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Posted on by Claire Rogers - No Comments on The Wisdom of Simple Lives

The Wisdom of Simple Lives

In “Visitors,” Henry David Thoreau very much mixes praise and critique of the nebulous concept of ‘society.’ Throughout Walden, thorough celebrates his own efforts to live simply and deliberately on Walden Pond, though in “Visitors” he shows even more admiration for the wisdom of those who make such simple deliberateness their being. Thoreau explores the wisdom of those who live simply, those who are often considered to be of little value to society. He shows how these simple lives are often more deliberate, more wise, and perhaps more content than the superfluous trappings of high society. These individuals, who are of a lower social class, often have their superior wisdom contrasted positively with the lack of wisdom of society. In doing so, Thoreau offers scathing critique of the excess without thought of upper social classes, as well as the higher institutions that said classes celebrate and, most of all, the determiners of “high” and “low” class in the first place.

Still, even with Thoreau’s criticism of society, it is not as if he can or wants to reject society completely. Indeed, despite living isolated in the woods, Thoreau will often have conversations in nature and host many “Visitors.” The topic sentence of paragraph two of “Visitors” is one of the strongest in Walden, and demonstrates this well: “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” In some ways these three chairs function as a hierarchical representation of where Thoreau sees wisdom coming from during his time on Walden Pond. First and foremost, one becomes wise by being alone with one’s thoughts and becoming to understand them. Second, Thoreau interacts with his friends, such as his fellow isolate Alex Therien, and Thoreau receives knowledge to better ponder and understand on his own. Then, finally, Thoreau has his chair for society, a distinct recognition that, while Thoreau may condemn society, he still sees it as having value and still wishes to be a part of society, even when choosing a life far from town on Walden Pond.

I do not know how much it would be accurate to describe a “process” for the encoding of part of “Visitors” into TEI, nor for the creation of our timeline. Group six theoretically had five members, but in actuality had three, all joining at different times. Emma was the first to be active in our Slack, and she led the choosing of the topic and ultimately ended up creating the timeline on her own. I was next, present early on when discussing topics to show that I existed, but I ultimately began active participation when I started encoding the TEI. Anthony joined relatively late on, and assisted with the TEI, doing the smaller upper section that I had not yet touched. I ultimately completed the final touches and debugging on the TEI, as well as being the one responsible for the crafting of our final blog post, as should be obvious. It is written on my account, after all.

The biggest obstacle, and one I would hesitate to say we ever overcame, was the issue of coordination. As stated above, our five-person group had two members who never made themselves known, with the other three all becoming active on the project at different times. Calling the project collaborative in this setting, especially considering our highly limited and disjointed communications on Slack amid the pandemic, would be generous. To a large extent, the three of us did three separate projects with little to no interaction with the others. This ultimately led to a functional result, although I cannot help but wonder what our result would have been like had we skillfully collaborated and communicated. Truly, however, I, at least, am content with what we have created. Under the circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic, when none of us are well mentally even when we are not ill physically, pushing through and completing this project is an achievement in and of itself. We did ultimately establish passable communication via Slack during the last few days of working on the project, as it was a focus for all of us due to the looming due date, and we did ultimately create a cohesive product. Well I would not say we ever truly overcame our difficulties, we did improve and we did ultimately succeed in completing this project.

Posted on by Jose Romero - No Comments on Authors of our Own Lives & Writers of our Fate

Authors of our Own Lives & Writers of our Fate

At the start of the semester, I selected this course due to the nature of what we would be learning about: technology. As someone who is really passionate about always using online platforms to communicate, plan out events, and organize work, I was really intrigued about learning the ways in which technology has transformed the digital humanities. This course was a very difficult journey for me but my initial interest is what kept me from quitting. Early on in the course, I fell behind on work and found it easier to escape instead of asking for support. I hit a brick wall halfway through the semester and was really confused about what was going on in the course. Due to this, it’d be a disservice to me to detail a significant change in my interpretation of the English discipline as a result of my work in ENGL 340. However, my perception of English as a discipline did significantly change as a result of my struggles, obstacles, and most importantly, my ability to continue adapting to a new learning environment that I had not been exposed to before. 

Logistically, this course is set up to introduce new technology platforms to students including Slack, Python, TEI files, timelines, etc. All of the English courses I had taken in the past only focused on readings, essays, short responses, and class discussions. Being a part of the ENGL 340 learning experience was very tricky for me since it took a lot of time to adjust to the tasks I had not been presented with before. However, it also allowed me to be a part of a completely new learning community since many of us had not used any of the platforms mentioned above before. It was such an intriguing experience. From learning how to write journal entries to using VS code, we were all learning everything at the same pace. The memorable looks of confusion and the “ah yes!” moments are what made this class different than others; we supported each other in the process of learning. English as a discipline can most of the time be viewed as essays, papers, and readings, but throughout this course, I learned that it is more. It is learning how to use everything you have read and creating a new learning experience. For us, that was being able to read a text from Gleick’s The Information or Walden and reflect upon what we learn through a blog post, a journal entry, or use technology to analyze the words, patterns, and codes in the text. Working in a group also allowed us to collaboratively share ideas, even if it was remotely, and learn about one another’s interpretations. 

