ID: Action: Unhealthy/grotesque

ID: Action: subordinate/solicitous

ID: External appearance: pretentious/superficial

ID: Exernal appearance: grotesque/excessive

DD [Direct Definition]: Rude

ID: Action: Subordinate

ID [Indirect Definition]: Action: Talkative/Self-centered

Great poet. Veteran Cal State Fresno prof. Originally from Detroit.

"Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, “Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!" Eliot, "Waste Land"

While it's raining cats and dogs in the Hemingway story, there are very few animals in "The Waste Land." This reflects different meanings for nature in both texts.

The Eliot line presents dogs as a threat rather than humankind's boon companion. This makes sense as elements of nature in the rest of the poem are seen also seen as threatening and dangerous - - from "dead trees" to the ocean that drowns Phlebas to the "empty cisterns and exhausted wells" later in the poem.

The cat in Hemingway's story can be seen as a metaphor for all the things the "American wife" wants, for all the lacks and deficiencies she feels in her life (particularly her marriage). She wants to shelter the cat from inhospitable nature. This is very different from Eliot's poem, where there is not shelter from the storm or from a deranged nature.

On this note, a comparison of Nick's experience on the "Big Two-Hearted River" and of Eliot's representation of the polluted Thames might also be helpful

Here's a quick guide to embedding images and links.

the heartland . . .located above the lungs . . .

"Woman, you are so great, and so worthy, that what grace wants, and you do not have recourse to you, His dislike wants to fly without wings."

"You who alone once ruled the nature of things.'' Lucretius]

Lions are wild animals with a fearsome reputation for savagery and hi-jinks. . . always down to clown.

Phil Levine was a great American poet and faculty emeritus at Cal State Fresno. He was also the U.S. Poet Laureate. Born in Detroit to a working-class family, he worked in factories for years before becoming a fantastic, superlative poet.

When you annotate this time around, let's focus on connecting Du Bois to Adams. Think back to some of the ideas and motifs from our discussion of "The Dynamo and the Virgin." These might include:

• irony (as the disjuncture between appearance and reality, or a split between subject and object and/or "force" and "form");

• consciousness (vs. things/reality);

• existentialism (i.e. a world/life without Truth, Final Destinations, Total Fulfillment, etc.);

• crisis (as in a rupture or "irruption" of new forces, i.e. historical change);

Bonus connector: Recall that Adams opens his essay by declaring that "Until the Great Exposition of 1900 closed its doors in November, Adams haunted it . . ." I.e. Adams describes himself as a ghost. Can you find any similar moments in Du Bois where he uses the language of ghosts, haunting, spectres, etc. to explain his ideas? (If you can, remind me to talk Tuesday about "hauntology" - - a pun on "ontology.")

DoE CARES funding . . .

"Howl" was written in Berkeley, CA, and first performed in San Francisco in 1955. It was subsequently published in 1956.

Here's a quick intro to the poem:

https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/819087085-lawrence-hanley-intro-to-ginsberg-howl.mp3

Motif Hunt!

Listen to this recording: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/787092007-lawrence-hanley-wastelandepigraph.mp3

In the little recording, I use the epigraph to point to a bunch of motifs in "The Waste Land." These include:

• voices
• text as plagiarism/remix
• zombies (neither this nor that; both this and that;mixing)
• un/natural time
• desire frustrated
• exile
• fragments
• dry/wet (not in the epigraph but related to fragments and the un/natural)
• women and men

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: choose a five line excerpt from at least two of the four remaining sections of the poem ("A Game of Chess," "The Fire Sermon," "Death by Water," "What the Thunder Said"); use annotation to show me how many of the motifs from the list above you can find in each of your two excerpts; in each excerpt - - explain how the motif appears and what the motif seems to mean.

coronavirsu

https://freesound.org/data/previews/235/235796_2735146-lq.mp3

reallocation of IRA funds?

IRA funds reallocated for Capital Projects?

