| MADH501 |
Digital Humanities: Theories, Practices and Debates |
This module will provide students with a comprehensive introduction to the exciting field of Digital Humanities, which explores the various intersections between literary and cultural studies, digital media and computing technologies. Digital Humanities (DH) is both a theoretical and methodological field: some DH work is about applying computing methodologies to literary and cultural research, to enable new insights into existing questions for literary studies; the theoretical strands of DH critically examine digital discourses and platforms – including code, interactive text, and social media, among others – from a Humanities perspective. DH critically examines the impact of digital technologies on literature, arts, and culture, with an awareness of both the continuities and discontinuities in reading practices across history, ‘from Codex to Hypertext’. The module is organised around three topic headings: theories, practices and debates. In the theory portion of the module you will explore critical theories of textuality, reading, and communication in the context of ‘new media’ and information technologies, as well as the production, distribution and consumption of literature, culture, and scholarship in the digital age. Armed with diverse theoretical frameworks, students will then explore some of the key practices and methodologies that underpin digital humanities research, including distant reading, data visualization for literary studies, and archival research and digitization. The module then explores debates at the forefront of the field, focused on access and accessibility, cultural representation, equality and the digital divide, and the ways that reading communities are constructed and interpellated via digital media, literature, history, culture and scholarship. |
| MIDAH501 |
Digital Skills for Masters |
The Information and Digital Skills module for Postgraduate students introduces students to the tenets of conducting scientific research in alignment with the current scholarly communication landscape. Module aims to conduct effective literature searches and synthesise evidence, understand academic integrity and reference management, navigate the academic publishing landscape, effectively manage research data, collaborate in research and identify funding opportunities, and communicate research findings and track research impact. |
| MADH502 |
African Indigenous Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Systems |
This module is multi-disciplinary designed to prepare graduate students with the necessary knowledge, skills and values of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), which will enable them to pursue careers as practitioners in various fields and contexts. It is based on a holistic approach to understanding IKS and lays a solid foundation for students to gain academic and practical competencies which will enable them to apply theoretical knowledge and understanding in a range of contexts which includes but is not limited to health sciences, nutrition, leadership, tourism, communication, agriculture, nature conservation, arts and culture, heritage, education, law, human and social sciences, physical planning and construction. Given the importance of IKS to a community’s survival and flourishing, these knowledge bases and systems are critically important for capacity building within a nation or continent. This capacity building takes the form of developing technologies and innovation systems to sustainably meet the scientific developmental necessities. The importance of IKS in this context becomes even more critical and significant. IKS provides tremendous knowledge and technology resource bases that tend to be sustainable, and which also focus on addressing needs in appropriate cultural contexts. The module allows students to study indigenous knowledge as local ways of knowing and innovating. Students will have opportunities to deploy indigenous knowledge in developing technologies and innovation systems in health, agriculture, nutrition, arts, languages, science and technology and their management systems. The module raises the critical need for Africa to promote its own ways of innovation through indigenous systems that relate to peoples' daily lives. |
| MADH503 |
Interdisciplinary Humanities Research: Methods and Skills |
The module comprises a programme of lectures and workshops. The programme will develop your research skills in a number of areas including skills, such as communicating with different audiences, using sources, texts, archives and data; frameworks, such as integrating theory into your project, ethics and (auto-)ethnography, fieldwork, knowledge production; and bringing your project together, including situating yourself within the academic field, project management techniques and sample case studies of successful projects. Summative work will focus on referencing skills and critical engagement with sources and texts for research in the form of an annotated bibliography and critical review of selected sources. |
| MADH504 |
Digital, Internet and Programming Resources in the Humanities |
