Digital History

In Spring 2026, we will analyze the changes that new media and technology tools are bringing to the field of history. The “digital shift” of the last three decades has raised interesting possibilities and questions about how we can research, write, learn, and teach about the past.

Participants will explore key theoretical and historical issues linked to this digital shift, examine the designed uses (and re-appropriations) for a variety of digital tools, and develop new skills that could prove useful for your work as historians. Students will not only engage in class discussions, but also “do” history online through various digital platforms.

Class Info • About 5595

Structure & Learning Objectives

This course employs a hybrid instructional model. The role of the instructor extends beyond leading seminar-type discussions; I am here as a coach and facilitator to help students reach their goals. Instructor and participants work together to meet the objectives of the class, foster a collaborative learning climate, and help guide each other when necessary.

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Assignments

Each assignment in HIS 5595 — Engagement, Research Project and its three product assignments (Archiving & Collecting the Past, Visualization Tools, and Conference Poster Presentation), and Blogging and Weekly Readings analysis —is designed to help students reconceptualize the work of historians in an age of rapid digitization.

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Policies

Course and university policies are designed to maximize the effectiveness of our shared learning environment. Click below for descriptions and links.

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”Historical work is heavily collaborative, especially in these days of digital scholarship.”
– T. Mills Kelly

RAPID PACE OF CHANGE

In 2013, historian Mills Kelly imagined what the history curriculum would (or, at least, should) look like by the year 2023. As we approach the latter half of the 2020s—Kelly’s arbitrary marker—it’s important to take stock of how much the field of history has changed, and how historians wrestle with current technology.

From the outset, Kelly acknowledges that his four approaches to historical training and scholarship – making, mining, marking, and mashing – are open to scrutiny and disagreements. Kelly is clear that he is not proposing historians discontinue teaching analytical writing or traditional research skills (e.g., how to locate and analyze primary sources)—both of which are foundational elements of any history curriculum. Rather, we should consider a critical question: have we been teaching history (both at the undergraduate and graduate levels) pretty much the same way in over 100 years?

Since 2000, digital technology has irrevocably changed how we consume information, converse with others, schedule our day, and see ourselves as global citizens. HIS 5595 examines to what extent new media tools have, and continue to, reshape the field of history.

The investigative nature of history

“[Graduate] work is not just about correct answers. It is more about asking distinctive, uncommon questions. Ultimately, we may want answers, but we must begin with new queries, new areas of interest.”

Historian Dan Cohen, on whether AI can ever produce good questions in history rather than great answers

Info

Instructor: Rwany Sibaja

Meeting Time: Tuesdays 5-7:50pm
Location: 240 Anne Belk Hall

Drop-In Hours: T Th 2:3-15; Th only 4:45-5:30 (or by appt.)
Office location: 249M Anne Belk Hall

email: sibajaro@appstate.edu
Zoom Link

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