"reclassification" of IRA fees at SFSU

Category II fee

on athletic fees from California code

table of student fees at SFSU

From California Ed Code definition

not for faculty salary support: "Income from the IRA fee as distinguished from other revenues shall not be expended on matters which are tuitional. Thus such income shall not be used to support faculty positions." E.O. 290

EO 1102: "Unless established prior to January 1, 2013, Category II fees established through an affirmative vote of the majority of the student body voting on the fee, but not specifically authorized by statute, shall not be reallocated to alternative purpose(s) without an affirmative vote of a majority of the members of either the student body or Campus Fee Advisory Committee voting on the reallocation. "

but per CSU EO 1102: "Students appointed by the campus student body association shall constitute a majority of the voting members of the Campus Fee Advisory Committee."

Natalie Diaz biography.

Love Rebecca Solnit. Do you want to make this a page? That way it doesn't get lost in the flow of blog posts and makes navigating to it easier. You can also set hypothesis to open only on pages, so that your posts don't get cluttered and graffitied (is that word?).

Nice poem! If you make it a separate page, you keep the flow of blog posts continuous and make it easier for a reader to navigate to the page.

Wow . . great poem! Do you want to keep the comment section below the page? In some ways hypothesis replaces this function. If you want to get rid of it - - you can do so via quick edit of this page.

Good job, great poem! I see you're already tinkering with themes - - excellent. As you try out different themes, remember you can customize a theme that looks good (via widgets, plugins, etc.). As you cycle through themes, just make sure that the theme keeps the things you want (blogroll, page menus, etc.)

Nice poem. Is this a page or a blog post? It seems to be the only item on your wordpress homepage, which is fine so long as the blogposts are visible (as in your left sidebar). Which do you want to feature? Pages or blog posts?

Billy Collins taught for years at Lehman College around the corner from my neighborhood in the Bronx. My sister met him several times at a local bar/restaurant where she waitressed. Evidently, an interesting guy in poetry and elsewhere . . .

This introductory paragraph works well because it introduces the main idea and structure of the essay: Caroline journeys to a new place and the place transforms here, i.e. A-B-A'.

The key elements of this transformation are defined clearly and succinctly: "focused on herself"; other world = discovery of false appearances; world as a whole and not self.

This sounds a lot like "Young Goodman Brown" to me: the journey through another world allows Coraline to see things she hadn't seen before. Why not score points and make this connection explicit? I.e. "As with Goodman Brown, Coraline's journey allows her to see her world in new ways."

Again, the connections back to Hawthorne and Irving don't have to be involved and wordy. A good analysis should note the connections but keep the focus on the narrative being interpreted.

It would be great if the writer could quickly and succinctly connect this space of transformation to Hawthorne/Irving. I.e. something like: "As with the secret valley in 'Rip Van Winkle,' the "Other World" is more vivid and enjoyable than the world Coraline leaves behind." Or: "Despite its appearances, the 'Other World,' like the woods in 'Young Goodman Brown', poses serious challenges to Coraline."

This paragraph pretty much repeats the previous one. Better to use this space in the essay to more fully explain how the narrative shows us these things.

Conclusions often just repeat things. However, avoid this in a two-page essay. I won't forget your main idea. Instead simply use your final paragraph(s) to complete your argument.

Here is the A', but it's kind of weak. How exactly did the search for lost children's eyes give Coraline this perspective? And, what evidence does the movie show of Coraline's transformation? The essay seems to punt on these important connections.

Here, we get a little too much plot summary. You should only use details of plot or setting or description or action to develop your argument. Avoid summary by asking: how does this detail, description, etc. contribute to my argument? to the development of my main idea?

The summary here actually tends to distract from the essay's argument, i.e. how does the search for missing eyes demonstrate what Coraline "learns"? And how does the initiation into a world of appearances make her less self-centered?

By the way, I don't know this movie but it sounds pretty creepy.

Here, a detail the "button eyes" is connected to broader theme about seeing and perception and appearances. That's very nice!

