Oct 14, 2024  
2024-2025 Catalog 
    
2024-2025 Catalog

Digital Studies


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Associate Professor: Sample (Director)
Assistant Professor: Dietrick, Kabala
Associate Professor of the Practice: Mundy

The Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor provides a framework for studying the digital tools, cultures, and practices that permeate everyday life. These tools, cultures, and practices shape how we work, play, communicate, and learn. Understanding the social and historical contexts of these technologies is a fundamental part of Digital Studies.

Digital Studies courses range across three broad areas: digital creativity, which includes digital art and digital storytelling, transmedia production, and programming; digital culture, which focuses on the communities, practices, and counter-practices that digital technology has given rise to; and digital methodology, in which digital tools are used to quantitatively or qualitatively analyze, map, and share text or data.

Designed to complement majors in every department and program, the Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor bridges usual distinctions between the sciences and the humanities, between empiricism and interpretation. Combining theory and practice, DIG courses foster liberal arts practices essential for the 21st century: procedural literacy, data awareness, network sensibilities, entrepreneurial thinking, digital citizenship, information preservation and sustainability, and the ethical use of technology. 

Requirements


  1. The Digital Studies Interdisciplinary minor requires six courses, including an introductory class and a 400-level seminar:
    1. DIG 101 Introduction to Digital Studies           
    2. One additional 100-, 200- or 300-level DIG course, which includes the following:  
      1. ART 111 Introduction to Digital Art  
      2. ART 211 Advanced Digital Art  
      3. DIG 109 Intro to Digital Humanities      
      4. DIG 120 Programming in the Humanities (= CSC 120)  
      5. DIG 210 Data Culture      
      6. DIG 211 - Surveillance Culture  
      7. DIG 215 Death in the Digital Age      
      8. DIG 220 Electronic Literature     
      9. DIG 225 - Transmedia and Vast Narrative  
      10. DIG 240 Art and Electronic Media  
      11. DIG 245 Critical Web Design  
      12. DIG 250 - Game Development  
      13. DIG 270 Digital Maps, Space, and Place     
      14. DIG 333 Physical Computing   
      15. DIG 340 Gender and Technology   
      16. DIG 345 Radical Software         
      17. DIG 350 History & Future of the Book      ​ 
    3. Three electives related to digital culture, digital creativity, or digital methodology that foster skills and knowledge transferrable across disciplines.  These electives may include any other DIG courses above, any of the approved courses below, or any combination thereof:
      1. ANT 261 Hacking the Future    
      2. ANT 291 Social Networks & Social Media   
      3. ANT 372 Visual Anthropology   
      4. ANT 377 Imaging the Earth     
      5. ART 270 - Special Topics in Digital Art: Art for Games   
      6. BIO 256 Applied Insect Ecology  
      7. COM 207 Trump, Obama, Race, U.S. Media  
      8. COM 325 COM 325 - Exploring Fake News  
      9. COM 315 Media Effects  
      10. ENG 296 Science Fiction & Technology  
      11. HIS 414 Mapping Medieval Europe   
      12. POL 284 US Diplomacy   
      13. (Only one of these CSC electives can count toward the interdisciplinary minor; none can count if DIG 120 is taken.)
        1. CSC 108 Explorations in Computer Science  
        2. CSC 121 Programming and Problem Solving  
        3. CSC 240 Computational Physics (=PHY240)  
        4. CSC 209 Bioinformatics Programming (= BIO 209)  
      14. ECO 316 Computational Economics  
      15. EDU 291 Data in Education   
      16. FMS 211 Filmmaking  
      17. ENG 306 - Digital Design  
      18. FMS 321 Interactive Digital Narratives  
      19. HIS 207 Digital Medieval History  
      20. HIS 245 Digital History of Early American Knowledge  
      21. MUS 265 Introduction to Digital Music Composition  
      22. MUS 311 - Music and Technology  
      23. MUS 385 Video Game Music (=FMS 385)  
      24. PHY 397 Independent Study in Advanced Software Development in Science  
      25. SOC 241 - Digital Sociology  
      26. SOC 316 - Digital Media and Social Change  
      27. THE 270 THE 270 - Entertainment Design in the Digital Age  
        Note:  Additional courses emphasizing digital tools, digital practices, or digital culture may be added to this list, pending approval from the Digital Studies Advisory Committee.  
    4. DIG 401 Hacking, Remixing and Design , DIG 404 - Humanities Startup , or ENG 406 - Digital Design & Storytelling  
  2. No more than two courses may count toward both the student’s major and the Digital Studies Interdisciplinary minor.
  3. No more than one elective may be an independent study.

Application Procedure


The Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor is administered by the Digital Studies program. The faculty liaison is Dr. Mark Sample. To declare a Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor, students should meet with Dr. Sample by the last day of fall semester of the junior year. The student and faculty liaison will discuss courses used to satisfy the requirements. If one of the proposed electives is an independent study, the student shall provide for the Digital Studies program’s approval a written description of that course prior to the term of enrollment. Certification of completion of all the requirements for the interdisciplinary concentration is made by the Registrar upon the recommendation of the Digital Studies faculty.

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