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Upon finishing Frankenstein, I have a lot of thoughts on the ending. To start off, I feel like the way Victor met his end made sense, between the intense travels and his extremely poor health, it made sense that he became too weak to survive. I think that the creature’s decision to end his own life now that he does not have any more revenge to seek on Victor demonstrates how he was not just inherently evil and malicious, it was the events of his life that made him this way. This is a common question in literature: are people born evil, or do outside factors create this evil? One example of this that I can think of is Wicked, where they often discuss if wickedness is something people are born with, or if it is “thrust upon them.” I think that this ending displays the nuance of the creature, though violent, he wasn’t just doing evil just for the sake of it. There is also a sense of irony in that Victor died thinking that his creature was going to continue to terrorize everyone, but the creature then takes his own life and stops this reign, which Victor will never know.

Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, it feels like every teacher I’ve ever had has warned me against using Wikipedia. They have always said not to trust it, since anyone can add things to it. This has made me always tend to stay away from Wikipedia, and I have only used it here or there for quick information about something. When I have used Wikipedia, it usually hasn’t been school related, because my teachers kind of scared me into not using it! After completing the training modules, I definitely think there is a lot of good that can come out of using Wikipedia. I think that it can be useful in that it compiles information from many sources, allowing readers to get the full scope of a certain topic. There are also so many topics on Wikipedia, such that you can be pretty certain that whatever you’re looking for will be on there if it is difficult to find information on a topic. Additionally, it seems that there are certainly policies in place that try to regulate what is posted on this platform, so I think the common warning of “don’t trust anything on Wikipedia” is not totally true. However, there are surely some harmful aspects of Wikipedia. Though there are some precautions to make sure that information is reliable, there is no guarantee that this information is true. This was seen in the movie we watched in class, where someone falsely claimed that someone had a role in the JFK assassination, when this was not true whatsoever. I also think that people can get their information from non-reputable sources, and may publish false information unintentionally.

For my distant reading project, I chose to analyze texts regarding both the musical and movie versions of Wicked. Specifically, I looked at audience reviews of both the musical and movie to compare viewer perceptions of both of these. Additionally, I looked at texts that compared the two in one article. I compiled these texts such that all musical reviews were together, all movie reviews were grouped, and all comparative reviews were also together. This way, when it was time to input them into Word Clouds or Voyant, it was easy to compare these three categories with each other. I kept these grouped together for all of my visualizations.

I found this visualization particularly interesting, as it compares the frequency of positive words among comparative reviews, movie reviews, and musical review. This was meant to see which version of Wicked had the best reviews, compared to an overall look at both the musical and movie in one review. “Good” and “great” were said significantly more in the reviews of the movie(s), suggesting that the reviews around the movie may have been more positive. This was surprising, since at the beginning of the project, I had predicted that the musical would have much better audience reactions.

These two above visualizations represent reviews of the movie(top) vs. the musical (bottom) through word clouds. Interestingly, one of the most frequent words in the musical reviews was “movie.” This suggests that the musical reviews may have been talking about the musical in relation to the movie. Overall, a lot of the words used between these different reviews are relatively similar.

This last visual shows how frequently the three categories of reviews mention different elements of the movie/musical. The costumes were mentioned in the movie reviews but not the musical reviews, so it is possible that the costumes in the movie were a point of emphasis in the reviews, where they were not as important in the movie. Also, the word music showed up much more frequently in the musical reviews than the movie reviews. This suggests that music was one of the most talked about pieces of the musical, and was the audience’s biggest takeaway from the musical.

Overall, these visuals have provided me with valuable insight regarding these texts. I have learned that a lot of the same ideas/words come up in the different categories of texts, which makes sense considering the musical and movies were pretty similar. All of the texts seem relatively positive and are likely praising both versions of Wicked. This project showed me just how much I could learn about a topic without actually having to read a bunch of texts!

The recent chapters in Frankenstein have really caught my interest, and I feel like the story is quickly picking up. Something that particularly caught my attention was the progression of the creature’s violence, and how much of a change he showed over the course of his story. He unexpectedly started out as kind and compassionate, and all he wanted was human connection. This was not at all what I expected, due to stereotypical depictions of this story I expected him to be evil and manic all along, but this was not the case. His violent tendencies came gradually- at first, he was able to subdue his aggressive thoughts and let his morals and compassion shine through. But, as things kept going wrong, his feelings of resentment towards his creator and need for revenge on Victor took over, and allowed him to become the “monster” that he is typically thought of as. Though the creature takes drastic measures to achieve his revenge against Victor, it is worth noting that these feelings didn’t come out of nowhere- he felt neglected, confused and was devastated at the cruel reactions that he received whenever anyone saw him.

For my distant reading topic, I am going to look at Wicked, specifically differences in content/opinions from the musical to film adaptations. So, the seven texts I chose include reviews of the film and the musical, articles exploring the differences among these two adaptations, and a little bit on the impact of Wicked. This interests me because I saw the Wicked musical when I was young and loved it, and then the recent movie adaptations re-sparked my interest for this topic. These movies reminded me how much I loved the musical. I think that it will be interesting to look at differences among the musical and movies because the musical has been around forever, but the movies are pretty recent. I think this could have led to some modernization/changes, and this was likely met with mixed reactions. Since the movies were released in two separate installments, there was the opportunity to include more content in them, so it will be interesting to see what was added or changed, and how audiences felt about this. While I do have a fair amount of background knowledge on the content of the movies and musical, it has been a while since I’ve seen the actual musical, so I think I’ll enjoy reexploring some aspects of the musical. Additionally, I do not have much knowledge on critic reviews of these two adaptations, this isn’t something I’ve ever really looked into. I think that I’m going to find more positive reviews about the musical than the movies, since I do know that the second movie (Wicked: For Good) received a bit of hate. Overall, I am excited to dive deeper into this subject!

