Context: The goal of this imaginary unit is to theorize a way to get students engaged in collaborative community scholarship. It is situated within the context of Boulder, Colorado because that is where I live and work. The unit could be adapted to several locations.
The goal of this imaginary unit is to theorize a way to get high school Language Arts students in the BVSD school district to engage in scholarship and community partnership with the University of Colorado, Boulder. Specifically with Boulder’s Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship. By the end of the unit, students should have a more nuanced understanding of the discipline of literature, the necessity for quality translation, an appreciation of new historicism and the effect of and how literature can be implemented for positive social change.
Logistics:
The unit will last for 8 weeks. Students will partner with the digital humanities library group at CU Boulder, working with special collections and the archive of the East India Trading Company. Librarians will join students in their own classroom for a week.Students will work with a translator who has experience translating Eastern texts into English.
Student facing Website Page:
Unit objectives:
- Discover what literary and historical research can look like in the modern era
- Form community partnerships to foster a collaborative research environment
- Form a deep understanding of the merits of a New Historicism approach to literary study
- Implement methods from the Digital Humanities to conduct research, all the while building tangible technological skills to engage in literary and historical research
- Develop either a creative, critical, or reflective final project
Primary Unit Task: There exist several narratives of European travelers documenting the countries of Eastern Asia written in the 18th century.
Our goal is to leverage the help of CU Boulder’s librarians to discover 18th century narratives written by people from Asia that elucidate Eastern perspectives of the West, even if they have yet to be translated to English.
Central Questions to consider:
- What does archival research look like?
- What does it mean to study a translation? Do translators have biases?
- What power do publishing companies hold? Are they ways to discover texts that aren’t published?
- Why might certain perspectives be left out of the picture?
- Is there potential for LLM’s to be used to help digitize and translate physical manuscripts? What other potentials for translation come from LLM’s?
- Are there any ethical concerns for using LLM’s to make translations of texts?
So what do I turn in?
- Community blog posts
- Once a week (exceptions for week 3, 7, and 8), you will either, 1) write a blog post having to do with the given week’s assignments or 2) respond to two of your classmates posts. An outline for acceptable response types will be given to you. (~500 words a week)
- Translation passage and response. Due at the end of week 3. See week 3 for details.
- Final project/paper proposal
- 500 word proposal describing what you intend to do for a final project or what you intend to write about for your final paper.
- Final project or paper (some examples)
- Adapt an 18th century Eastern text into a short play/musical to be performed
- Write a 5-7 double spaced reflective paper about the process of engaging in literary research
- Write an academic paper making an argument about something you discovered in the process. This can have to do with the “Occident,” translation, new historicism, or the digital humanities.
- Produce a full English translation of something that has yet to be translated (speak to me about length requirements if you choose this option)
Schedule:
Week 1: What is New Historicism?
Readings: Practicing New Historicism, Introduction
New Historicism is a method of literary criticism developed and written about by Katherine Gallagher and David Greenblatt which places works of literature within their historical context, removing the boundaries between “literary” (novels) and “nonliterary” (letters and court documents) texts. As a form of literary criticism, it began to emerge in the 1970s and 80s.
We will read and analyze the Articles of Confederation and discuss why a new historicism approach is appropriate. You should also note the way the physical manuscript has been digitized as well as transcribed. What advantages does this bring? We will discuss in class.
Week 2: A literary example of the Occident
Week objective: read sections of “The wonders of Vilayet” – written by Mirza Sheikh I’Tesamuddin and translated by Kaiser Haq.
Students will read the “Translator’s Introduction” to begin considering the role that translators play in the publishing industry.
Next, students will read the chapter entitled “Scotland” to build an understanding of what the “Occident” might look like. This text will be used for us as an example of the types of material we will attempt to uncover in the following weeks.
Week 3: All about translation
Week objective: gain a deeper understanding about the process of translation, new digital methods, and the role the publishing industry plays
Central questions: what does it mean to translate a text? What does it mean to analyze a translation of a text? What digital tools might we be able to use to help with the translation process?
Translation Assignment: Watch the “Welcome to Literary Translation” video and consider what it means to not only think about “what” a text means but “how” the text means it. Pick any passage of 400 words to translate and use whatever tools you have at your disposal to make a translation of it. Write a response that discusses your process and why you made the decisions you did.
Digital Humanities considerations: Should we use LLMs as translators? How are they useful? Are there any ethical concerns with using LLMs as translators? What role can Optical Character Recognition (OCR) play in the translation process?
We will have an in-class visit with a Bengali translator. You will be expected to come to class ready to ask questions and take notes.
We will learn a little bit about OCR– what it is, and the types of software one can use to make a document “readable.” We will consider the future of translation in publishing, and reflect on the relationship between digitization and translation. All of this will lead us to next week, where we will consider what an archive is, and how we might engage in archival research.
NO BLOG POST DUE THIS WEEK.
Week 4: What is an archive?
Week objective: gain a deep understanding of what an archive is and how it is constructed.
Central questions: How is archival research done? What is OCR and digitization? What might the future of libraries look like? Who typically has access to an archive and why?
Students will be engaged in field work at Norlin Library, working with librarians who specialize in the digital humanities, archival research, special collections, and Xiang Li: Chinese & Asian Studies Librarian.
A full week of field trips to work with digital humanities and archive librarians to learn about the process of digitizing texts. You will learn how to research certain field topics, engage in project-based learning. Don’t worry, you will be working closely alongside of myself and the librarians.
What is the Rubin Museum and why is it transitioning to a global museum?
Week 5: Begin Research
Week Objective: Find a physical manuscript to translate and do research on.
Central question: what does a successful final project look like to you?
In pairs of two or three, work with your team to track down a physical manuscript that presents an Eastern perspective of the West. Some possible places to look include libraries and museums that have a focus on Asian materials. A good place to start is Norlin Library. Other places to look are Chester Beatty and the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS).
Weeks 6: Continue Research. Begin digitization and/or translation of text.
Week objective: Digitize and translate your text. If your text is longer than two thousand words, speak to me and we will determine the best way to proceed.
Blog posts should focus on supporting one another during our research process.
Consider the following for your blog posts. What successes have you had? What challenges have you ran into? How can you help your classmates? What help can they give you?
Final project proposal due by end of week.
Week 7: Start final project.
Week objective: make sufficient progress on your final project or paper to finish it by the end of week 8.
Mid week peer review of projects and progress. In group meetings with me to discuss progress.
NO BLOG POST DUE THIS WEEK. FOCUS ON PEER REVIEWS.
Week 8: Finish your final project or paper.
NO BLOG POST DUE THIS WEEK. Submit your final project.
Thinking Thoughts 
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