Again, this essay does a good job with using details to illustrate and develop an argument. Notice here and in the rest of the paragraph how details about the "Other World" are used to support the argument about difference and transformation.

Although this is a pretty good description of "A" - - the starting point of the narrative, don't forget: "A" is only important in so far as it becomes the basis for change.

This writer does a pretty good job of pointing to the essay's argument about A - B - A'. And, notice how the writer puts their topic sentence at the end of the paragraph. I like that variation on the usual paragraph structure.

However, in the first paragraph, the writer says that Coraline begins the narrative as self-centered. My question for this writer would be: how do the things described in this paragraph define Coraline's self-centeredness? I.e. each paragraph should develop a part of the argument you're trying to make. Try to make sure this development explicit.

I like the way this writer describes things with just the right level of detail - - not too much, not too little.

One way of improving this paragraph would be to reference the stories we've read, to quickly connect Coraline to Hawthorne and/or Irving. So for instance, little tag phrases like: "Like Goodman Brown, she learns about false appearances . . . "; or, "Once she returns, like Robin in "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," Caroline gains a mature perspective of the world as a whole . . . "

These kind of quick, efficient connecting phrases show me that you are thinking about Coraline within the context of our course. They also help me to see how deeply you've thought about the texts and ideas we've discussed.

to round back on "surveillance capitalism" . . . so many academic technologies are not isolated. That is, they exist in a data ecosystem . . . for instance, the LMS data gets fed into other programs/algorithms . . . Would it be fair to say that, behind the scenes, academic institutions also create a kind of "surveillance economy"? Marc Bousquet has dedicated some time trying to elucidate this "higher ed informatics" . . . How might a Freirean pedagogy tackle this extra-mural reality? Or not . . .

Is there a way to read this as: technologies are a means, not an end? I.e. that your argument is about how technologies are socialized, not "technology" per se? Or, alternatively, we often think of institutions "using" or "adopting" technologies, but technologies can also prefigure new institutional/social relations? Trying to avoid techno-determinism here . . .

Call me old-fashioned, but I wonder why this shouldn't feature more prominently w/i academic labor? I.e. too far-fetched, speaking as a union member, for this - - reclaiming technology both for humanistic purposes and commoning/communising technology by and for teachers/workers . . . to be included in collective bargaining?

Yes. This echoes a debate within the OER movement, I think - - between the "affordability" argument for OER and the "open pedagogy" argument. I.e. a debate about capitalism trying to claw OER back into value-production etc.

Very cool connection here - - digital and Freire - - and a lot to think about. What is the relationship between "oppression" and "exploitation"? What might "oppression" leave out that "exploitation" foregrounds and vice versa?

Yes, surveillance is definitely an aspect of digital capitalism. But, I wonder if this doesn't conceive of capitalism/technology in liberal terms? I.e. does "surveillance" (and its threat) belong to liberal discourses and so set the terms of discussion along some particular paths rather than others? I think this is an argument raised by Fuchs, or maybe it's Dyer-Witheford? Or maybe both.

Again, reminds me of Jim Groom. Alternatively, also reminds me of the Wobblies (IWW): " . . . we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old."

Yes. The technology can't be isolated from the institution and from institutional transformation. This is hard work and escapes our usual sense of "pedagogy" or even "profession." (Tried to point to some ways to make this move once a while ago.)

like OpenPedagogy? . . . a movement that grows out of but exceeds OER . . .

I wonder . . .how does Wikipedia fit in here . . especially their Wikiedu efforts? (Thinking about this as I'm doing a Wikipedia project with students this semester.)

This is a great phrase . . .and, imo, that "consciousness" needs to become "self-consciousness." This was one lesson from Randy Bass's Visible Knowledge Project: what started out as a kind of tech and teaching thing morphed into a focus on learning, and tech became a tool for participants to examine learning/to become "reflective practitioners" . . .

absolutely but not always .. . when it's instituted in a certain way (LMS, CMS, etc.) . . . but how, for instance, would Jim Groom's "edu-punk" approach fit in here?

