REL502 Foundations: Public Religious Studies – Fall 2019 Schedule
Semester at a glance
08/24 – Introduction
08/31 – Public Humanities and the Public Scholar
No class 09/07 Labor Day
09/16 Public Religious Studies
09/21 Explainer experiment with Adobe Premiere Rush
09/28 Podcasting discussion
10/05 Podcast experiment work
10/12 Podcast experiment conclusions
10/19 Video discussion
10/26 Video experiment
11/02 Video experiment work
11/09 Video experiment work
11/16 Video experiment conclusions
No Class 11/23 Thanksgiving break/in-person instruction ends
11/30 – Evaluation and conclusions.
8/26 Introductions
Prep
To avoid confusion, please complete these preparations in the order that they appear.
30 minutes – Complete this digital skills inventory. As you move along, copy/paste the text of your chosen responses into a document of your own. Please save the final summary graphic to your computer.
10 minutes – Create a folder for our course on your personal computer. Move your responses and the graphic into this folder.
It depends – Visit the Software page of UA’s Office of Information Technology. Peruse the list of software available to you, and install Adobe Creative Cloud on your comptuer. Then install the Adobe CC app on your mobile device an be sure to add the following apps: Spark Page, Premiere Rush, Premiere Pro, Audition and Media Encoder.
10 minutes – Visit the UA software page and find UA Box. Sign into your UA Box account. Then drag-and-drop your REL502 folder into your Box account.
10 minutes – Check your email for an invitation to the REL 502 Slack channel. Register and install the Slack app on your personal computer and your mobile. (Optional: scroll up and take a look at previous REL502 ‘history’ on our channel).
30 minutes – Compose an “elevator pitch” for your MA research interests. Perhaps you changed your mind since we talked this summer? Post your pitch to our Slack channel.
10 minutes – Create a Hypothesis account using your crimson.ua.edu email. You will be send an email with an invitation to join our Hypothesis group.
10 minutes – Peruse this course schedule. Do you have questions about anything we will be doing this semester? Feel free to add your questions through our Hypothesis group.
In class
Introduction and research interest descriptions.
Introduction to the course and our course organizational tools: Slack, UA Box & Creative Cloud.
Review a 2015 summary of digital religious studies methods, “Religion, Media, and the Digital Turn” (pages 3-16) Christopher D. Cantwell and Hussein Rashid.
Tour the sites of digital resources on campus: Office of Information Technology, Center for Instructional Technology, ADHC, Sanford Media Center, IT Service Desk, and the UA libraries research data guides, equipment, software, whisper booths and group study spaces.
8/31 PH and the Public Scholar, Part 1
Prep
30 minutes – Explore your research interest on Twitter:
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- Locate five individual scholars specific to your interests.
- Locate three organizations specific to your interests.
- Locate at least one scholarly website associated with one of the above.
- Post all of these to our Slack channel.
30 minutes – Without reading any of the below, write your rationale for individual public humanities (defined as you wish). Save the rationale to your course folder in Box.
60 minutes – Read/watch the following pieces on public humanities
“Rethinking Public Humanities” Anne Ruggles Gere – a short history of PH since 1965.
“The Public Digital Humanities”, Jessie Stommel.
“Writing for a Public Audience” Kelly J. Baker.
“3 Rules of Academic Blogging,” David Perry
“Take Your Scholarship Public”, Brady Krien
“Religion and Public Scholarship in an Age of Anger”, Anthea Butler’s keynote address to the Center for Media, Religion and Culture.
“Everything But the Burden: Publics, Public Scholarship, And Institutions”, Tressie McMillan Cottom.
30 minutes – Write a new rationale for individual public humanities. Save it under a different file name in your Box folder.
30 minutes – Compare your two rationales. For example: what changed? Did you double-down? Post a short summary (150 words) on our Slack. Attach your two files to your summary.
In Class
Discuss online discoveries related to research interests.
Review and discuss PH rationales.
Review the site you chose last class and compare it with your rationales from above. Please be prepared to review your site with the class.
Examples for our discussion:
- University of Colorado Boulder’s Third Spaces Blog.
- University Virginia’s The Square Blog.
- University of Alabama’s Culture on the Edge
- The Social Sciences Research Council’s Immanent Frame.
- Audrey Watter’s blog.
- “The American Soldier” at Virginia Tech, which uses Zooniverse for the public to participate in making 65,000 images of handwritten notes text searchable to allow for various publics to read, mine and interact with the sources. Is there a comparable RS project out there?
- Large-group collaboration: Valley of the Shadow Project.
- Small-group collaboration: Women Writers Project.
- Two-person collaboration: Return to Cinder.
- Open-web collaboration: “The American Soldier”
- “The Nicest Kids in Town”, Matthew F. Delmont
- “Pathfinders”, Stuart Moulthrop and Dene Grigar.
- “Bodies and Structures”, by Kate McDonald and David Ambaras (won a 99k grant in Fall 2019 from NEH for DH advancement to add new spatial visualizations).
- “Wayang Kontemporer.” Miguel Escobar. Theatre Studies Programme of the National University of Singapore (examined 2015).
- “Vanishing Leaves.” Jesse Merandy. Graduate Center at the City University of New York (examined 2017).
- “A Gospel of Health and Salvation.” Jeri E. Wieringa. Department of History at George Mason University (examined 2019).
- Lorena Gauthereau. “Are We Good Neighbors?: Mapping Discrimination Against Mexican Americans in 1940s Texas.”
- 1500+ more projects on Humanities for All (varying from individual to large-group).
Choose which PRS page each of you will review.
9/16 Public Religious Studies
Prep
60 minutes – Using Adobe Spark Page, experiment with creating a page that presents your online scholarly persona. Do not publicize the page on the web.
