HIST 390: The Digital Past

HIST 390-002: The Digital Past
(Fall 2026)

01:30 PM to 02:45 PM TR

Horizon Hall 2017

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Section Information for Fall 2026

The Italian Renaissance was a period of radical disruption — new technologies upended how information was created, shared, and controlled, with profound social and political consequences. This course uses that history as a lens for understanding the digital world of the present. Students will explore how people in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries navigated innovation, misinformation, and shifting power structures, connecting those histories to contemporary questions about authorship, bias, and the responsible use of technology. The course fulfills George Mason's IT requirement through a combination of historical research and hands-on digital work. Using tools like TimelineJS, StoryMaps, Twine, Voyant, and AI, students will build interactive, evidence-based projects that develop transferable skills: locating and evaluating information critically, communicating historical arguments clearly, and collaborating with digital tools purposefully.

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Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Teaches the fundamentals of information technology within the context of a history course. Students learn fundamentals and skills as well as how our society became so enamored of and dependent on these knowledge and information tools. Understanding a new technology requires understanding how new technologies transform the societies that embrace them. Emphasizes the use of free and open-source software whenever possible. Offered by History & Art History. Limited to three attempts.
Mason Core: Mason Core, Info Tech & Computing
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

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