Humanities + Data Science

Call for Applications

Humanities + Data Science Faculty Institute

The first Institute will be held January 9-13, 2023

The second Institute will be held June 5-9, 2023. Applications will be due in February 2023.

Applied machine learning technologies—often branded as “artificial intelligence”—are now used for editing novels, assessing resumes, grading papers, and conducting psychotherapy. While humanists have been collecting data and analyzing it through computational methods for decades, the emerging field of data science rarely includes humanists who would be able to provide a critical, historical, and ethical lens on the consequential research enabling these new technologies.

The Humanities + Data Science Faculty Institute, run by the Center for Digital Humanities (CDH) and supported by a Humanities Council Magic Grant, will empower Princeton scholars from the humanities (or humanities-adjacent social sciences) to engage with the conceptual, practical and ethical aspects of data science. Participants will receive a $5,000 summer salary.

The five-day Institute will be accessible to faculty with no experience in code or data. Participants will gain hands-on experience in emerging methods in data science. They will become informed interlocutors who can demonstrate the potential as well as the risks of computational analysis in their own fields.

The Institute will also serve as a project incubator. During the Institute, faculty will design their own project that engages with data science methods or concepts. This could include:

• a course module
• a redesign of an existing course (such as a department’s introductory level undergraduate course)
• a data-driven exploration in their own domain

CDH staff will offer regular consultations for these projects throughout the summer and academic year, and participants will be well-poised to apply for additional campus or external funding to continue developing their projects.

Faculty attendees may invite a graduate student partner to attend the Institute, who will assist with project development. Graduate students are expected to attend the entire Institute, and will receive $1,000 for participation.

Participants will be required to attend all five-days of the Institute. We would like to run this program in person on campus, but may modify and provide remote options depending on the group’s overall availability. Participants will be required to do some preparatory reading and technical onboarding in advance, and, after the Institute, attend 2-3 check-in meetings to share project progress.

Please submit a maximum 750-word proposal that includes:

• A statement of interest in data science, its application in the humanities, or its sociocultural impacts.
• A description of the data-driven, computational, or data science related research or teaching project you plan to work on during the 2022-23 AY.
• An indication of your availability for a five-day (M-F), full day (10am-5pm) on-campus sessions during the following three possible time slots. Please let us know if it will be a hardship to attend in person either all or some of those dates, and if remote participation is preferred.
  • Week of June 6-10
  • Week of June 20-24, or
  • Wintersession 2023 (January 16-19, 2023)
• Please confirm your availability for 2-3 periodic project check-ins (may be remote) during the 2022-23 AY.
• The name of a graduate student you would like to invite to join you at the Institute. Please indicate graduate student availability to attend in person or remotely during weeks of June 6-10, June 20-24, and January 16-19.

Princeton faculty at all ranks are eligible to apply. Visiting faculty are not eligible.

Application material should be sent as a single PDF file to cdh-info@princeton.edu by 11:59pm EST Friday, April 15, 2022 with the subject line “Faculty Institute Application.” Applications will be reviewed by CDH staff and members of the Humanities Computing Curriculum Committee. Notifications will be sent out by April 29, 2022.

The Humanities + Data Science Faculty Institute is generously sponsored by a Humanities Council Magic Project.