Though I was not the most active participant in class, one of our classroom discussions that I thoroughly enjoyed was when we discussed Sounds by Henry David Thoreau. The sentence we primarily focused on was “much is published, but little printed.” Within my group, we started a conversation about what we see published in libraries, bookstores, and what readings professors use to assign to us. I introduced our group to the concept of the literary canon, which I learned in another course refers to the group of books considered to be the most important and influential during a designated time period or place. Most of the authors we discussed were primarily White men and were introduced to us as “classic” reads in middle school. As we made ties to Thoreau’s “much is published, but little printed” we connected this quote to the lack of representation that is found in literature. Many great authors have well-written pieces ready to be published but are unable to get an agent to release it. This opened the floor to the question of “is everything that is published ‘good’? Would we rather have little printed and find meaning in unique texts? Or would we rather increase the number of authors being published to significantly break the literary canon with new ideas?” It was so amazing to see the different points of views that my group discussed and even more impactful for me because I got an opportunity to share knowledge from another course and challenge my peers to think about the ways in which we’ve grown up and how we want to shape our literary future. 

As Thoreau mentions in Sounds, “what is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.” Throughout this course, I believe I acted as a seer, noticing where I was struggling and thinking about ways of reaching out for help. However, I also enjoyed the new experience which allowed me to read the texts in this course with more intent. Though I struggled, I am proud of my ability to be transparent with myself and to analyze what went wrong. In reading and writing about my struggles, I know that English as a discipline also impacts us as the authors of our own lives, and as the writers of our fate.

Posted on by Jaffre Aether - No Comments on Revising Nature into Language: An Analysis of Solitude through Time

Revising Nature into Language: An Analysis of Solitude through Time

Group Members: Hannah Fahy, Hannah Jewell, Kyle Regan, Leila Sassouni, Jaffre Aether

The first major decision of our group was to determine the pages we wanted to review. For that, we chose the first pages of “Solitude” as the chapter resonated with many of us and contained relevant snippets on the grand themes we enjoyed throughout the work, namely, the imperfections of language in the face of true sensory experience. Language and nature are set up as two sides to the whole, and it is a gap that must be confronted when trying to write about the sublimity of the outdoors, and how we, as social creatures bathed in language, must find an authentic way to access this unremembered sphere. However, it is the introduction of manuscript pages in which we faced the most obstacles.

The process of combing through the handwritten Walden was an especially difficult task for our group, as one of our group members noted that the version we were looking at (on the spreadsheet Dr. Schacht shared) was out of order. Such as that, it was quite difficult to locate the pages we were working off of. This challenge did not stop our work though, as we were able to form analysis through the versioning machine. While not in the whole spirit of the analysis, the versioning machine was incredibly helpful, as we were able to visualize the changes being enacted by Walden. Moreover, the versioning machine makes explicit the changes by using highlights and cross outs that would not have been as obvious in comparing the actual and physical manuscript pages. We struggled, too, in reading cursive, so seeing the work in print was very helpful. But, because of the versioning machine, the analysis went smoothly and connecting Thoreau’s revisions to the grander themes within the work was a painless task. In addition, the work of creating the timeline was simple, too. In going through many of the manuscript pages, a group member came to the realization on how to find the manuscript images for the “Solitude” chapter. The pictures repeatedly had page numbers in a blue font. The page numbers that were written in blue from pages 202 to 218 contained writing from the chapter. It became simpler to find parts of the chapter once these page numbers were discovered. The next step was to use Ctrl + F to search for strings of words that were discernible from the manuscript, to find if they were in fact in the chapter or not.

As far as the building of the TimelineJS spreadsheet, as most of us were familiar with the platform from a previous assignment, it was not too difficult to create. The template made things simple, as everything we needed to include was clearly marked. Finding the dates, too, was as simple as looking them up. But, once again, the most difficult aspect of creating the timeline itself was finding the manuscript images, as the page order was not linear in the way the final work was, and legibility was at a minimum (for a group not used to cursive). The search naturally improved when we began to use the Huntington Library’s manuscript, as the files were not fully pixelated, and thus, did not take long to load on each of our computers. Other than that, creating the timeline of “Solitude” was a smooth and fun process. The coding of the chapter’s first page to a TEI format was also relatively painless.

