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'Les Miz' and 'Les Media': Representations and Realities in the France of Les Misérables (1800-1870) makes use of multimedia technology to expand the range of historical study. Victor Hugo's celebrated novel, Les Misérables (1862), will set the themes for a multimedia examination of nineteenth-century France.
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Hugo's Cossette from an illustrated version of the Les Miserables, ca. 1870 |
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Some Themes for Study:
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Paris on the Barricades: the Revolution of 1830
Two areas of investigation will be emphasized: 1) the representation of history in literature, print images, and films 2) the use of multimedia technology to compare the representations with historical realities, with history as it was lived by nineteenth-century women and men. In other words:
- How can literature and images be used as historical documents?
- In what ways can they help us reconstruct and understand the thoughts and actions of people in the past?
- Given the ubiquity of message-bearing images in our own culture, can our historical study shed light on the use and abuse of images today?
In our pursuit of answers, we study the differences between visual and written texts, the variety of meanings in historical images, and the interpretive problems that must be addressed when one seeks to establish connections between the historical context, the intended meanings of the author or patron, and the meanings that images suggested to viewers of the epoch under study.
Through lab work, students learn the basics of image processing and desktop/web publishing: how to build a data base of digitized images by scanning originals and by capturing screen images from video sources; how to enhance images, and how to publish the finished product both in printed form and in cyberspace via the World Wide Web.
History 255 and 256 aim at strengthening abilities that good companies now seek in their new employees: 1) the capacity to learn both new ways of approaching a problem and new skills appropriate for the task; and 2) the ability to use modern technologies and computing for analysis and problem solving. In this respect, Clio's new tools for historical study help expand the bridge between liberal arts and the world of work.