I wonder too if the "ignorant schoolmaster" might also be re-mediated as the "ignorant game designer," i.e. your work sounds like the work of a game designer - - creating environments, problems, and goals that must be solved independently and collectively by the player?

how was the fit between "tabletop game" and students whose sense of "game" now refers to apps and MMO/MMORPG/etc. games?

lovely! . . again, mark this as properly thieved!

love this project! . . will mis/appropriately steal it . . . thanks

. . . reminds me of the "broken" textures you often find in proletarian/working-class writing, where we can see the shattered/distorted mirror-image of canonical authority . . . or, as Stephen Dedalus opines of his/Joyce's Calibanesque/colonial status: "It is the symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant." . . an inspiration perhaps for Naipaul's later "mimic men"?

a weird but familiar voice . . . David Bartholomae once wrote about how students "invent the university" in their acts of writing . . . or, invent an imagined university

I agree . . . there comes a point where annotation outweighs the text itself . . . making for distraction and worse.

a good way of posing this distinction . . .

indeed, a tool is only as useful as the task at hand . . . i.e. the value of a tool depends on how we define the task. The question of satire is a great one. I wonder if there are any textual markers of satire? What if you were to compare Swift's satire to non-satirical treatments of the same problem?

This is really interesting . . is the story really about marriage?

Indeed, always the question for tools like Voyant: to what extent does the inquiry lead the tool and to what extent does the tool lead/determine the inquiry? When I read Digital Humanities criticism, I think it's often the latter . . . and usually that's kind of interesting, but not overly relevant.

but even this is interesting . i.e. how does Fitzgerald create this sense/atmosphere/theme without using the word "wealth"? Are there other key words for him to signify wealth?

one sociocultural/ideological phenomeon omitted is: labor . . . to what extent does edtech focus, as in much technology generally, to eliminate labor and its costs, to raise productivity, to inscribe greater control over creation of value?

looks good

Eliot reading his poem.

that's a lot of kids to lose, isn't it?

ancillary market . . . OER as a means to selling other stuff

Distribution trumps creation? Framing the OER question.

A Walmart tactic? E.g. leverage size and scale to muscle out rivals, including non-profits like Merlot etc.?

distribution vs. authoring/remix as critical problem in OER

the "discovery problem" . . .emerging as the common sense business criticism of OER

vampire capitalism

The payoff is in the data.

This is important . . what a tool doesn't show or "do" can tell us something about the tool, but also about the questions we're asking . . .

good! . . . I wonder what kinds of things Silk didn't show or wasn't helpful with?

Yes, it's easy these days to be cynical. What kind of governance does DW envision? E.g. are there "rules" to the commons in the same way that, for instance, Wikipedia is governed by lots of guidelines, suggestions, and quasi-rules?

This is really interesting . . .so far. Does your Silk experience suggest new research questions?

yeah . . .that was odd. . . I'm thinking we need to figure out the filters a bit more . . . it's actually a pretty simple operation (comparing IMDB vs. mixed and non-standard, etc.) . . . try running your data through Google Fusion . .

Nice . . .also, you can link to it.

A good question. I think Hardt is trying to distinguish between private (market capitalism) and public (State) property . . the common exists in between these, neither market nor state-regulated . . .people producing the commons, a la (perhaps) McGonigle's "collective intelligence" . .

good! . . . how about posting up some of the visualizations that Silk helped you with . . .

Yes. This is the critical conflict for Hardt . . . though the meaning of both terms has changed since Marx and the previous version of "communism" . . .

OK. You don't have to start with precise questions. You might even start with a basic question: what is it about Chandler or crime/noir films that interest me?

Good! Keep me updated via your blog . . .

Good. Timeline JS seems pretty finicky, but Fusion is a good place to start. And, don't forget, we always have Palladio.

yes . . so maybe a new focus on the rise of "popular gothic"? In other words, we know the roots of the contemporary horror narrative lies way back in the Romantic period and then through the Victorians. But is there a period when horror becomes a mass market genre? (I'm thinking about Stephen King et al's antecedents.)