For the coding of the TEI format, one group member (as this group member felt comfortable in the TEI coding framework) took on the task, but nonetheless, the encoding process went well. By already having experience in the TEI format from the modules on Canvas, as well as having the added template, coding out the page was a task of utilizing the template to find how to code the changed parts of “Solitude” into the file. However, the coding was, again, not done off the manuscript page itself, instead using the versioning machine, as it took our group some time to find the manuscript page, and we knew we had to continue working while that process was ongoing. This practice did create a sort of logjam, as the lines of “Solitude” on the versioning machine did not match up to the lines of “Solitude” on the manuscript page, which meant that the TEI file could not be completed until we found the manuscript page. But, once we did, the coding was able to be completed. The work seems to go much smoother by using the versioning machine and the manuscript page in tandem, as the machine is eminently readable, and the manuscript age contains the lines that allow for the TEI file to be rightly ordered. The last meaningful piece of the process to address was our group’s communication.

For the most part, our group communicated through Slack and Zoom. At first, I thought that this may make the project more difficult or frustrating as there would be no set class time to work on it, but it actually went quite smoothly. We were able to talk about the smaller things in the Slack chat, mainly asking questions and sharing pertinent links, and when we needed to discuss larger issues, mainly the project itself and delegating out work, we met in a Zoom call. The Zoom calls were effective, not only because we could talk and share ideas quickly, but also because it created a time in which we could all gather and work on the project together. Because of that, discussion was only one facet of the call, with the other major facet being the creation of a ‘study hall’ where we knew we would be getting a significant amount of work done throughout. So overall, communication was not a problem for this project, which I sincerely thought it might be at the outset. 

With all that said, this project was interesting to do, as it was the synthesis of everything we had been working on. Though, it was slightly tricky as well, for a good deal of what we used within this project was learned during our period of distance learning, not only for the technical workings we used (TimelineJS and TEI coding), but reading and analyzing text from the revisions that Walden made. It still worked out, and I believe the final project is something meaningful, but it inspired a bit more anxiety than normal, as we were not able to test our ideas out to Dr. Schacht in real time. However, working without that kind of safety net was a worthwhile experience, even if it may turn out different because of that. Either way, the group is happy with how the project turned out, as the analysis turned out intriguing, and our technical skills were sharpened. 

Posted on by Mitchell Pace - No Comments on Constantly Adapting

Constantly Adapting

In the final days of this semester, I can’t help but look back at how things have changed in how we proceeded. With COVID-19, everyone, not just students, had to adapt to how the world had changed. For many of us, this included going home from campus, learning online and working from home. Now, as the semester draws to a close, we all have to adapt once more; we have to adapt to facing the uncertainty of the time we all live in without the order and structure given to us by our classes, keeping us aware of what day it is through assignments and classes.

With this change fast approaching, I find myself more certain of things than I had expected. This is weird to me because of how much we do not know. We do not know when stay at home will effectively end in New York. We do not know when businesses will be up and running again. We do not know if we will be returning to campus in the fall. Truly, we are in the most uncertain times of our lives, so how come I feel certain? I feel certain because I know that we can and will adapt. After all, if this semester, and this class, has taught me anything, it is that we are more than capable of adapting to whatever challenge comes our way.

While staying at home, working with Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, we spent a lot of time looking at and commenting on the many revisions that he had made to Walden over the years. It just goes to show how things could change for him back then. My project group had worked with the “Higher Laws” chapter, specifically paragraphs one and seven. I bring this up because in the first draft of paragraph seven, Thoreau had a line that didn’t survive past that first version. That line was “But practically I am only half-converted by my own arguments as I still fish.” I bring this line up because it illustrates how Thoreau had adapted to his time in the woods. He adapted, meaning that line was no longer unnecessary as the more time he spent in the woods, he adapted to a new form of life that brushed away his doubts. It is that change that I am particularly enamored with. Thoreau was able to live in seclusion and adapt to it, not unlike what we have been doing now. The biggest differences being that our seclusion is not by choice and the fear over our well-being, even still we are secluded and we adapted to this once before.

Moving into this next phase of quarantine, with less responsibilities with classes and assignments being done, it is much like my initial thoughts on using the command line; harder and more confusing than I am used to. But, as with the command line, I feel as though we all can learn to navigate this new situation in time. Times are hard and they are only set to get harder, but we have already adapted to so much, so what’s a bit more adapting to finish getting through this? I may be retrospective right now in the face of another shift, but because of how we have already had to adapt once to this, and with how this class has enforced adaptation, I’m confident in how we will all be able to move forward undaunted and I look forward to going back to campus with this as just another experience to be learned from. Maybe it’s time for us to write our own Walden based on quarantine showing our change in this time and how we adapt to it?

