Methods of Lit/ Cult Studies
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
REMEDIATION ASSIGNMENT
Final project due Thursday, October 18, 2012
From the syllabus:
Special Collections digital story assignment.
The guidelines for this assignment in historical
reading are forthcoming, but in short you will use
contemporary media technologies – video capture,
Imovie, etc.—to curate an object from
Georgetown’s special collections department.
(Note that the root of curate is care.) You might
find an old letter whose significance you will
illuminate for us, an annotation in the margin of a
19th century novel, or an advertisement in the front
matter of a Dickens novel. You will then explain
the interest and importance of this historical
discovery using new media technologies. This is
an experimental assignment whose outcome is not
given in advance: part of your task is to think
about what the possibilities might be. I will hand
out a detailed guide and grading rubric as the
assignment approaches.
Further instructions: This assignment has two key components. In order of importance:
1) Curatorial. In groups of three, you will select an object from among the small, prescreened archive of mesmerizing items in Georgetown’s Special Collections. You
will curate this object: learn about it, meditate on its significance to you, care about it.
This component will involve techniques of close apprehension, fine-grained reading,
and intimate appreciation -- and research. I recommend you enlist a subject librarian
to help you. They are geniuses:
http://www.library.georgetown.edu/librarians-by-subject?quicktabs_3=0
2) Technological. After falling in love with your object, you will remediate that old and
likely forgotten media item using new media technologies. Your goal is to create a
new digital object using Imovie—and drawing on still images, narrated voiceover,
suggestive music, or any combination of the above—to make your dead object live
again. This is a creative assignment in historical imagination and rearticulation: your
task is to use one (new) medium’s affordances (i.e. its unique advantages as a
medium) to convey another, older one’s. In this sense you are translating one medium
into another – and making choices about how most stirringly to do so.
Formal restrictions: your digital object must last no longer than 3 minutes (i.e. 180 seconds
exactly); it must include an original script no more than 250 words long; this script will be
turned in a week before the final project is due.
Technological Resources:
 Lynda.com: This incredible new resource includes detailed instructional videos on
the relevant software, in this case Imovie.
http://guides.library.georgetown.edu/lynda. I recommend the following title:
“Imovie ’11 Essential Training.” If you watch this you will know Imovie inside out.

Youtube: Search “Imovie tutorial” and you will have a series of videos ready to help
you figure it out.

As a last resort, you may visit the Gelardin Media Lab and ask for help. Do not do this
unless you have watched the Lynda video and still have questions.
Timeline of Mini-Deadlines
Please note that each of these deadlines is firm and each of these deadlines is mandatory; failure to meet one is
a failure to meet all. Please observe them! They’re for your own good.
Thursday 9/27: our visit to Special Collections. After Thursday, short description of
objects available for students, either in hard copy or on the class blog.
After Thursday 9/27: Objects on a shelf in Special Collections, available for students to
examine and discuss, on a walk-in basis or by appointment with Special Collections
librarians.
Monday, October 8, by noon: Students turn in image requests to library photographer
David Hagen (hagend@georgetown.edu); each group requests no more than 6 images using
forms provided by Special Collections. Remember to be as absolutely, minutely specific as
you can be in describing what you would like in the image.
Tuesday, October 9, mid-day: Images from Mr. Hagen are ready for students to use.
Thursday, October 11, before end of day: Text due from students to Professor Hensley, in
hard copy or by email. Please CC Annalisa, aa956@georgetown.edu.
Thursday, October 18, by 12:30 pm (before class begins): Final project due, uploaded to
class weblog. If it’s not uploaded it hasn’t been turned in.
Grading Rubric:
A: You cared with extraordinary seriousness and quasi-theological conviction. You put in extraordinary work,
as individuals and as a group. You created an object that, if not itself extraordinary, had the potential to be so.
B: You cared much. You worked very hard. Perhaps you didn’t work as hard as your group members. Still,
you made something that fulfilled the requirements of assignments well and with distinction.
C: You cared. You worked. You made something that fulfilled the requirements of the assignment.
No credit: A failure of caring and of labor. A failure to meet the minimum requirements of the assignment.
Don’t do this.