Current and Upcoming Courses
Current Courses
Fall 2023
CTS*1000 Culture and Technology: Keywords
The course will introduce core concepts and skills for digital literacy in connection with big questions facing culture and society. Students will explore the keywords used to think through the relationships between information and communication technologies and big ideas related to ethics, culture, and how we understand what it is to be human. Students will learn to write for a web audience through the creation of their own weblog.
CTS*2000 Scripting for the Humanities
This course introduces students to core concepts in data creation, representation, and interpretation. Students will develop technical skills for ethically encoding and working with data. Students will learn to model data in software, develop a data schema, and develop basic programming skills in R or Python. They will learn version control and gain an introductory understanding of computational operations.
CTS*3010 Experiential Learning: Digital Arts and Critical Making
This course invites students to work with their hands, learning to create with a variety of modern ‘maker’ methods (arduinos, raspberry pis, laser-cutters, 3D design programs, printing and scanning, photogrammetry, digital printmaking, virtual reality and augmented reality platforms). Each student will select at least two of these methods to create and build a project of their own devising. Students will read about design methods and critical theories of making, build a prototype through an iterative development process, and present their project, all while maintaining a reflective journal that critically engages with the theories presented in class and relates them to their chosen materials, methods, and/or media.
Prerequisites: CTS*1000, (CTS*2000 or CTS*2010)
CTS*4000 Digital Publishing
Students in this course will focus on two projects: a polished, professional version of their digital portfolio and the creation of an edition of a CTS student journal. Through this process, they will develop an awareness of desktop publishing options, copyright, the open access movement, digital design, and self-presentation for the web.
Prerequisites: 10.00 credits or 1.50 credits in CTS
CTS*4010 Project Management and Prototyping
This course prepares students to imagine, prototype, develop, manage, and produce a major project. It is a precursor to the final CTS Capstone project and is designed to equip students to manage larger, complex projects involving some form of digital creation or knowledge production. Students will propose a project to address a significant research question, gap in knowledge, or deficiency in digital representation or methods. They will also learn advanced research skills, reference management, project planning, proposal development and pitching, project management, version management, teamwork, waterfall and agile development models, collaborating with others, and working towards milestones.
Prerequisites: CTS*2000, CTS*2010, CTS*3000
Winter 2024
CTS*2010 Digital Approaches to Culture
This course takes a hands-on approach to introducing students to various methods used by the digital humanities community. Students will gain a high-level understanding of approaches including but not limited to text-analysis, data mining, data visualization, augmented reality, game design, curation, and storytelling. Exploration of these methods will be informed by critical discourse, enabling students to analyze and evaluate digital projects and to think ethically about the choices involved in creating, manipulating, analyzing, and representing using digital methods. Projects and reflections completed as part of this class will contribute towards student’s digital portfolios.
Prerequisites: 2.00 credits or CTS*1000.
CTS*3000 Data and Difference
This course examines the ways in which social categories of difference have been theorized in conjunction with inquiry into how difference operates in a range of digital contexts. It will develop a vocabulary and critical framework for understanding diversity in relation to identities, bodies, and communities; provide an introduction to debates surrounding diversity and difference within digital spaces; and consider how individuals and groups have responded to the opportunities and challenges related to matters such as access, self-representation, and social justice.
Prerequisites: CTS*1000, (CTS*2000 or CTS*2010)
CTS*4020 Digital Research Project
In this course, students build on the planning and initial efforts in the Capstone Preparation course to produce their major research project from its initial version to its completion, through a systematic process of research, development, iteration, and design.
CTS*4030 Independent Project (co-op only)
This is a directed project course to be undertaken by a student with close supervision by a CTS-affiliated faculty member. The student and faculty member will develop, in collaboration, a course of study organized around a well-defined topic related to CTS. This course will culminate with the production of a final paper or project, the format of which is to be determined by the student and supervisor over the course of the term, that will incorporate a substantive long- form argument.
View all CTS core, disciplinary praxis, and context courses in the current calendar.