I wonder if any community, to be a community (perhaps a la Shirky), has to engage with a dialectic of openness/closed . . . In some ways, the value of academic knowledge seems premised on a certain degree of closed-ness?

good questions to start with . . .how has the data collection shaped your questions?

excellent! . . . the tool's have their own personalities . . .but those idiosyncrasies can also offer different perspectives on the data . . .and on your research question . . .

nice . . I wonder if D-W is feeling the Bern? . . . how far do you think peer-production/commonism as a social model can stretch?

excellent . . I like how your work with the data is also perhaps helping you to dig deeper into an analysis of the comics . . .

good . . . one possible happy side effect of running the data . . .

Cate . . did you try to access it via the library? Check in with me today (Tuesday, May 2) . .

yes . . it's a very romantic picture of the Commons in some ways . . .after all, even the commons can host plenty of conflict, dispute, etc.

yes, this was a really brilliant point: that opening up research means opening up the process . . . and that could be immensely helpful to other scholars and learners . . .

what do you think the semantics of "coterie" do? are there other less loaded ways of characterizing this knowledge?

kudos, Open Scholar! . . . your dataset is looking good . . .so, tell me a little about how you will sort it to get to your research questions? has the data collection itself opened up any new questions?

good . . keep finetuning . . .now might also be a good time to pause and go back to your original research question(s) and the "Big Idea" that you're trying to get at . . .is your dataset launching you in the right direction to engage with these?

yes . . I wonder if we could work out a Creative Commons licensing scheme for scholarship? . . e.g. different flavors of "open" depending on the stages and needs of projects?

why? .. describe this for me . . .might be helpful

yes . . . and Burton wants to open the spigot . . .or, maybe better, undam the river . . .how does this idea of "open" relate to Hardt/Dyer-Witheford?

tell me: how would you compare Hardt's "communism 2.0" to DW's "commonism"?

a really key question that sums up so many of the issues that Hardt raises . . . what do you think it would mean?

Shawna . . this is an awesome summary of Bollier!

yes . . . this is a good point: what is the incentive to be open (as opposed to closed/proprietary)? Is it simply altruism? Perhaps Burton needs to make a more compelling case for how "open" makes for better, stronger scholarship?

good . . or, maybe it isn't for every stage of the process . . or, even more particularly, maybe there are different kinds of openness appropriate to different stages . . . e.g. inventing, researching, writing, presenting, etc.

good . . .but more so long as it is purposeful more . . e.g. so long as it seems to be helping you answer your research question . . .

yes, the "bridge" is a really useful metaphor . . .though scholars are "bridging" even if they aren't as open as they might be . . e.g. bridging to other scholars etc. . . . Burton makes a persuasive case for both why and how openness benefits both institution and public . .

your dataset is really shaping up . . . and refining and/or expanding your criteria at this point looks like a smart move

yes . . and, hopefully, to imagine what the open vat might do if it were really open . . . imo, the commons is not as dichotomous as Hardt presents it, e.g. there are flaws in the commons as well . . .but it does help us find a critical perspective on the way things are now . . e.g. the enclosure of digital/network, ecological/social common wealth . .

yes . . I agree . . I think there's more of a tension between openness and proprietary than Suber might want to acknowledge, e.g. openness is good but it's not angelic and there are reasons to "restrict" openness, perhaps . . .

yes . . .I think that's why the Creative Commons licensing protocols are key here . . e.g. it's not about denying inventors/creators, but about opening up and increasing the circulation of their inventions/creations . . . the CC licenses give creators a range of ways to control the relation between open and closed. . .

or . . .you can show patterns via the data and use these patterns to support an argument (about longevity and ethnicity, audience, etc.) a la algorithmic criticism!

yes . . .I think sustainability is one of the great, as-yet unanswered questions of the Open movement . . we all agree, perhaps, about the value of openness, but the infrastructure for this openness is still not clear

yes, does the traditional scholarly system of knowledge - - e.g. based on scarcity - - really work well with our current "open" systems?

and Hardt points to some of the incipient features of communism/commonism lurking even in today's world . . .

