The Digital Studies Minor at James Madison University creates a space for students who are eager to get hands-on experience with the latest digital technologies, passionate about discussing the implications of these technologies with a like-minded community of thinkers, and unafraid to cross disciplinary boundaries.

At JMU, Digital Studies is understood to be theories about how the digital impacts our everyday lives and local and global communities, and exploration of the methods used across different disciples to open up new perspectives in the social sciences and humanities. Courses in the minor are welcoming to students of all academic backgrounds and technical skills. Through our program, you will become familiar with digital practices, think critically about design, ethics, languages, and cultures from a variety of perspectives, and learn to communicate effectively across digital media. With courses from across the College of Arts and Letters, students are able to carve out their own individual curricular path that matches their professional and personal interests, while also joining a welcoming community of faculty, staff, and fellow students through a foundation course, student-faculty research practica, and workshops.

Successful Digital Studies students will be transforming today’s dynamic workplaces by building interdisciplinary connections and enriching their future careers through their experience and practice within the digital landscape.

The minor is 18 credits and includes courses from across the College of Arts and Letters. There is one required course: DS 101 Foundations in Digital Studies. This course can be taken at any point in the minor, but earlier is better. The full list of courses will be available in the 2024-2025 Course Catalog.

Description

This course offers students opportunities to engage in hands-on experience with digital tools and techniques available across JMU to answer questions in the humanities and social sciences. It provides a history of digital methods, projects, and techniques, and asks students to consider the impact of digital technologies as complex, socially situated, and political tools through which humans make meaning. This course is required for the Digital Studies minor, but is open to all.

Faculty

By design, this course is taught by professors from different disciplines. Each iteration of the course will be different because of this.

Course Learning Objectives

1. Become more thoughtful, critical, and reflective users of digital tools, technologies, and spaces by understanding that all technologies are complex, socially situated, and political tools through which humans make meaning.

2. Gain hands-on experience using digital tools and techniques to answer questions in the humanities and social sciences.

3. Learn about the history of Digital Studies in an overview of important projects, methods, technologies, and best practices.

4. Engage with the resources available at JMU to support work on digital teaching and research projects.

5. Evaluate the mediation and possible loss that occurs when analog materials, such as physical artifacts, text, images, maps, and film, are translated into a digital ecosystem.