Author Archives: Rachel Dixon

Personal Blog: Rebus Writing

This upcoming week I am focusing on two things: the rebus map data, and one of my essays – I have gotten much further on my “why rebus/why puzzle” essay (enough to cut a large swath) than I have gotten on my “what’s up with satire and the rebus form” essay. I am sad-ish to not have time to write about rebus semiotics, rebus poetics, and rebus unmasking the hidden gaps in language and cultures; these are all interesting places that the research pointed to and if I had a do-over magic wand, I would write about them all.

An interesting merging of interests: I’m a Wikipedia editor and advocate in general for open community-based knowledge building. The amount of research we were thwarted from trying to do in the beginning was disheartening at first and maybe had us spinning in circles, but I wish I had just had the guts to say “we should try to look up all the available open access images” about two months earlier. I don’t think I realized how many of the Wikimedia Commons entries are coming directly from museum collections’ open access servers, making the commons (and Wikidata) a very cool linked data bibliography of web images for our purposes. We also found numerous other sources from all of the institutions that made their collections public this year, including some full out of print, non-digitized books through open access collections, like this gem of a book called “Symbol and Satire during the French Revolution” – my Napoleon-baiting has never been stronger or wittier. Also of note for other visual researchers: last week I learned I could search all creative commons licensed images directly from CC’s own search feature which would have been great to have 3 months ago as well! Good thing to note when it’s hard to get to the archives (or just for the future of linked infinite open knowledge resources as promised at the dawn of the internet; either way).

Nevertheless, writing even web-sized essays at the end of the semester during (let’s say it again for the folks in the back) a pandemic, social upheaval, injustices and straight up hate crimes, and more recently calls to “get back to normal” (sure, Jan)  — well it is a lot. As always I am grateful for the aid and collaborative impact from my teammates and excited about all the rebuses we have in our collection.

Rachel’s Rebus Ruminations

We had a great team session this weekend where Bianca unveiled a great rebus find that really pulls the rebus room together (forgive me). I’m really excited to dig deeper into this in the days ahead as I look into my own corner of the project. This week I began saying “this rebus just won’t work,” so I think it’s fair to say I am in editing mode. The first rebus in question was in older French and was scanned at a lower resolution, so it cannot stay. Neither my mother or I could get through it – though it was fun (and ridiculous) to try. Additionally, this week I found many helpful passages in a dense few pages in The Puzzle Instinct by Marcel Danesi about rebuses, which created a kind of framework for the varieties of different types of rebuses we’re finding (spoiler alert: some do not have images at all).

Fun fact: I was inspired to do more rebus hunting after someone on Twitter made a very convincing argument that we do not need NFTs in order to digitize art for the internet++ era, posting copious additional links to image & open access resources I hadn’t yet considered. As a result, I found many images. There were some great objects like lighters and quilts with rebuses in them from Mexico and the US in the 18th and 19th centuries, from the Smithsonian and National Gallery of Art among others. Very useful resources. Now I have to figure out how to reference a tweet and a semi-anonymous Twitter user. I started using Zotero for my own edification (and organization) so I hope it can collect some relevant information from sources like this.

Not necessarily relevant to the rebuses, but relevant to the class, I also reached out to some of my teacher friends from my writing workshop who all live in Texas to tell them about the COVID project in case they had any interest in hearing more. I take it they are very busy this week – but I hope to hear back from them by the next. Looking forward to a mini break over the next week, though I fully plan to play around with more rebuses.

Rachel’s Rebus Writings – Week 7

Very short diary this week to say I am feeling a bit like a dead-weight! This is my last week of full time work during the semester, which has been a challenge in the way that wrapping up a DH project certainly will be in the near future (“how will I know when I’m ‘done?'”). There is much to be done and undone, and I am just at the acceptance phase where I understand that there is no way to possibly tie up *all* of the loose ends, try as I might – sound familiar? Adding to that dead-weight feeling –  I was not feeling at my best over the weekend and was not able to contribute or focus at my usual level, so I am happy to be over that hump too.

Regardless, I did manage to do some outreach last week and have started to do some of the related reading/notes for the essays I have tasked myself with. Bianca is wonderfully guiding us to ask “what’s the scholarly point” and I am starting to get into my happy place where the information we’ve been collecting starts to make more connective (and collective, I hope) sense. It has been helpful for me in really refining the inquiries we’re making beyond my current blob of a “collection of foreign and interesting rebuses from the 18th century.”