Posted on by Maeve Morley - No Comments on Sharing our Journey & Perspective on the Final Project in the Midst of a Global Pandemic (Group 4)

Sharing our Journey & Perspective on the Final Project in the Midst of a Global Pandemic (Group 4)

The month of March brought along many challenges for students all over the world due to the unprecedented pandemic. The shift to online learning has been a difficult one for many, but communication between students has been easier due to newer technology. Our group, composed of Caroline Crimmins, Christina Interlichia, Maeve Morley, Mariah Branch, and Jose Romero, all worked hard to accomplish a task that many find daunting to begin with: a group project. However, in this case we were faced with another rare and unique obstacle: working on a group project online in the midst of Covid-19.

At the start of our project, we all communicated via Slack, one of the new tools of communication we’ve learned particular to this course, our availability for the first week. We decided to have a group Zoom call where we would begin our first initial stages of planning for the project. Although not all of us were able to attend the Zoom call, the line of communication was still held, because the information from the call would also be transferred and conveyed over Slack as well for those who were not present. Some of our group’s collective strengths throughout this whole process was our transparency in our skill set, each member’s flexibility when finding a time for everyone to meet, and open communication with one another via Slack. 

In order to carefully select a text to analyze that consisted of significant, or interesting changes to note, we each read a chapter of Walden and looked for any unique changes worth analyzing between two manuscript versions. After reading over five chapters, we all shared our findings over Zoom and collaboratively decided that we would be focusing on the chapter “Solitude.” More specifically, we chose to analyze the changes made from Version A to Version B. In his writing process of Walden, Henry David Thoreau added a whole new passage in “Solitude” composed of paragraphs, 5b, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 to Version B which was not originally written in Version A. This noticeable change helped spark a sense of curiosity in us, which led to our interest in trying to interpret and analyze this change made in Walden.

After narrowing down the passage that our group would be focusing on, we delegated individual roles based off of each member’s personal skill sets, and how they could contribute in the most effective and valuable way possible to the project as a whole. Christina and Maeve took the initiative to work on the TEI file and analyze the manuscripts. Throughout this process, there were a few obstacles that the TEI file duo encountered. As Christina expressed, “One obstacle I found was locating where the changes were in Version B. I had to develop a process to narrow it down.” First, she started with a random manuscript page and found a line of text that was relatively legible in her eyes. Next, she opened the plain text version of Walden we saved from class and searched the text for the particular phrase. Depending where it fell, whether before or after the section our group was focusing on, she would detect a new manuscript page closer to where she thought the desired paragraph, 5b, for the TEI file was. She kept repeating this process until she got close to paragraph 5b, and then used the fluid text of Walden to narrow her search even further.

She assumed that once she found paragraph 5b on p. 137 of the Walden manuscript images, it would be smooth sailing from there, but this was not the case. Not only were Thoreau’s manuscript pages messy in terms of handwriting, they were also messy in terms of formatting. On some pages, the paragraphs wouldn’t fall in order from top to bottom. This was noticeably reflective of Thoreau’s individual writing process and technique where he would scribble in various types of mediums wherever he saw fit and was legible in his eyes. The process of locating the correct manuscript images for the TEI file was the most difficult part of the whole endeavor.

As Maeve describes, “l thought the process was fairly straight-forward for me since our class has already had practice with editing a TEI file. However, it still required a lot of patience and attention to detail on my part. I spent most of my effort attempting to read the (quite messy) cursive of Thoreau’s original manuscript page of Version B and then translating it into the TEI file in VS Code.” For her, transcribing the words from the manuscript page into the metalanguage of the TEI file required trial and error. When she thought she had successfully completed her half of the TEI file and went to validate it, there would be an error. This occurred more than once for her. Therefore, it was important to take her time with the process, because something could easily be overlooked. She noted that what she appreciated the most out of this experience was the level of concentration that was required of her: “It was quite easy to immerse myself within this process and become very focused and lose track of time.”

Following the successful completion of the TEI file by Christina and Maeve, Caroline and Mariah worked on the timeline using TimelineJS (see down below). One of the challenges this duo faced was being able to input information into the timeline itself. Once Caroline reached a certain number of slides, the lines stopped, making it slightly more difficult to add information. Again, it was very difficult to locate manuscript pages. Despite these challenges, our team was very supportive and helpful. Christina added a few more changes to the timeline, helping support Caroline and Mariah. After submitting the timeline, we received constructive feedback, which Caroline and Mariah looked into in order to improve our timeline. Thus, this experience of creating the timeline was also composed of trial and error.

Overall, this was a very unique and thought-provoking experience, or more so, a journey. Given the circumstances, we had to maintain all forms of communication via Slack and remain flexible in making ourselves available to meet via Zoom. If the line of communication was to fall and go dark, this experience would have been much more difficult and stressful. Our team was supportive of one another and helped each other clarify anything that was confusing or difficult. In order to relay the individual experiences of his group mates in the most authentic way possible, and to ensure that everyone’s perspectives, frustrations, successes, and scholarly endeavors were communicated, Jose sent out a document so that each member could document their individual journeys throughout the process. Although we regularly met to discuss our plans for the week and share how we were feeling, it was also great to provide testimony of how each member was feeling in the moment that they were completing their work. The main focus behind this final project was to hopefully ensure everyone’s success in this final step of Digital Humanities, and to provide a lifeline to those who might have been struggling to keep their head above the water. We believe that our group truly embodied that community goal.

