Broadening the Digital Humanities: The Vectors-CTS Summer Institute on Digital Approaches to American Studies

We propose to bring fifteen (15) scholars with strong interests in digital publication both in the fields of new media and in traditional areas of American Studies and Ethnic Studies to attend a four-week summer institute at the University of Southern California (USC) from mid-July to mid-August, 2011, that will explore how digital scholarship can address the needs of the changing fields of American Studies and Ethnic Studies. This summer institute will be administered by USC’s Center for Transformative Scholarship (CTS) and held at the Institute of Multimedia Literacy (IML), also the operational base for Vectors, the international electronic journal. The institute will be an introduction to key issues in the digital humanities within the context of American Studies and also a hands-on practicum in the creation of digital scholarship. The projects created will enrich participants’ understanding of the digital humanities and will model the field for other scholars in American Studies

En conSecuencia con la imagen. Cronoscopía: la fotografía de la historia espacial de Los Ángeles y México

Resumen En este ensayo empezaré por examinar la postura teórica que plantea que la historia, siendo espacial, es visible en la fotografía y en la cartografía. La perspectiva política o social es una metáfora sustentada: las múltiples interpretaciones del pasado están ancladas a sitios específicos en los paisajes globales. El historiador puede exponer los fantasmas que atormentan el presente, utilizando el método que denomino "el cronoscopio": una visualización que combina signos fotográficos indicativos con la acción interpretativa y narrativa del texto verbal y con los ademanes connotativos de las bellas artes. La fotografía estereográfica contiene la profundidad de la historia misma: el observador contemporáneo literalmente mira al interior del pasado. Esa profundidad de la historia es un desafío y una negación de la temporalidad plana de la modernidad. Para explicar estas tesis enfoco el cronoscopio para exponer los fantasmas históricos vinculando dos de las metrópolis más grandes del mundo, Los Ángeles y la ciudad de México, con la historia de la revolución y la contrarrevolución en los años 1900-1930.Abstract In this essay I explore the position that history, being spatial, is visible in photography and cartography. Socio-political "perspective" is a grounded metaphor: interpretations of the past are anchored to locations in global landscapes. History is the landscape of the present, coded into narratives about the past. The historian can expose the ghosts haunting the present through the method I call the "chronoscope" a visualization, combining indexical signs of photography with the interpretive and narrative action of verbal text and the connotative gestures of the fine arts. Stereographic photography contains the depth of history itself: the contemporary observer literally sees into the past. This depth of history is a challenge and rebuttal to the flatness of modernity's temporality. To explicate these theses, I focus the chronoscope to expose the historical ghosts linking two of the world's greatest metropolises, Los Angeles and Mexico City, with the history of revolution and counterrevolution during the years 1900-1930