Dear NYC-DH’ers,
Matthew Connelly informs me that his class on data mining in recent american history is open to auditors from around the city. You can write to him directly, or ping me for more info. The class blurb is below.
International and Global History 2.0
A Laboratory for Data-Mining Diplomatic and Military Archives Since 1945
History W3377/History G6999
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:10-2:25
Historical research on world politics is on the precipice of dramatic change. We now have access to unprecedentedly large and rich bodies of declassified documents generated from the digitization of older materials and the explosion of “born digital” electronic records. With machine learning and natural language processing researchers can relaunch scholarly debates with new rigor. They can also tackle novel kinds of projects that would once have been deemed impracticable, such as exploring the scope and nature of official secrecy.
This course will cover the same ground as a standard survey of the world since 1945, including the Cold War, decolonization, and struggles over globalization. But it will give students the opportunity to explore these subjects through the largest database of declassified documents ever assembled outside government. It will offer hands-on experience in developing and testing new research tools and techniques, including named-entity extraction, topic modeling, and data visualization. At the same time, students will learn how to frame research questions and interpret the results by reading and discussing classic works of history. Discussion sections will also serve as lab sections, where we will collaborate in conducting experiments and designing ambitious projects that will extend beyond the life of the course.
Matthew Connelly, Professor of History
Daniel Krasner, Course Database Architect
More details at http://www.history-lab.org
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