ENGL 279 is "digital literary analysis" after a fashion, but primarily it's a course in programming. We will spend a bit of time studying UNIX (an important operating system for people doing things on the web), but we'll spend most of the time learning the Ruby programming language -- an ideal language for beginners that is nonetheless quite powerful and sophisticated.
This course is for absolute beginners; it does not assume any prior knowledge of either UNIX or Ruby (or any other similar thing). It also does not require any mathematics beyond what one might encounter in grade school. We'll mostly be working with textual data.
More broadly, though . . . Students might well wonder why such a skill is relevant to a student pursuing a degree in English, or History, or Psychology, or indeed, any major outside of the STEM fields. What's more, the whole subject of computing sounds massive (there, is after all, a whole major devoted to it!). Where does one even start!
The truth is this: Every field you care to mention -- including (and especially!) work in libraries and museums, publishing, the arts, and the non-profit sector -- runs on code. In such a world, knowing how to code yourself is a superpower.
Dr. Ramsay began teaching programming to students in the arts and humanities nearly twenty-five years ago with the firm belief that most of what we call "programming" -- in any language -- comes down to a couple dozen basic concepts, and that once you grasp those concepts, you will have the have the requisite knowledge to pursue almost anything else you might need through self-study. And that is true even if your final destination isn't "being a programmer" per se, since being able to communicate with "the tech folks" is now part of just about any job. But then again, it might be your thing! Graduates of this course (with humanities degrees) have gone on to work in game programming, GIS, machine learning, micro controllers, web development, text analysis, document design, and much besides. Not with Computer Science degrees, but with non-STEM degrees supercharged by the knowledge of how software works.
Dr. Stephen Ramsay will be teaching ENGL 279: Digital Literary Analysis on TR 2-3:15 in Spring 2023. It’s an ACE 3 with plenty of seats! If anyone has any questions about this course, please do not hesitate to contact him at sramsay2@unl.edu