My goal for the upcoming week is to exhale a bit (work has been a lot for all of us, work at an early stage startup in a pandemic is too much for most humans who want to do much else, including myself), gather more notes on the ludic aspects of rebuses (while solving some more of our gathered french rebuses). I may also go spelunking for a few more rebuses in Wikimedia Commons, as they had many items tagged with the term (and I can get some wiki editing out of my system in the process, which just feels good to me!), but I cannot commit to this last bit this week. Next week will clarify a lot about my capacity in the weeks ahead, as we start writing and solving and putting the site together!

Rachel’s Public Journal – Data Management+

Steven’s DMP checklist was very logical and it helped our team talk through our current conceptualization of the project. I posit that one of the biggest unseen benefits to completing the data management plan early in the project (though really, we’re in the thick of it now — I think it will feel like we are just getting started until we’re racing to the finish line, if it’s like any other of my projects during the pandemic) was how it crystallized some of the artifacts around our site. 

I think the reason that the data document was so logical for us to conceptualize was that an archive —or, as I am inclined to believe – what we may have, to Lisa Rhody’s point in her talk a couple weeks ago, a ‘collection” 🤔 — may have more concrete ideas about what data will be used due to the nature of its thing-ness. Nevertheless, our project still has ambiguities that were fun and helpful to sort out with the team using the data management checklist and provided examples. 

I think my biggest non-DMP challenge overall has been tamping down my control freak nature, which is great for solo projects and horrible for group work — lessons learned as a young undergrad — and letting the team as a whole guide the project with their interests, ideas, and areas of expertise. It’s been great so far, and I’m learning so much. 

Additionally this week we identified some areas for interaction within the WordPress platform which will be both the stretch goal and a fun technical challenge for me. No spoilers, but hopefully it will allow users to interact with the collected rebus puzzles that already have solutions. I did a bit of outreach, and also “solved” a French rebus critical of Napoleon’s efforts while away from France with my mom, who normally likes to Zoom in and do a Sunday crossword with me. I may just extend this to my nascent network of relevant rebus riddlers, and see if we can “swarm on the (rebus) problem,” one of my favorite agile practices, for fun and project progress.

Rachel’s Reading Rebus Bio

Rachel Dixon will contribute to the Reading Rebus project in the role of the Foreign Rebus Researcher, as a budding polyglot with a performer’s knowledge of the common operatic languages as well as French language studies (a generation removed from fluency if a life raft is needed). She is specifically charged with interpreting, assigning interpretation, and discovering rebuses that are not in English, especially those that reflect the rise of the rebus in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. She will also investigate and write essays regarding how language interpretation impacts the ludic elements of the rebus, comparing the rebus to other word/image puzzles. She is excited to (attempt to) solve some rebuses with her network of game/puzzle friends and colleagues. Lastly, she will aid in front-end WordPress development as needed.

Rachel is a student in the Digital Humanities MA program. She received her bachelor’s degree in the humanities with a concentration in literature 📚, with previous studies in  🎼 music performance as a Handel & Haydn Society vocal apprentice 🎤. She has published 📜 poetry and short stories in Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, and The Moth among others, and has a goal to record at least one 🎶 song by the end of 2021🤞🏾. Her side projects include many (now-defunct) WordPress blogs from the 00’s and a print Riot Grrrl zine (Calico 🙀) from the 90’s. Professionally, Rachel has worked on mobile applications 📱, games 🎮 , and websites 💻, often with a focus on applying a “fun” and accessible user experience to many industries 🏭. Notably, she was the lead product manager for 📰 The New York Times Games/Crossword 🧩 portfolio and a game designer on Harmonix’s 💃🏾 Dance Central 🕺🏽 franchise. Her research interests include 🔠 linguistics, 🗣 folklore, 👾 applied play studies, and 🇫🇷 French literature & history; specifically the impact of French colonialism on storytelling and language. The Reading Rebus project is an opportunity to work on several of these interests at once 💪🏾, while sharing findings about word/play to a digital audience.

Digital Documentation Process (DDP) Workshop at NYCDH

I attended the Digital Documentation Process (DDP) workshop with Laura Morreale from Fordham University at NYCDH last week. The DDP exists as a method to standardize documentation for digital projects which can aid both in preservation and cataloguing. Our presenter encouraged us to think of DH projects and exhibits as performances rather than “products,” in that they can be more like events or shows that are being presented that have some type of artifact of their having happened such as a playbill or cast recording or staff credit sheet. Therefore the DDP does not replicate the viewer experience of the project itself but serves as an official record of its existence.