Timeline: 

Journal:

A record of each group member’s individual perspectives on the revisions we’ve visualized as a group and accompanying discussions of the processes of encoding and creating the timeline, including challenges and obstacles the group faced and overcame.

Saturday, May 2nd (Christina):

One obstacle I found was locating where the changes were in Version B. I had to develop a process to narrow it down. First, I started with a random manuscript page and found a line of text I could read. Then, I opened the plain text version of Walden we saved from class and searched the text for this phrase. Depending where it fell, whether before or after the section we’re focusing on, I would pick a new manuscript page closer to where I thought paragraph 5b was. I kept repeating this process until I got closer to paragraph 5b, and then I used the fluid text of Walden to further narrow my search.

Once I found paragraph 5b on page 137, I thought it would be smooth sailing, but this was not the case. On page 140, the text is a mess. Paragraph 10 is at the top and bottom of the page with paragraphs 7-9 scribbled lightly in the middle in pencil. They are so light that I thought the middle of the page was blank at first. After squinting at my screen for a while and comparing phrases back and forth to the fluid text, I finally recognized what sections of text I was looking at. 

Wednesday, May 6th (Maeve):

Today, I completed the first half of transcribing the first half of manuscript page 139 from Walden’s Version B into a TEI file. Although the process was fairly straight-forward for me since our class has already had practice with editing a TEI file, it still required a lot of patience and attention to detail on my part. I spent most of my effort attempting to read the (quite messy) cursive of Thoreau’s original manuscript page of Version B and translating it into the TEI file in VS Code. As for transcribing the words from the manuscript page into the metalanguage of a TEI file, it required a lot of trial and error, in which I thought I was done, but when I went to validate the file there was still an error. Therefore, it’s important to take your time with this process because something can easily be overlooked. What I appreciated the most out of this experience was the level of concentration I needed for this. It was quite easy to immerse myself within this process and become very focused and lose track of time.

Wednesday, May 6th (Mariah):

Today, I decided to look for the manuscript pages that correlated with the sections that we decided to look at. Unfortunately, I did not look at this document first so I had been using a similar method to Christina’s to find the corresponding manuscript pages when I really could have just read this and found where paragraph 5b began. I figured that it would make most sense to compare these images across Versions A and B in the timeline to highlight Thoreau’s changes. I think I will try to see what the additions that Thoreau made to his writing does for the overall message of “Solitude.” I think it will also be interesting to see how the addition of sections 5b, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 connect with the rest of Thoreau’s argument. 

Monday, May 11th (Caroline):

One problem that I faced was inputting information into the timeline. Once I reached a certain number of slides, the lines stopped making it slightly more difficult to add information. Additionally, it was very difficult to locate manuscript pages. 

Tuesday, May 12th (Caroline):

Maeve and I had a zoom call and we figured out the correct link for embedding the timeline.

Posted on by Danielle Crowley - No Comments on Revisions in “Higher Laws,” a Section of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden

Revisions in “Higher Laws,” a Section of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden

Group 5 – Alyssa Harrington, Danielle Crowley, Madison Jackson, Mitchell Pace, and Noah Lieberman

For our revision timeline, we selected the “Higher Laws” chapter of Walden. This chapter, containing much of Thoreau’s ideology and attitude towards nature, is about the titular “Higher Laws” which govern humanity to a greater degree than societally codified ones. Thoreau proposes to exist above those made by the legal system and government. The chapter serves as a particularly good example for understanding Thoreau’s philosophy as it is dense with his thoughts on the forces compelling mankind as we exist in nature. Throughout the revisions made in the multiple versions of Walden that Thoreau made, “Higher Laws” remained very unchanged until very late versions of the manuscript. With that in mind, what few revisions we can see within his manuscripts are omitted in his final draft.

The lack of revision within this chapter is interesting because it demonstrates the consistency with which Thoreau remained dedicated to the wisdom contained in these passages. With exception to vocabulary used, most of the general ideas Thoreau pushes forward are the same in all versions. This idea shows Thoreaus commitment to the “Higher Laws” that he chooses to follow.

