Propose a session

Everyone who goes to a THATCamp can propose a session. Do not prepare a paper or presentation. Plan instead to have a conversation, to get some work done, or to have fun.

After you register, you will receive login information for this site. If you have already been to a THATCamp, you might have login information already: go to the login page and click “Lost your password?” to see if you already have an account on thatcamp.org. To propose a session, log in, and post a session proposal to the blog by clicking on “Post –> Add New” in your administration panel. Please use the “Session Ideas” category so that others can easily find your post. As for what to propose, read on . . .

No papers, no presentations

An unconference, in Tom Scheinfeldt’s words, is fun, productive, and collegial, and at THATCamp, therefore, “[W]e’re not here to listen and be listened to. We’re here to work, to participate actively.[…] We’re here to get stuff done.” Listen further:

Everyone should feel equally free to participate and everyone should let everyone else feel equally free to participate. You are not students and professors, management and staff here at THATCamp. At most conferences, the game we play is one in which I, the speaker, try desperately to prove to you how smart I am, and you, the audience member, tries desperately in the question and answer period to show how stupid I am by comparison. Not here. At THATCamp we’re here to be supportive of one another as we all struggle with the challenges and opportunities of incorporating technology in our work, departments, disciplines, and humanist missions.

Also, please see this helpful post on “How to run a great unconference session.”

Session genres

Here are some ideas and examples from previous THATCamps:

1. General discussion— Sometimes people just want to get together and talk informally, with no agenda, about something they’re all interested in. Nothing wrong with that; it’s certainly a much better way of meeting people than addressing them from behind a podium. Propose a session on a topic that interests you, and if other people are interested, they’ll show up to talk about it with you.
   • Jon Voss, Toward Linked Data in the Humanities, Great Lakes THATCamp 2010.
   • Nick Mirzoeff, An actual digital revolution?, THATCamp Prime 2009
   • Frédéric Clavert and Véronique Ginouvès, Les archives orales et le web (Oral testimonies and the web), THATCamp Paris 2010
   • Zach Whalen, ARGS, Archives, and Digital Scholarship, THATCamp 2010
2. Hackathon— Several coders gather in a room to work on a particular project.
   • Wayne Graham, Mostly Hack Zotero hacking session, THATCamp Prime 2010
   • Stéfan Sinclair, One Day, One Toolet, Great Lakes THATCamp 2010
   • Ben Brumfield, Hackfest, THATCamp Austin 2009
3. Helpathon— You’re working on something, and you suspect that some of the various people who come to THATCamp might be able to help you with it. You describe problems you want solved and questions you want answered, and strangers magically show up to hear about what you’re doing and to give you their perspective and advice.
   • Aditi Shrikumar, Text Mining and the Digital Humanities, Great Lakes THATCamp 2010
   • Kathleen Fitzpatrick, “how to transform something like CommentPress into a viable mode of open peer review,” THATCamp Southern California 2010
   • Sherman Dorn, The Ill-formed Question, THATCamp Prime 2009
4. Writeathon— A group of people get together to start writing something, whether it’s an article, a manifesto, a book, or a plan.
   • Julie Meloni, “Project develop self-paced open access digital humanities curriculum…, THATCamp Prime 2010
   • Dan Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt, One Week, One Book: Hacking the Academy, THATCamp Prime 2010
5. Solvathon— People get together to figure out how to address a shared or general problem.
   • Jeffrey McClurken, Archiving Social Media Conversations of Significant Events, THATCamp Prime 2009 (this session was combined with Nick Mirzoeff’s, above)
   • Eli Pousson, How do we share our knowledge of historic places?, THATCamp Columbus 2010
6. Workshop— A traditional workshop session with an instructor who leads students through a short introduction to and hands-on exercise in a particular skill.
   • Kirrily Roberts, FreeBase BootCamp, THATCamp Bay Area 2010
   • Miriam Langer, LilyPad & Arduino, THATCamp New Mexico 2010
   • Bethany Nowviskie and Bill Turkel, Hacking Wearables and E-Textiles Workshop, Great Lakes THATCamp 2010.
   • Aditi Muralidharan, Visualization BootCamp, THATCamp Bay Area 2010
   • Note that some (even most) THATCamp organizers prefer to arrange workshop sessions ahead of time (see THATCamp New England’s BootCamp, THATCamp Virginia’s BootCamp, and THATCamp Southeast’s BootCamp), but you can still volunteer to teach something at the last minute, or even put in a plea for someone else to teach something you’ve always wanted to learn. That’s what’s great about THATCamp.
7. Grab bag— Ah, miscellany. One of our favorite categories. Indefinable by definition. It’s astonishing how creative people can be when you give them permission; performances and games are welcome.
   • David Staley, An installation, THATCamp Prime 2009.
   • Mark Sample, Zen Scavenger Hunt, THATCamp Prime 2010 .

Still a little unsure as to what you might want to propose? Check out the blog for the 2009 edition of the original THATCamp or any of the other regional camps (all of which are listed here) to get an idea of the scope of topics. You can also check out all of the user submitted goodness from Great Lakes THATCamp 2010. Don’t feel limited by these topics, however – If it falls under the topic of the humanities (very broadly defined) and technology, and impacts you, your organization, or the field of digital humanities (broadly defined) then it’s fair game.