Hello there! You are receiving this email because about a year ago, you subscribed to this newsletter. In the meantime, I had a few health issues, a knee replacement, many philosophy courses to teach, with my Daily Philosophy Substack and my family taking up the rest of my time. But I’m back, and today we start a new series: an introductory Python programming course for Humanities instructors, researchers and students. If you would like to unsubscribe, you can do so at the bottom of this email — but I very much hope that you will stay with us. There will also be other topics coming up, not only programming. Over the coming weeks, we will talk about AI, how to prevent AI cheating, and how to use all the new, magical tools in one’s teaching. I’m happy to have you here and feel free to send me feedback in the comments! — Andy

Leave a comment

Welcome to Tomorrow's Teaching! In this course, we will learn the programming language Python and how to apply it to problems in the humanities. This course is specifically tailored to humanities instructors and students who don't have any computer programming background. So, don't worry! We will go slow, but you will still practice a ton of fascinating and useful skills for your teaching and your work in the humanities.

Meet Your Instructor

My name is Andy. I am now a university lecturer in philosophy, and in the past, I worked for 20 years as a full-time software developer and instructor in programming languages in German universities. I have literally decades of experience teaching every programming language from Assembler to Lisp and Prologue to Pascal and C, Java, JavaScript, and Python. I also worked as a Unix system administrator, webmaster, and networking expert since the 1990s. I've taught both undergraduates and adults in lifelong education courses. So, whoever you are, you are in good hands right here!

What You Will Learn

This Python course will first present you with an overview of programming in Python and with the most basic concepts of computer programming:

• The installation of a programming environment

• Input and output

• The structuring of Python programs

• Basic arithmetic

• Conditionals and loops

You will practice all these skills with a number of exercises. You will write many small programs that are both entertaining and practically useful, and that will give you valuable experience in using Python to solve problems in the humanities.

Why Python for the Humanities?

As opposed to many other courses found on the internet, this one is specifically written to address the problems of humanities instructors and students. This is an audience that does not naturally feel attracted to computers and computer programming. But the world moves on, and even humanities people need to use the latest IT tools. And this is what you will be learning here.

If you know how to program, you will be able to:

• Do text analysis on classic sources

• Plot historical data and historical events on maps

• Find complex patterns in old population records

• Make captivating visuals of family trees or other relationships

• Use generative AI and large language models on your own data sets to arrive at new insights

All these are sample applications that we will develop throughout this course.

Let's Get Started!

So sit back, grab a coffee or tea, fire up your computer, and let's begin having fun with Python for the humanities!

Thank you, and see you in the first lesson.