We will spend a little time today looking at the Virginia Center for Digital History's "Valley of the Shadow" project. There are several reasons why:
1) The project opens a window onto the way that slavery shaped life within a community, and as a result, the topic is apropos to what we will cover today.
2) Valley of the Shadow reflects the sort of community study that we will be doing, albeit in a much smaller way, with our "A Community at War" research project
3) It opens a larger discussion of "doing digital history." At one point, the VCDH was one of the leading institutions in the field. A current perusal of their site seems to suggest a significant amount of stagnation. At the same time, other institutions like George Mason University's Center for History and New Media seem to be taking the lead. Why is this?
In addition to a discussion of Nelson & Sheriff chapter 1 and some lecture material on antebellum slavery in general, we'll spend a little time going over the "Community at War" assignment.
No comments:
Post a Comment