While the majority of this chapter revolves around Thoreau’s own set of rules that he uses to govern himself, there is an interesting development that is made during his time in the wilderness can be observed. In this section of the text, Thoreau comments on his sanity and the state of his mental wellbeing. While writing about his experiences during his prolonged time in isolation, Thoreau discusses the primal and animalistic thoughts he had toward his environment. As he adds to his line, in pencil, “Once or Twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking some kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been too savage for me”. These lines are a notable revision, in very stark contrast with the language Thoreau otherwise uses to describe his time at Walden Pond. By comparison to the ordinarily serene and pastoral imagery his language conveys when writing about his connection with the land, these lines are brutal and wild. We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. “It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature.” The way Thoreau describes these animal-like urges is very different from the way he describes his guilt and concerns over consumption of animal products. In his final draft he writes, “I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect”. By comparing these lines, our timeline illustrates a certain change of character in Thoreau. In spending time immersed in nature, he becomes more sensitive and feels more toward the living environment around him. The line, “But practically I am only half-converted by my own arguments as I still fish,” displays this shift in character best as it only appears in version A of the chapter’s seventh paragraph. As time goes on and more revisions are made, it seems as though he convinces himself more and more.

We also see examples of Thoreau’s seemingly deteriorating mental health in version E, paragraph one in “Higher Laws,” which is the first place within the chapter where we see significant revision. A complete rewrite of the paragraph is present where Thoreau details another example of his thinking during his immersion in nature. Thoreau writes: “not that I was hungry, but for the wilderness which he represented”. This line follows the description of the beaver crossing in front of Thoreau on his walk home. In this line, it seems as if Thoreau did not want the reader to think of him as a savage and wanted to provide justification – Thoreau was so immersed in Nature at this point in the text he wanted to be a part of it as much as possible. He ends the portion of revisions by noting, “I love the wild not less than the good”. This revision is important because of the way it further demonstrates the mental effects Thoreau’s time at Walden Pond is having on him. As a fluid text, we gain insight into the changes in the man through changes in the text.

Thoreau also changes the use of first person to the use of third person when he is revising this chapter of the manuscript. During his first drafts, Thoreau writes of these “Higher Laws” as they apply to himself and is daily life, as these “laws” are a personal code for Thoreau alone. Later in the revisions, he changes this by changing the use of “I” to the use of “he”. By doing this, Thoreau applies that his “Higher Laws” should be used in a more general sense, applying them to everyone rather than just himself. With this revisions, one can speculate that Thoreau, through his time in the woods, spent a lot of time thinking about how things ought to be and began to feel that these “Higher Laws” he has been using to govern himself are the very ones that should govern all. These are interesting revisions Thoreau makes and they reveal that Thoreau obeys this particular set of “Higher Laws” that he developed and is looking to make them more common throughout society.

Overall, what is profound about looking at “Higher Laws” is just how much one can learn by looking at the many revisions Thoreau made to Walden over the years and by looking at the way in which he made those revisions. In analyzing the text and understanding its fluidity in a developmental context, we can track, revision by revision, the ways in which the author of that text develops themself. Through the process of tracking revision, the human element of the humanities is revealed to us. The changes and developments we undergo as people are reflected within the things we create over time. It’s a profound thing that technology has given us to be ability to witness those stories playing out over the course of a human life and to see the ways our favorite authors change through their work. These revisions give us a deeper context for understanding the feelings, progress, and formation of ideology that Thoreau underwent in his lifetime.

Following changes within Walden, we can see Thoreau’s own advice for living in action, “Live in each season as it passes; breath the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” Henry David Thoreau’s journey of self discovery being preserved in this way for his readers to track and appreciate is something which gives the text a valuable lesson even greater than those contained within its final draft. Walden as a fluid text shows us that our past experiences do not define us. In trying to do what is best and right for the world around us, we learn things which change our perspective and our values. Living in the moment and staying fluid ourselves is the right way to live. Through revision of our ideas and ourselves, we can all change for the better.

Posted on by Hannah Jewell - No Comments on Walden in Real Life

Walden in Real Life

Picture this: You’re a college student going into your second semester of sophomore year. You’ve registered for a few different 300-level English classes, all fulfilling different requirements. You’re excited to take an English class where you don’t read all eighteenth-century literature, because how many of those texts can you actually read before it gets a little old? You look at the required materials for your Digital Humanities class and one of the books is titled “Walden.” You have no idea what this means… is it a person? place? idea? You soon find out that it is the name of a pond surrounding the home of where the author of the book lives in semi-isolation.

Going into ENGL 340 where much of the course’s focus is on Walden, I thought it was quite unrealistic to live in the woods in a small cabin, being almost completely self-sufficient. Picturing myself in this situation, I’m sure I would be able to manage growing and preparing food to keep me alive, and finding some activities to keep me entertained. However, knowing myself and I rely on socializing to keep me busy, I could only do this for so long before I would become bored and get in my own head from feeling overwhelmingly alone with my thoughts. Thankfully, this was something that someone else did and not me. To each their own, right?

