There’s already been a lot written here at ProfHacker about the recent THATCampLAC held at St. Norbert College. Ryan’s covered organizing the event, Celeste Marshall Kahn has described her experience attending as a student, and Heather’s given us a non-humanist’s view of the event.
I attended as a someone who sometimes feels like she’s neither fish nor fowl, as I noted in my session proposal; though I’m in a social science discipline, I’m in a subfield of that discipline that’s closer to the humanities than most of the social sciences are. I’ve also long had an interest in digital tools, both for classroom use and for my scholarly work.
My questions centered around two principal concerns: (1) Where do I fit with respect to the digital humanities, and how do I explain my interests to others? and (2) How, concretely, do I go about discovering and learning the digital tools that will be useful to me both in the classroom and in my scholarly work?
THATCampLAC provided me with the opportunity to explore these questions with colleagues from institutions in many ways similar to my own. Though I didn’t get definitive answers to my questions, the discussions I engaged in generated a lot of good ideas, giving me plenty to think about.
I also got the chance to attend two Bootcamp sessions. One provided the opportunity for some hands-on exploration with GIS, so I learned a little bit about one tool that I might be able to make good use of in the future. The other helped me immensely with planning for a digital assignment that I intend to integrate into one of my upper-level courses this coming year.
I also had the pleasure of meeting three ProfHacker colleagues in person for the first time.
It was a tremendously fruitful weekend for me. What about you? Have you ever taken part in a(n) (un)conference that wasn’t quite within your own discipline? Was the experience helpful? Let us know in the comments!
[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by quinnanya]