This workshop serves as an introduction to Scalar, a free, open-source authoring and publishing platform designed for scholars writing media-rich, long-form, born-digital scholarship. Developed by the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture at the University of Southern California, Scalar allows scholars to assemble media from multiple sources and juxtapose that media with their own writing in a variety of ways; to annotate video, audio, images, source code, and text using the platform’s built-in media annotation tools; and to structure essay- and book-length works in ways that take advantage of the unique capabilities of digital writing, including nested, recursive, and non-linear formats. The workshop covers basic features of the platform, including a review of existing Scalar books and a hands-on introduction to paths, tags, annotations, and importing media.

Curtis Fletcher is Associate Director of the Ahmanson Lab at University of Southern California Libraries. His research draws on key questions in the fields of media studies, visual studies, science and technology studies, and the history of technology. His published works examine the history of educational technology, the history of humanities education, and the history of the digital humanities. His work in the digital humanities focuses on multimedia and multimodal authoring and publishing, digital pedagogy, and critical making. He specializes in digital research and writing, with particular expertise in new models for authoring, credentialing, and publishing born-digital humanities scholarship.

Tara McPherson is Professor of Cinema & Media Studies in the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and Director of the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study. She is the lead principal investigator of Scalar and the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture.

Please register by September 28. Space is limited. Questions? Contact humanities@uw.edu.