Yes. Collective intelligence/openness/commons weren't invented by technology . . . these are social/historical phenomena which, perhaps, technology picks up on and develops.

This is a really good sign. How has the data collection started to reshape your research questions? Perhaps it's time to run a rough draft of the data processing to see what kinds of evidence/pattern you're developing?

really good connection! Yet, wouldn't Raymond agree that the cathedral is an appropriate and productive model for some kinds of things/goals? I.e. do you think Gideon's rhetoric seems to castigate the "institution" without perhaps recognizing some its strengths/benefits?

I wonder if capitalism is perfectly cool with commonism in some respects? In fact, if contemporary capitalism depends on and cultivates the commons. For instance, isn't the Facebook platform a kind of commons? Yet, it's also an exemplum of today's "cognitive capitalism."

yes . . .I wonder though if his binaries (closed/open) aren't a bit dichotomous . . .are there ways in which the "openness" of the open scholar also depends on a certain "closedness"? For instance, vide Burton, how would new audiences also pull the scholar away from earlier, collegial audiences and communities?

this is an attractive idea . . .but I wonder if the power of scholarship is also it's defect . . .e.g. how much does scholarship depend on deep, narrow, intensive interest pursued apart from the world? . . . how would Shirky respond to Burton's arguments, I wonder?

yes . . . Dyer-Witheford prefers the term "commonism" . . .but both seem to extend the ideas of open source software etc. into other spheres . . .e.g. the commons and commoning as an inspiration, if not model, for non-State/non-market society . .

Whoa! This may be tooooo many questions. Lets start with the first set - - e.g. using data to document the popularity of McKenna in the ways you indicate. Once you've completed this, you may find patterns that help to answer some of your other questions. But, let's tackle the data first.

I think you'll have quite enough with this. As we spoke of in class . . .you'll need some way of defining the connection between 50s/60s soul music and contemporary versions - - e.g. what are the key elements of 50//60s soul music? What distinguishes it - - rhythm, structure, melody, etc. Then you can find patterns of these same elements in contemporary music/soul music.

Great. How will you define "similarity"? In terms of plot? Character? Theme? All of these? Also, how will you define the characterization of women? What different roles do women play? What different characteristics do these women and their roles have? Would be great to get a look at your spreadsheet.

Excellent. Can you post something about this process? Tips for your fellow students? Comments? Things to watch out for? Also, in the spirit of open scholarship, how about making the spreadsheet open/visible to the class?

Good. But, all horror/gothic short stories is a very big data set. Is there some way to limit it a bit? Perhaps by time period (e.g. from 1890 to 1930)? by author gender? by particular subgenre, e.g ghost story? And, probably for sure by nationality - - American, British, etc.

so . . you seem to have two possible topics - - settings and budgets for science fiction films. I think you'll need to choose one or the other. Probably, the first will be easier to work with. What is the scope of your data? All science fiction films? Some period? Probably, with a focus as wide as setting, I'd try for a bigger dataset - - e.g. all sci fi films from 1920 to 2020. This larger set might also reveal more patterns, in terms of setting.

Looks like a good data source/set. I think the next step is to figure out a couple of research questions - - these will allow you to work through the data and establish what's significant and what's not. Are you interested in why the characters are eliminated? Is this related to the role they play in the plot? E.g. one initial sorting might involve "plot role." But that's just one, you can add others that are significant. E.g. you have a pile of data - - now it's time to think about what kinds of patterns you might find or be interested in finding in this data.

Good! Now that we've got the "ideal" type . . . it's time to use Chandler as the source for your key traits/motifs. E.g. how does Chandler give you the essential criteria (in terms of motifs, themes, forms) for establishing which books belong or don't belong to noir?

