Sarah Jaques-Ross's Blog

web design

Sarah Jaques-Ross — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:46:47 +0000

Well, I’ve spent the last two days working hard on my final project, and I’ve come to realize how time consuming this can be! Maybe part of the problem is that there is so much I don’t know and I’m still not totally familiar with what I have learned so far. In any case, I was reflecting on the question listed in the syllabus for this week, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t agree with Turkel that digital humanists should know how to program. At least, not at this time. The learning curve for programming and web design is fairly large, and I could see how the technical aspects of the discipline could quickly consume the more academic, scholarly side. Perhaps as future generations become more familiar with programming and web design at a younger age, this will not be the case. I do, however, think that having some idea of how the technical side works is invaluable, if only to have some sympathy for the designers one may be working with.

What I also noticed in working on my website is that it is sort-of like writing a paper That is, you have to plan ahead and decide what is going where and how to display the information so that links–like transitions in a paper–are easy to see and will help guide someone through the site. What makes a website very different and harder (at least for me) is the visual aspect. I really know nothing about visual representations and what is pleasing to the eye (except what I learned working at Nordstrom–ha, ha). So, unlike a paper, with a website you have to deal with color, shapes, and images, which I think I would really need some training in if I were to continue with this web stuff.

new thoughts on intellectual history

Sarah Jaques-Ross — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:44:32 +0000

Don’t have a lot of time but wanted to share that I read a student essay recently which claimed that intellectual history had sort of morphed into the history of meaning. My first thought about this was that he was onto something. At least, this new name reflects my interests, which are not in the kind of “stuffy” intellectual history popular in the first half of the twentieth century but is a true history of ideas which looks at all sorts of ideas and not just those produced by authors in the traditional canon. Moreover, what makes ideas interesting is the meaning they have for a certain time period. One could have very similar ideas in both the 16th and the 20th centuries, but the meaning that these ideas have for people of the time would be very different. I have to think more about this. I’m kind of obsessed with the definitions of intellectual history and its relationship to meaning and memory…

Coming to terms with blogging…

Sarah Jaques-Ross — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:37:32 +0000

In my last post I really tried to focus my thoughts on the reading, and I also tried to make my train of thought coherent. However, I have found that if I try to stick to these guidelines, I just keep procrastinating writing my post. That brings me to today’s post, which I decided would not necessarily be finished, polished, or even coherent. Perhaps I will be able to write more, sooner this way…we’ll see. In any case, I think this dilemma I’ve been in points to some issues with blogging. That is, what exactly is blogging? I’ve never kept a journal or a diary–I’ve always just kept all my crazy thoughts bumping around in my head–so blogging, if it is anything like journaling, is really foreign to me. Is a blog supposed to be finished and polished like a short essay would be, or is it more informal with allowances for stupid-sounding sentences, etc.? I’ve searched blogs and found both sorts of blogging. Furthermore, how can blogs be integrated into academic research? That is, are blogs okay to cite as sources in papers or must we rely on sources that have gone through the process of peer review and traditional publication? Some of the articles we’ve read have explored this, but I just wonder how it will all pan out.
I think blogging may be helpful for me if I try not to make too much of it. If I try to use it as a venue for giving some shape to some of my rough ideas. The thing that makes this scary, however, is the possibility that someone else might read my thoughts and think they’re uninteresting at best and downright stupid at worst.
So, I’ve come to understand that blogging is about more than formulating ideas and writing about them; it is also about developing self confidence by taking the risk of “putting it out there” and inviting others into the haphazard, sometimes smart and sometimes not-so-smart mind of Sarah.

Changes in the Humanities Disciplines

Sarah Jaques-Ross — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:50:47 +0000

I feel like WordPress jipped me out of getting to post “Hello World.” So here it goes…Hellooooo World!

I think the “Interchange” article explored some very interesting ways in which digital methods and tools can affect scholarship and academe. The prospect of history changing from a monograph, linear, narrative-driven endeavor to one that is more “interactive” or web-like is a little scary but also liberating. From my perspective as a historian interested in archiving and public history as a career and a research topic, the digital impact on history can open up a whole new world. I would be interested to hear from other disciplines in the humanities about how fundamental aspects of their fields have changed or could change. Any thoughts?

Hello world!

Sarah Jaques-Ross — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:02:50 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!