My Worries

How Music Makes Me Feel

The data collection process that I underwent for this project was a unique learning experience, and allowed me to take a deep look into certain aspects of my life. This was a new type of experience for me, as even though I have analyzed relatively extensive data in the past, I had never gathered and examined data about myself. Firstly, the long term data that I collected over a five day span regarded my day-to-day worries. I looked at what these worries were about, how realistic they were, and whether or not I had control over these stresses. To keep track of this data, I made a quick note on my phone’s notes app every time I worried about something, and then at night, I would plot this data on my worksheet, using the key provided. Taking notes on my phone made it easy for me to keep an accurate record of my worries, since my phone is almost always on me and the notes I jotted down were short and simple. For the first time ever, I was paying close attention to every worry that crossed my mind, and admittedly, these worries were more frequent than I had hoped. I learned that my worries don’t stretch across too many categories, that is, I find myself stressing over the same few things, a habit that I am now trying to break. These worries were often out of my control or unrealistic, demonstrating how I most likely did not need to be worrying about these things. While this project did show me that I worry more than I would like, one positive that did arise from this experience was that I found myself shutting down my needless worries quicker than I normally would, since I was more hyper-focused on these worries than normal. This helped me become less anxious over the week that I tracked my data, and I am going to try to keep this habit in my daily life from now on. 

As for my short term data that I gathered in one sitting, I tracked how my five favorite songs made me feel. Narrowing down my top five favorite songs was certainly difficult, but I eventually settled on five songs that I truly could not live without. Every fifteen seconds of each song, I plotted what emotion that portion of the song evoked in me, as well as the intensity of this emotion. I also used various symbols to note memorable moments and standout lyrics of each song. Here, I found that most of my favorite songs were on the sadder side, with emotions such as sadness and nostalgia coming up very frequently. This may be because these are the songs that resonate with me the most, or because my favorite artists typically produce more emotional songs. Focusing on each of these songs gave me a new appreciation for some of my favorite music, allowing me to realize just how much emotion was packed into these songs. 

In depicting these two groups of data, I took two different approaches. My worries were represented three dimensionally by a flower made out of clay, with petals symbolizing worries out of my control, and leaves standing for worries in my control. I used different colors and shapes to further distinguish the type and category of worry. I felt that this model was fitting, because just like the leaves and petals of a blossoming flower, worries come in all different sorts, and are always subject to growth or change. On the other hand, my music data was represented on paper, with more of a graphical feel. The dots reflecting the intensity of the emotion from each song were connected, and then different emotional segments were colored underneath these points. This changed my perspective on data, as I now realize how many ways data can be represented. Before this project, I had only ever thought about data from a scientific standpoint, using formal graphs and charts. However, I now see the vast possibilities for visualizing all different sorts of data. Overall, this project provided me with new insight about my personal life, and opened my eyes to creative types of data visualization that stray from the traditional methods of depicting data. 

Currently, I am in the planning stage of my “My Data” project. I have gathered data on two topics: my worries and the emotions of my favorite songs. As for tracking my worries, I took note of every time I worried from Monday-Friday on the notes app on my phone. I quickly described what each of these worries was about, and then at night, I recorded these worries, using a different color for each category of worries. I further separated these worries into worries in my control and out of my control, and whether this worry was realistic or was actually my responsibility. From this data, I realized that I really worry about the same few things all the time, and these worries are often about things that I can’t even control. So, this data collection has helped me notice when I’m worrying about silly things, allowing me to shut down these worries quicker. I have decided to represent this data using clay, and I’m going to make a flower, with different leaves/petals signifying the different worries.

The other data that I tracked was the intensity of the different emotions that my favorite songs made me feel. Every fifteen seconds, I charted the intensity of the emotion I felt, and what emotion this was. I also used various symbols to make note of my favorite moments and lyrics. I found it hard to choose only five favorite songs, but I loved the way this turned out. Additionally, when looking at these five songs I analyzed, a lot of them are dominated by sadder emotions. I expected this, just because of the artists I typically listen to, such as Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey. I am going to finalize my drawing this week, most likely using markers and pens to color this final copy.

This past week, I have gathered the data necessary for the My Data project, and it has been super interesting. For my short term data that I gathered over one day, I chose to graph how much emotion my favorite songs evoke. Choosing my top five favorite songs was very difficult! From this, I gained a new appreciation for my favorite songs, since I had to pause these songs every fifteen seconds and truly think about how these moments make me feel. I found that a lot of my favorite songs are on the sadder side, but this sadness was more comforting than upsetting. I loved how the visual representation of these songs turned out, and I’m excited to create my final version of this project.

My name is Abby Kadus, and I’m a freshman biology major at Rowan, looking to pursue a career in the medical field. Science and math have always interested me, and I want to help others in whatever work I do, which is why the medical field is so appealing to me. Here at Rowan, I am a member of the women’s lacrosse team, which is definitely a big commitment, but a lot of fun. I have loved playing lacrosse since I was in elementary school, so having the opportunity to continue to play this sport was a big part of what brought me to Rowan. Other interests of mine include reading, listening to music, and playing the piano.

One thing that I hope to take away from this class is a better understanding of the field of digital humanities as a whole. Before taking this class, I had never even heard of digital humanities, so I’m excited to really explore this field. Along with that, I’m hoping to learn more about data analysis and collection, since this is a skill that I can apply to my future endeavors in the sciences. I think that the project based nature of this course is going to be really fun and interesting!