Good, things are getting narrower in scope and more manageable. What will your data sources be? Histories of the "riots"? Newspaper accounts? I'm wondering if you might not also think about their place background, e.g. were the folks involved from Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn? This might correlate in interesting ways with ethnicity/race.

This is a big corpus . . . .are you going to read all of the novels and diaries and bios of all of these folks? (I hope not.) How about starting by restricting your corpus to one or two American writers (say, Hemingway and Fitzgerald). My other question: are you mapping travel in their novels/fiction? or, biographical travel? Or, both?

are these conversations missing in the Whitman poem? or, are they just different?

yes . . how about thinking about it this way: which genres "favor" cannabis or drug use? and, does this patter change over time? e.g. does drug use shift from drama to comedy? So, first, collection of movies with significant drug motif, then sorting into genres, and then plotting over time?

fair enough . . let's talk about this in class on Thursday . . .maybe we can get Cate to lead the discussion.

good . . 'though this question may be too pointed. E.g. maybe better to draw back a bit and just ask: what is the relationship between high grossing books and high grossing movies. How is the data collection going?

excellent connection! . . . and I like your emphasis on "interest-driven" participation, another connection to McGonigal. The "bazaar" changes so many relations, per Raymond. But the initial condition is openness; in part, perhaps what he's really describing is how to manage openness itself?

yes . . this sounds like a more typical DH project because it involves "distant reading." I also like the focus on a genre/subgenre (the crime novel), though you'll want to think about how you'll define this genre. And, how about focusing on one typical character? Detective? Villain? Helpers? etc. This will make the data more manageable.

So, from the sitcoms you mention here, it looks like you might be interested in sitcoms with ethnic/racialized characters. I wonder if there isn't a more manageable project there - - e.g. what is the fortune of non-white sitcoms since the birth of the sitcom? Do we see periods where "non-traditional" sitcoms are more popular? (I'm thinking of the 70s and Good Times, Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man, etc.) And, periods when the sitcom seems to return to its "white" flavor?

Sounds very interesting! But . . that could also be a lot of letters. How about if you started with one author and tested the size of the dataset? Does one of these authors have a pretty easily accessible archive of letters? (E.g. you don't necessarily want to travel to Texas or Dublin to collect your data.) I think the idea of charting number of letters, recipients and destinations, along with chronology should reveal some interesting patterns.

I'm wondering: do Notorious BIG fans apply the same kind of analysis, questions, method to their annotations as those you saw in Steinbeck?

This sounds pretty interesting. How would you measure this? In terms of sales? Units sold? I suspect there's already been some industry work around this issue. Perhaps a more focused question would be: in what genres did vinyl make its reappearance? E.g. are there particular genres that are more hospitable to vinyl?

a very good summary! . . . the two metaphors are very powerful . . .but I wonder too, after our class discussion, what there limits are.

This is a good research question. In your next post, tell me about what kind of data you'll be collecting, how you'll collect it, and how you'll start organizing it.

in re our previous exchange, I don't think the music topic is too broad . . it's all about the way you frame questions so that your shape and limit the scope of the project. . . .on the other hand, the BPP is also a great topic . . .again, you'll need to come up with some questions that help you to frame the topic and your inquiry . . .

yes . . .I think you might be on to something here . . .something like "where do the SNL performers come from"? "where do they end up?" (film genre, standup, writers, etc.)

yes. . . I think the issue is not yet about DH/digitizing but about your research/inquiry questions. What interests you in Kubrick's movies? Do you notice elements of his films that work as motifs or devices, e.g. that appear from film to film? etc.

All good questions . . . the next step might be to start narrowing down . . for instance, questions which might be answered via DH inquiry and questions which might be more difficult to address via DH inquiry. I think your genre question looks pretty promising - - e.g. what is the relations between genres and vinyl revival?

interesting . . "strictly entertainment" as opposed to the lit texts? . . . how would you characterize the audience or motive for the lit text annotations?