All courses offered by the Advanced Certificate for Digital Humanities are open to current graduate students at NYU. Students pursuing the Advanced Certificate must complete the three core courses as well as two electives, for a total of 20 points. A maximum of 12 points may be shared with the points required for the PhD.
Courses
Intro to Programming
4 points
DHSS-GA.1120
Offered every fall semester.
This course introduces students to the fundamentals of computer programming as students design, write, and debug computer programs using the programing language Python. The goal in this course is for students to learn how to manage their files, data, and materials in their own ways, to explore original research, and to be knowledgeable partners when they collaborate with computer scientists and experts in technology.
Qualified students in the Advanced Certificate program may take a placement test to place out of this course, and, with the approval of the Program Director, substitute a more advanced programming course from among those offered in the Department of Computer Science.
Digital Media Theory
Spring 2024
This course introduces the history and concept of the digital. Digital systems are representation systems, and so engage a wide variety of philosophical sources, literary theory, and media theory. Digital technologies developed from a dense multidiscplinary discourse that included mathematics, language philosophy, logic, and philosophy, reposing the classical metaphysical question of the relationship of representation to reality. The course focuses on three concepts that emerged from this rich overlap: information, computation, and the network. These concepts are associated with Claude Shannon, Alan Turing, and Warren McCulloch, and rely on frameworks from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and the trajectory from Gottlob Frege and Charles Sanders Peirce through the Vienna School's logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and beyond. The philosophical origins of digital technologies form a dialogue with media-theoretical assessments of those same technologies, and the course will give particular weight to the works of Friedrich Kittler, N. Katherine Hayles, Wendy Chun, and, Luciana Parisi, Ramon Amaro, and Sianne Ngai, with a focus on bridging the gap between the origins of digital technologies and their extensive aesthetic and political-economic consequences in the present. This course fulfills a core requirement for the Digital Humanities Certificate.
Working with Data
4 points
DHSS-GA.1121
Offered every spring semester.
Spring 2023: Thursdays, 5 pm to 8 pm, Silver Room 515
Professor Christine Roughan
Data analysis in the humanities presents challenges of scale, interpretation, and communication distinct from the social sciences or sciences. This seminar will explore the emerging practices of data analysis in the digital humanities through a critical perspective aiming to be more responsible readers of cultural analytics, and a creative perspective that equips students to analyze and visualize data in a modern programming language (usually R, though exceptions are possible.) Readings are interdisciplinary: assignments will allow engage in exploration of their own dataset or to work collaboratively on a new dataset about New York City history.
Web Development
4 points
DHSS-GA.1122
Offered every spring semester.
Spring 2023: Tuesdays, 5 pm to 8 pm, Silver Room 510
Professor Zach Coble
This course provides a project-based approach to web programming and development. Students will study the principles of web design and each student will build websites based on content relevant to their interests. To complement these practical skills, we will look at how the web has expanded our notions of discourse beyond books and articles and explore how websites can be used for scholarly communication, with an emphasis on academic websites in the humanities. A deeper understanding of these topics will help you make better decisions in your own web development practice.
Students in the Advanced Certificate program select two courses in their discipline from among the graduate courses offered in GSAS. Students are also able to take elective courses in other schools with the permission of the Program Director.
Elective courses in the student’s discipline do not require a pre-existing digital component. Students are asked to work with their advisors to select courses that allow them to gain experience using their newly acquired digital skills and methods in their chosen field. Please contact your academic advisor, one of our DH Advising Faculty, or send email to dhss@nyu.edu for advising on your course selection for the Advanced Certificate in Digital Humanities.