20 minutes – Review the National Humanities Alliance “Goals of the Publicly Engaged Humanities”.
20 minutes – Review the IUPIU’s Public Scholarship Faculty Learning Community. See the drop down for resources that conceptualizes public scholarship, offers definitions and criteria and tips for success.
15 minutes – Review one example of PRS. Post the link on our Slack along with a brief summary (150 words).
- Northeastern University’s Sacred Writes.
- University of Alabama’s American Examples.
- University of Virginia’s Religion and Its Publics.
- AARE Public Scholars Project.
- Boulder Public Religion Project.
- Gaja Madha University’s Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies.
- Universitas Centrum Sint Ignatius Antwerpen’s Religion and Society program.
- Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.
- Leeds University’s Religions and the Sustainable Development Goals.
In class
Review Spark pages: experience, layout, comparisons, etc.(Thinking about audience)
Review PRS project pages. Compare with info from IUPUI and NHA.
Discuss and conceptualize Spark Video experiments.
9/21 Explainers Using Adobe Premiere Rush
Prep
2 hours – Premiere Rush video experiment: choose a theme/concept/topic from your research & explain it in 3 up to minutes. Arrange it on your Spark page. Post a link to our Slack.
One hour – open Adobe Audition, review help pages and related tutorials.
In class
Discuss Premiere Rush video experiments.
Discuss Adobe Audition in Creative Cloud.
Looking ahead: partnering for podcast experiment (groups of 2-3) – Communication, Planning, Organization, Collaboration
9/28 Podcasting
Prep
30 minutes – Experiment with setting up CC collaboration: record a 1-minute “thinking out loud” about your (proposed) podcast topic, and then share with partner(s) in CC. each partner, individually, accesses others’ files and combines them in a new Adobe Audition file.
2 hours – Reflections on the art of podcasting:
- Select an episode of CBC’s Podcast Playlist. (Next year will include Transom)
- Prepare an explanation of what you think it can teach us about the art of podcasting.
- Find an exemplary and/or interesting 5-15 minute example of a podcast episode from the links below.
- Prepare and explanation what you think it can teach us. Post the episode link and a summary of your explanation to our Slack.
- Finally, compare your explanation from #4 to your explanation from #2. Post a summary of your explanation to our Slack.
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- AAR’s RSN Beliefs.
- University of Colorado Boulder’s Sacred Lines.
- University of Virginia’s Religion and Its Publics.
- REL podcasts.
- Mythinformed.
- This American Life (episodes on “religion”).
- Research on Religion.
In class
Review experiment in CC collaboration
Discuss podcasting reviews
Adobe Audition continued (retain emphasis on using Creative Cloud)
Discuss & conceptualize podcasting experiments: project communication, planning, organization.
10/05 Podcast experiment work
Prep
3+ hours – Make good progress organizing work with your partner(s) on the podcast experiment. Be prepared to share your plans for the podcast experiment.
In Class
Share podcast experiment project plans.
10/12 Podcast experiment conclusions
Prep
3+ hours – Finish your podcast experiments. Post a link your podcast on our Slack.
30 minutes – Compose at least five talking points about lessons you learned from podcast experiment: communication, organization, technical, collaboration, etc. Post them on our Slack.
30 minutes – listen to everyone/s podcasts.
In class – conducted with each person/group via Zoom.
Review finished podcasts.
Discussion of lessons learned from podcast experiment.
Discuss & conceptualize video experiments – grouping options, project ideas, etc.
10/19 Video discussion
Prep
30 minutes – Find a 5-15 minute example of a video story/episode. Be prepared to explain why you think it is a good example, how it differs from podcasting, and what is possible for this medium. Post the video link and a summary of your explanation to our Slack.
One hour – open Adobe Premiere Pro, review help pages and related tutorials.
In class
Discussion of video vs. podcasting
Review of Premiere Pro
Discuss and conceptualize video experiments.
10/26 Video experiment
Prep
3+ hours – Make good progress organizing work with your partner(s) on the video experiment. Be prepared to share your plans for the video experiment.
In Class
Share video experiment project plans.
11/02 Video experiment work
Prep
3+ hours – Make good progress organizing work with your partner(s) on the video experiment. Be prepared to share your progress on the video experiment.
30 minutes – Compose at least five talking points about lessons you learned so far from the video experiment: communication, organization, technical, collaboration, etc. Post them on our Slack one day prior to our class session.
In Class
Share video experiment project progress.
Discuss lessons learned.
11/09 Video experiment work
Prep
3+ hours – Make good progress organizing work with your partner(s) on the video experiment. Be prepared to share your progress on the video experiment.
In class
Using the sign-up on Slack, each group/person must meet with me to work through any issues or questions related to the video experiment.
11/16 Video experiment conclusions
Prep
3+ hours – Finish your podcast experiments. Share your video on Slack one day prior to our class session.
30 minutes – Compose at least five talking points about lessons you learned so far from the video experiment: communication, organization, technical, collaboration, etc. Post them on our Slack one day prior to our class session.
In class
Review of videos.
Discussion of lessons learned from the video experiments.
11/30 Evaluation and conclusions
Prep
30 minutes – Redo the digital skills inventory. As you move along, copy/paste the text of your chosen responses into a document of your own. Please save the final summary graphic to your computer.
30 minutes – compare your first skills inventory results to your new results. Post a short summary (150 words) on our Slack. Attach you all four files to your summary.
30 minutes – Review the work you have done in the course. What do you want to do next? Post a short summary on our Slack channel.
In class
Concluding course reflections.
Review of the American Examples project website.
Review of the Global Critical Philosophy of Religion project website.