The last day of class before Spring Break, I was feeling extremely unmotivated and was considering not going to class, but I chose to go anyway. Little did I know, that would be the last day of ENGL 340 I would go to, but not because of my own choices. I think a lot of my other peers in the class were feeling the same lack of motivation that I was, seeing how there were few students in attendance. Towards the end of class, I got Twitter notification on my phone with a headline somewhere along the lines of “Governor Cuomo says that all SUNY schools will learn remotely for the rest of the school year.” I kept this to myself as I was still in shock that this could actually be real. About a minute later, one of my classmates, Leila, announced to the class the same thing that I had just seen.

Everyone in the class started asking questions out loud like “Is this actually real?” or “I live in Long Island, how am I just supposed to pack up and leave?” At the time, we didn’t actually know if the school would send us all home. I had some hope that we might be able to stay in the dorms and do our work there and just not go to class. The entire rest of the day was chaotic. Staff members didn’t know what was going on and there were so many rumors going on, I didn’t know what to believe. As an RA myself, I had concerned residents asking me what was actually going on and what they were supposed to do. I had to tell them that I didn’t know myself and that we would have to wait to receive word from the school about the next steps.

Eventually, it seemed like the school had reached a settled plan that students could go home for Spring Break and return if they notified their Area or Residence Director that they planned on coming back. There were also the options to stay at school during the break and for the rest of the semester or to go home completely. I planned on either staying for break with my friends who lived far away and didn’t want to travel back and forth, or to go home and return to school after break. Either way, I was just relieved at the time that I wouldn’t have to live at home and I could come back to school and still spend time with my friends, even if we couldn’t attend classes or have a normal rest of the semester.

To my surprise, when I was home at the beginning of break, I received an email saying I had to return to school, gather my belongings, and move out of my dorm room completely. I immediately texted my friends wondering if they saw it, too. A few days later, I drove back to Geneseo, moved out of my room, and said goodbye to my few friends and fellow staff members in my building. I had no idea that my life for the next few months would turn into a living example of what I had read about in Walden.

I guess what I can say I learned from all this is to “never say never,” because truly anything can happen. Also, I think it’s an important lesson to not believe everything you hear, because the news makes mistakes, too and rumors can spread quickly, especially in a time like this. I never thought that such a unique situation as Thoreau’s would ever become a reality I would live myself, but now I can appreciate Walden in my own new way. In the end, being quarantined wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, but it has had a significant impact on the way I view life and even the ‘humanities’ as we have talked about the various meanings of this concept in class. At then end of the day, I guess it’s pretty cool that I got to live out my own 2-month-long episode (and counting) of one of my favorite shows: The Twilight Zone !

Posted on by Abigail Henry - No Comments on Google’s Newest Employee?

Google’s Newest Employee?

As I was scrolling on the app TikTok, for what may or may not have been the third time today, a particular video caught my attention. The opening line of the video was,

This is how you get a job at Google, using Google Foobar, their secret hiring challenge.

– @thomaspwang on TikTok

Instantly, I was hooked. However, there were a few questions running through my mind: What is Google Foobar? What is the challenge? Do they actually hire people this way?

The video continued on to show how you can access Google Foobar. You begin by simply searching “c++ move semantics” in Chrome. After about 30 seconds (give or take), a bar should appear at the top of your window that says, “Curious developers are known to seek interesting problems. Solve one from Google?” You are also given three options involving how you want to proceed – “I want to play”, “No thanks”, or “Don’t show me this again”. For reference, this is what my window looked like after following these steps.

My invitation to the Google Foobar challenge.

Before continuing on, I wanted to do some more background research about the challenge and whether or not players were actually employed after completing it.

Quickly, I learned that Google typically only gives out the challenge invitation to special developers… and I am not a developer by any means (thanks for the hack, TikTok!). Google finds these developers by watching their search history for programming-related words and problems. If the user decides that they want to proceed, selecting “I want to play” causes a command line like interface to appear in a new tab. After typing the command “request” to get started, you will receive coding/programming questions in your Foobar command line folder that you must solve. You are able to answer these questions and submit your solutions in either JAVA or Python (whichever you prefer). I will spare the details of each level, but there are five levels that the player must complete successfully in order to complete the Foobar challenge overall.

Upon completing the Google Foobar challenge, you are asked for contact details, and will receive an invitation for an interview. If you pass the interview, congrats! You are now (most likely) a Google employee. So yes, people often are hired from this challenge. As I mentioned before, this is because those who partake in the Foobar challenge are usually directly invited by Google. Therefore, if you are just the average person like myself using a roundabout way to access it, you probably will not see yourself in the Googleplex any time soon. But it’s worth a shot!

All in all, I would still love to try the Google Foobar challenge someday, but I am nowhere near ready to (yet). Although, who knows – maybe I could hone the Python skills I learned in ENGL 340 in the future and become Google’s newest employee.

Posted on by Danielle Crowley - No Comments on Working Collaboratively, Apart

Working Collaboratively, Apart

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t quite sure how working on a group project without being able to meet with your group in person was going to work. However, I was presently surprised with how well everyone was able to work and how productive the tools we had at our disposal were.

I’m new to GitHub and the command line of my computer. These tools were invaluable when working on this group project and they are very powerful in terms of what they can do. Being able to pull changes from the master branch on Dr. Schacht’s repository, editing the files, and then pushing them back to Github to merge the changes was actually kind of a fun process to complete and a highly effective one.

I think in general I have learned throughout this course that there are very few limits to the things Technology can do. I think I particularly liked this course and the work we did in it because it was process-based. I learned the steps to a sequence and did them over and over – for someone who craves routine as I do, this was rather enjoyable to complete. On top of that, given the current status of the world, being able to push Github journal files every week or so gave a sense normalcy to everyday life.

Throughout this semester, we spent a lot of time talking about the things technology can do. Little did we know that by the end of it, we would be relying on technology as heavily as are now. Using Zoom to meet with our groups, collaborating on TEI files, working in Google Drive to make edits to the timeline and the blog post, each group was able to complete their project. Technology can just do so many amazing things and connect people from where ever they are to complete something they can be proud of.

While getting started on this process was a rocky start I’m sure for some groups, the transition to working solely online, and then learning how to work together on a goal from different places was hard to do, I’m proud of what we were able to accomplish. Finals are stressful, but I think, despite the workload that this project was, I was able to relax while completing this project because the processes were the same in the TEI file and the Timeline. There were steps you follow to complete the Timeline and the tags in the TEI file don’t change, the coding language doesn’t change, so it felt more straight forward than other final exam group project have been.

Working with a group during a period of social distancing has certainly been a learning curve for me and hasn’t always been the easiest thing to do, but being able to get closer to technology and see all the amazing things it can do has been the most enjoyable part of this process. Technology can do anything you can put your mind to at this point, you just have to take the time to learn it. This course has given me the platform to learn a lot more about what my computer can do and it has been an enjoyable one for those purposes. I look forward to learning more about the different things my computer can do and what else I can do with technology to work on things with a variety of different people from the comfort of my own home.

Stay safe everyone, good luck on finals, and cheers to our seniors.

Posted on by Kira Baran - No Comments on “Social” versus “Physical” Distancing

“Social” versus “Physical” Distancing

While stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve come across multiple news articles claiming that calls for “social distancing” have been sending the wrong message to people. They claim “physical distancing” would be a much more accurate term to be using.

These articles make a good point. Does physically standing six feet away from other people have to mean being anti-social? True, restaurants and recreational meeting places are closed down; but does this necessarily mean that we have to close ourselves off, too, when we live in a technologically-driven society that allows for human connection and communication through virtual means? I would argue that it is possible to be physically distant without being socially distant, just as it is possible to be socially distant without being physically distant. (A sentiment Thoreau echoes in the chapter “Solitude”: “We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.”)

While I was reading these articles, I couldn’t help thinking back to Walden, and what Henry David Thoreau has to say about isolation and socialization. For example, take a look at this quote from the chapter “Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors”:

“Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by children’s hands, in front-yard plots,—now standing by wall-sides in retired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests;—the last of that stirp, sole survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children think that the puny slip with its two eyes only, which they stuck in the ground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, would root itself so, and outlive them and house itself in the rear that shaded it, and grown man’s garden and orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a half century after they had grown up and died,—blossoming as fair, and smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still tender, civil, cheerful, lilac colors.”

The above passage reflects on the fact that people often forget that their physical presence is not necessary in order to influence their environment and surrounding ecosystem–or, in the case of this blog post, their society. Physical distance, or even altogether physical absence, does not have to equal social absence. Even from far away, even from their computer screens, people have been finding innovative ways to influence their world in surprising, powerful ways. We are seeing this happen now, as things like remote learning, digital literature, and virtual communication step up to the plate to make up for in-person interaction. Of course, that’s not to say this transition has been easy on any of us. It hasn’t. Physical distancing does not have to eliminate socialization, but it certainly does discourage it and make it more difficult to achieve. Nonetheless, I think we can count ourselves comparatively lucky when considering that, centuries ago during past pandemics, things like online education, literature, and communication would not have been available to us whatsoever during a widespread lock-down situation.

On a final note, if there is one thing I have learned from studying the drafts and revision processes that Thoreau went through in writing Walden, it is that precision and accuracy matter when it comes to how we use language. As Thoreau knew all too well, the nuances of language are subtle yet powerful. On face value, “physical distancing” and “social distancing” might seem like synonyms; and perhaps they are. But even synonyms differ in connotation and meaning. These slight variations are what impact how language is interpreted by listeners/readers/language users. For this reason, taking a moment to reflect on the difference between “physical” and “social” distancing is worthwhile. The difference between the two may be a fine line indeed, but in the end it is all the difference to us as we power through this pandemic.