• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Alexandria Archive Institute

OPENING THE PAST, INSPIRING THE FUTURE

  • About
    • History
    • Mission
    • People
    • Governance
    • Community
    • What We Do
      • Open Context
      • Technology Innovation
      • Research
      • Advocacy & Leadership
      • Education & Training
  • Impacts
    • Publications
  • News
  • Projects
    • Data Literacy Program
    • Digital Data Stories
    • Sustainability, Collaboration, & Network Building
    • Digging Digital Museum Collections
      • Resources
  • Digital Data Stories
  • NEH-NADAC
    • NADAC People
      • NADAC Faculty
      • NADAC Advisors
      • NADAC Core Team
    • NADAC Resources
      • NADAC Curriculum
    • NADAC Apply
  • Search
  • Donate Now!

Archaeological Data Literacy and Comics

March 9, 2023 by Paulina Przystupa

Text on a white background with two rhombuses, the one on the left in dark blue and the one on the right in light blue next to one another to make a book like image. The First line text reads Open Context, the next reads a service of the Alexandria Archive institute the next, those are both in black letters, the title beneath that reads Archaeological Data Literacy and Comics in light blue matching the light blue in the book image, the words below that are "Bringing a passion project to a postdoctoral position" also in light blue. Beneath that in black it reads "Paulina F. Przystupa (@punuckish)" and then on a new line "ciszka@opencontext.org | ciszka@unm.edu" which are hyperlinked. And then on a new line "2 March 2023 - 8am PST". and then on a new line "California State University - Chico".

This was the opening title slide of Paulina’s presentation for a class at CSU Chico

Paulina F. Przystupa, a member of The Alexandria Archive Institute (AAI) team recently talked about the overlap between archaeological data literacy and comic books. Specifically, the talk focused on how Paulina brought a love of comics to the Data Literacy Program (DLP). 

The super cool Dr. April Kamp-Whitaker invited Paulina to guest lecture because this brand new class at California State University – Chico focuses on using digital storytelling to share archaeological research with the public. Exactly what the DLP loves to do!

With this opportunity, Paulina discussed how the DLP cultivates data literacy by defining data literacy, understanding the current state of archaeological data literacy in the field, and making resources to fill educational needs. In particular, it was a great chance to talk about all the cool things that provide a foundation for our awesome Data Stories. Because Data Stories don’t grow on trees.

Although… Data Stories do grow out of ideas and important foundations, like doing the work to review the literature and define literacy, data literacy, and archaeological data literacy. They also come from doing the background reading necessary to ensure we’re ethically teaching relevant archaeological data literacy skills. 

These help us create a range of Data Stories we have already shared with y’all and the data stories that we have in preparation. Regarding work in preparation, Paulina also explored how her love of comics influenced the creation of an upcoming Data Story. 

I have always loved comics in yellow on purple background with the citation for card captor sakura volume 1 by clamp included. the image on the right hand side opposite the text is a black and white line drawing of a masculine presenting person with shaggy hair, an adult, and glasses holding a tray with two steaming bowls of food. there is a word caption that reads "Ahh, such loving siblings" as well as a connected pair of text boxes that read "This is my dad, Fujitaka-san. He's an archaeology professor at the local university. He's very nice, not to mention a whiz at cooking and sewing."

Paulina got to reuse this slide in a slightly different format for this talk, which was awesome.

Paulina has discussed their work on comics previously for the Archaeological Research Facility at Berkeley and for a Public Archaeology Twitter Conference. She talked briefly about those experiences and the kind of issues that come up when the public uses of archaeology, which Paulina writes about for public venues such as WWAC.

All of this has come together into our Tome Reader Data Story. Part of the Aggregative Series, Tome Reader is a comics, book club. For it, we’ve picked comics that centered around questions like:  

  • How do comics materialize the past?
  • How can material culture help bridge the past and present?
  • What do comics think archaeology looks like in the now(ish)?
  • How have comics illustrated xenoarchaeology?

The students had some great questions and enjoyed chuckling along with some of Paulina’s bad jokes. Unfortunately, Paulina’s guest lecture was not recorded. So you’ll just have to imagine the jokes. Regardless,  it was a great chance to engage a new community with the DLP.

And we got to highlight how many resources already exist to teach archaeological data literacy! Furthermore, it was a great chance to promote Data Stories as a format and our future resources. We hope you stick around to see what we have in store for Tome Reader!

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn

Category Events| News| Open Educational Resources| Perspectives| Projects| Uncategorized Tags archaeology| comics| data literacy| datastories| digital archaeology| public engagement| teaching

Previous
Listicles and Literacy – The Aggregative Series to promote data literacy
Next
Quadruple Take – An ARF lunch talk

Primary Sidebar

  • About
    • History
    • Mission
    • People
    • Governance
    • Community
    • What We Do
      • Open Context
      • Technology Innovation
      • Research
      • Advocacy & Leadership
      • Education & Training
  • Impacts
    • Publications
  • News
  • Projects
    • Data Literacy Program
    • Digital Data Stories
    • Sustainability, Collaboration, & Network Building
    • Digging Digital Museum Collections
      • Resources
  • Digital Data Stories
  • NEH-NADAC
    • NADAC People
      • NADAC Faculty
      • NADAC Advisors
      • NADAC Core Team
    • NADAC Resources
      • NADAC Curriculum
    • NADAC Apply
  • Search

Footer

Contact

contact@alexandriaarchive.org
125 El Verano Way
San Francisco, CA 94127
415-425-7380

Visit

Support AAI

Donate