge tragedy ''Titus Andronicus,'' to see  

how setting can heighten the drama. ''I‘ve  

done this class before in a theater and a  

lecture hall, but it doesn‘t work as well,'' Ms.  

Rowe said, explaining that it was difficult  

[15] for students to imagine what it would be like  

to put on a production in the 16th-century  

Globe, a circular open-air theater without  

electric lights, microphones and a curtain.  

  Jennifer Cook, a senior, used her laptop  

[20] to move a black-clad avatar center stage.  

She and the other half-dozen students  

agreed that in ''Titus,'' the rape, murders and  

final banquet — when the Queen  

unknowingly eats the remains of her two  

[25] children — should all take place in the same  

spot. ''Every time someone is in that space,''  

Ms. Cook said, "the audience is going to say,  

''Uh oh, you don‘t want to be there.‘ '' 

  Students like Ms. Cook are among the  

[30] first generation of undergraduates at dozens  

of colleges to take humanities courses '

even Shakespeare ''that are deeply  

influenced by a new array of powerful digital  

tools and vast online archives. Ms. Rowe‘s  

[35] students, who have occasionally met with  

her on the virtual Globe stage while wearing  

pajamas in their dorm rooms, are  

enthusiastic about the technology.  

  At the University of Virginia, history  

[40] undergraduates have produced a digital  

visualization of the college‘s first library  

collection, allowing them to consider what  

the selection of books says about how  

knowledge was classified in the early 18th  

[45] century. At Hamilton College, students can  

explore a virtual re-creation of the South  

African township of Soweto during the 1976  

student uprisings, or sign up for ''e-black  

studies'' to examine how cyberspace reflects  

[50] and shapes the portrayal of minorities.  

  Many teachers and administrators are  

only beginning to figure out the contours of  

this emerging field of digital humanities, and  

how it should be taught. In the classroom,  

[55] however, digitally savvy undergraduates are  

not just ready to adapt to the tools but also  

to explore how new media may alter the very  

process of reading, interpretation and  

analysis. ''There‘s a very exciting generation  

[60] gap in the classroom,'' said Ms. Rowe, who  

developed the digital components of her  

Shakespeare course with a graduate student  

who now works at Google. "Students are  

fluent in new media, and the faculty bring  

[65] sophisticated knowledge of a subject. It‘s a  

gap that won‘t last more than a decade. In  

10 years these students will be my  

colleagues, but now it presents unusual  

learning opportunities.'' As Ms. Cook said,  

[70] ''The Internet is less foreign to me than a  

Shakespeare play written 500 years ago.'' 

  Bryn Mawr‘s unusually close partnership 

with Haverford College and Swarthmore  

College has enabled the three institutions to  

[75] pool their resources, students and faculty. In  

November students from all three  

participated in the first Digital Humanities  

Conference for Undergraduates. 

  Jen Rajchel, one of the conference  

[80] organizers, is the first undergraduate at Bryn  

Mawr to have a digital senior thesis accepted  

by the English department: a Web site and  

archive on the American poet Marianne  

Moore, who attended the college nearly a  

[85] century ago. Presenting a Moore poem on  

the Web site while simultaneously displaying  

commentary in different windows next to the  

text (as opposed to listing them in a paper)  

more accurately reflects the work‘s multiple  

[90] meanings, according to Ms. Rajchel. After all,  

she argued in the thesis, Moore was acutely  

aware of her audience and made subtle  

alterations in her poems for different  

publications — changes that are more easily  

[95] illustrated by displaying the various versions.  

The Web presentation of Moore‘s poetry also

allows readers to add comments and talk to  

one another, which Ms. Rajchel believes  

matches the poet‘s interest in opening a  

[100] dialogue with her readers.  

  Particularly inspiring to Ms. Rajchel is  

that her work doesn‘t disappear after being  

deposited in a professor‘s in box. The site,  

which includes scans of original documents  

[105] from Bryn Mawr‘s library, was (and remains)  

viewable. ''It really can go outside of the  

classroom,'' she said, adding that an  

established Marianne Moore scholar at  

another university had left a comment.  

[110]   Doing research that lives outside the  

classroom is also what drew Anna Levine, a  

junior at Swarthmore, to digital humanities.  

Over the summer and after class, she and  

Richard Li, a senior at Swarthmore, worked  

[115] with Rachel Buurma, an assistant professor  

of literature there, to develop the Early  

Novels Database for the University of  

Pennsylvania‘s Rare Book and Manuscript  

Library, which enables users to search more  

[120] thoroughly through fiction published between 

1660 and 1830. ''I am the one doing all the  

grunt work,'' Ms. Levine said of her tasks,  

which largely involve entering details about a  

novel into the database. ''But one of the  

[125] great things is as an undergraduate, it really  

enables me to participate in a scholarly  

community.''

  In a Swarthmore lounge where Ms.  

Buurma‘s weekly research seminar on  

[130] Victorian literature and culture meets, Ms.  

Levine and a handful of other students  

recently settled into a cozy circle on stuffed  

chairs and couches. As part of their class  

work, they have been helping to correct the  

[135] transcribed online versions of Household  

Words and All the Year Round, two 19th-

century periodicals in which Charles Dickens

initially published some novels, including  

''Great Expectations,'' in serial form. On a  

[140] square coffee table sat a short stack of  

original issues of the magazine that a  

librarian had brought from the college‘s  

discussed how the experience of reading  

[145] differs, depending on whether the text is  

presented in discrete segments, surrounded  

by advertisements or in a leather binding;  

whether you are working in an archive,  

editing online or reading for pleasure.  

[150]   Those skeptical of the digital humanities  

worry that the emphasis on data analysis will  

distract students from delving deeply into the  

heart and soul of literary texts. But Ms.  

Buurma contends that these undergraduates  

[155] are in fact reading quite closely. 

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/March 21, 2011.

The sentences "Students like Ms. Cook are among the first generation of undergraduates at dozens of colleges to take humanities courses — even Shakespeare — that are deeply influenced by a new array of powerful digital tools and vast online archives.", "The site, which includes scans of original documents from Bryn Mawr’s library, was (and remains) viewable." and "Ms. Rowe’s students, who have occasionally met with her on the virtual Globe stage while wearing pajamas in their dorm rooms, are enthusiastic about the technology." contain, respectively, relative clauses of the following types: