'Nation Words' in the OE Corpus (with optional Omeka assignment)

'Nation Words' in the OE Corpus (with optional Omeka assignment)

Old English

Omeka

Material Culture

English Nationalism

Classwork: students learn how to use DOE and DOE Corpus to search for 'nation-words', thinking about aspects such as date (where it is possible to date the OE text) and type of document (historical, homily, charter, private will) (1 hour) Optional Omeka component: students learn how to use Omeka to create an exhibit, drawing on archival material (British Museum, British Library) for material culture items (1 hour).

Optional Omeka assignment: In small groups, students create an Omeka exhibition comparing two or more incidences of a particular 'nation word' or set of 'nation words' in primary texts in Old English, drawing conclusions about the circulation, rhetoric, and evolution of concepts of nation and nationalism in early medieval England. Students will build an archive of items to illustrate these nation words: manuscript folio pages, DOE entries, text, images, etc. Then students will build an Omeka exhibit using the archive of items they have built. The extent and type of visualization in the exhibit are flexible, depending on the type of project the students want to undertake. Examples: comparing the changed contexts of a particular word pre-and-post-conquest England.

Anna Wilson

May-14

Ideas of Nation in Pre- and Post-Conquest Medieval England (4th year seminar class); no Old English prerequisite (English and History majors).

Classwork: Students unfamiliar with Old English learn to use the DOE; students learn to use Omeka; students learn to use metadata and think in structured, critical ways about resource materials and material culture.

Assignment: Students compare the usage of 'nation-words' in two or more primary materials, and create an Omeka presentation.In doing so, students learn about the diversity of texts available in OE; using close-reading as historical evidence; usefulness of digital tools and resources in doing historical research.

DOE

Class time: 2 hours

Assignment time: 10 hours