There are three documents that make up the “ingredients” of the DDP: the catalog record, the persistent identifier, and the archiving dossier narrative. The catalog record is a document that contains all of the metadata associated with the project for the purposes of cataloguing it into a searchable database such as Google Scholar (if self-archiving) or a library catalog (if associated with an institution). The persistent identifier contains all of the project’s files in their most durable file formats in a repository that is accessible by a DOI (digital object identifier), and therefore can be searched by others. The archiving dossier or dossier narrative acts like a bio for the project and its collaborators, listing their involvement, the story and scope of the project, along with its URLs and other narrative details.

The persistent identifier DOI (digital object identifier) was a bit challenging for me to understand but we walked through the process of obtaining one for self-archiving purposes using the digital archival tool, Zenodo. In Zenodo, we were able to reserve a D.O.I. because they “give them out for free,” and as a group we briefly speculated about how and why they are able to do this. One leading theory was that since Zenodo is an EU state-funded project that they have the resources to issue them. I checked DOI.org after the workshop and they also listed many additional registration agencies in the event that Zenodo is not an option in the future.

When we archived the sample project using Zenodo and associated the DOI with the project files, we would then be able to access the project through the DOI in the future. This process was useful for self-archiving (ie a project without institutional support). It was also recommended to archive in multiple repositories online as a best practice in digital archival methods such as Humanities Commons and OpenDOAR. If a project is institutionally supported or adjacent, it was also suggested that one should send the files to the institutional archive. In any repository, the project files should be archived in their most durable file formats, whatever those may be.

The dossier narrative was a persistent part of the discussion, as it adds collaboration details for DH projects which can otherwise be confusing to those not as familiar. With a dossier, the collaborator who worked on data for example can be credited with that work uniquely, as can the collaborator who wrote text descriptions or more traditionally “scholarly” outputs. The dossier can also be an area where the scope of work can be explained to those not as familiar with the unique methods and constraints of digital projects. These characteristics have impacts on searchability, fellowships, and which collaborators have access to tenure, etc, so the dossier narrative becomes a critical addition to the DDP.

This simple three document process began to seem overwhelming with its many potential fields to consider & fill out, so I was very pleased to receive both the slides, as well as a link to the DDP website that details the process. This site has a few “wizard” style forms that can aid the DDP process from the inception of a digital project to the archival of an inactive project, which others may find useful as well.

Rachel’s Skills

Hi all! I, Rachel (she/her), am in my second semester in the Graduate Center’s DH program, and completed my undergrad with a concentration in Creative Writing and Literature. I have experience working on both connected and non-connected software (console games pre-online consoles, to mobile/web app), and love to learn new tools. I’m interested in research on how play and the design of “fun” experiences impact learning, memory, and how we work and relax; and anything to do with literature of any era (with a broad definition of “literature” too).

Project/Product/Outreach: I have picked up some project management skills, though my expertise is not in building to timelines as a product manager (which confuses everyone because naming is hard). To qualify the difference, I am better at scoping and descoping projects to focus on their intent, than timing everything perfectly to hit a deadline. (People who are good at this are either magic or mean and I am neither.) As a PdM I also have run many “user research” studies to see if designs or features are solving a problem or frustrating people. This usually involves talking to individuals on Zoom these days. While not the most academic methods, I have become adept at asking open questions and listening, and am able to report back on findings reasonably well.  Like Allison D, I would like to get better at organizing my research, where I still feel a bit rusty. I’m better at doing organizing the work for others.

Technical: I am not a developer but since I have worked in and on software teams for the better part of my adulthood, I have a fair amount of HTML, CSS, and vanilla JS. I also enjoy playing around with Python and SQL at work though I really am a dabbler with SQL. I’m good at analyzing software more than I am creating it (especially on a tight deadline) but I can lend a hand where I can. I have also done a lot of web management so am skilled with most CMS’s including WordPress, which hosted my old music blog in the 00s. Memories!

(I’m terrible at listing my tech skills, because like many tech savvy people my age who aren’t professional developers, these skills have changed and adapted quite a bit in the past 20-25 years! I might be able to help with things not listed here, so if you need a hybrid between a developer and another role, I often do well there)

Creative: I have some formal game design training and can use UX design tools like Figma & Whimsical. I have written copy professionally (admittedly I get a bit silly), and can edit audio in Ableton and other  DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations – I had to look it up myself) like Audacity. I also do voiceover work sometimes so if you need a voice or a script for one, I can help.

Interests & What I’d Like to Learn: I would love to learn more about archival best practices and methodologies in general – especially when thinking about multimedia artifacts, and would love to work with Omeka as it may become a tool I’d like to use with more frequency. I also am interested in learning more about data visualization and analysis.