This module introduces students to a range of issues involved in the design, creation, management and use of electronic resources in the humanities. It seeks to familiarize students with the computing technologies and applications that are used in humanities research and teaching; providing a basis for making informed choices in the design, management and use of digital resources in the humanities; promoting understanding of the areas where access, manipulation and analysis of digital resources can benefit research and teaching in the humanities. The delivery of content and information online is becoming increasingly dynamic and device-driven. This module acquaints students to the concepts of markup for web pages, website structuring and design, and the issues involved in generating, delivering and evaluating content effectively. It uses JavaScript (ECMAscript) to introduce the fundamental principles of procedural computer programming and scripting languages. The module reinforces these concepts by practical application in the context of automated web browser and document manipulation. Applications include manipulation of web browsers and documents, dynamic generation of web content, and form verification via regular expressions. The module also provides a brief overview of a range of other common programming languages. It provides an introduction to the issues, techniques, technologies and underlying principles associated with creating and maintaining Web servers and database-driven websites. The module will describe different approaches to extending the functionality of 'plain' web sites by using structured data to build database-driven websites. |
| MADH505 |
Digitisation and Mechanisation of Cultural Heritage |
This module will serve as a practice-led introduction to the digitisation and mechanisation of cultural heritage materials in the galleries, libraries, archives and museums sector. It is an advanced level module taught in two ways: theory and principle-led lectures and tutorials, and hands-on sessions in the imaging lab. This module will also involve close liaison with Museums and Collections, Library Special Collections, and digitisation as well as mechanisation professionals to provide hands-on teaching to understand the practical application of digitisation and mechanization in the cultural and heritage sector. In addition, the students will have the opportunity to visit digitisation and mechanisation facilities at heritage institutions in Zimbabwe to get an understanding of different digitisation and mechanisation approaches across the heritage sector. |
| MADH506 |
Contemporary Genres: Culture in the Digital Age |
This module seeks to examine genre in the digital age in three ways or senses. Firstly, we will start by considering the ways that more conventional literary, historical and cultural narratives have dramatized or represented the digital revolution or age of the internet. Secondly, we will look at narratives that have been disseminated digitally and which use digital technology like mobile apps or GPS systems. Finally we will look at genres across a range of forms, including game narratives, web series, digital music and its micro-genres, as well as collaborative fiction that uses the internet to tell / build stories collaboratively or interactively. By doing this we will both map out new genre categories but also look at the way the digital revolution might invite us to challenge the confines and hierarchies of genre. |
| MADH507 |
Digital texts in the Humanities |
Despite huge advances in digital technologies, many of the approaches literary critics, historians and numerous cultural critics use remain rooted in the analogue or hardcopies age. Perhaps the only major change that computers have led to among literary critics, historians and cultural critics to date is the use of major digitised texts and archives. Even with these, many literary critics, historians and cultural critics simply use these to search and browse, never making use of their full potential or able to critique the digitised sources effectively. In the first part of this course you will look at how paper sources or hard copies are digitised and encoded to create digital literary, historical and cultural resources. This will enable students to understand how digital sources or texts are created, and encourage students to think critically about their benefits and limitations. The second part of the course explores how digitised literary, historical and cultural sources or texts can be explored and analysed in more sophisticated ways. Corpus linguistics enables us to identify and summarise themes of interest from millions or billions of words of text in ways that go far beyond simply keyword searches. It also helps the literary critic, historian and cultural critic decide which parts of a large body of text require further research and which do not. |
| MADH508 |
Digital Humanities Practicum: Inventory Building Technologies |
This module provides opportunity for students to get into real-life project-based experience by working in a cultural heritage institution or private sector organisation or an existing digital humanities project where the student is assigned a mentor or supervisor from the project or institution to which the students gets attached. These projects may range, for example, from writing a scoping document for a specific digital humanities project, to creating a digital exhibition or another online resource on a specific theme or topic, to writing best practice white paper on a particular technology, digital preservation method, or new digital or mechanical idea. The module involves the application of the skills and knowledge acquired in the previous courses but in specific settings. |
| MADH570 |
Dissertation |
This dissertation provides the opportunity for students to demonstrate the knowledge, understanding, research skills and techniques of presentation developed in the taught modules of the degree. The specialist field of enquiry is chosen by the student in consultation with a supervisor and other members of the department before arrival and in the first half of the semester. Individual one-to-one supervisions will be provided throughout the year to support taught modules, define and formulate a research hypothesis, identify relevant qualitative and quantitative sources, offer guidance on presentation and comment on the structure of the dissertation. |
