St. Valentine’s Day
Revised Project Proposal
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Problem: I am researching the history of St. Valentines and its current expressions because I want to understand the timeline of this holiday and what it means for American culture today, so that my users will better understand a celebration that has become part and parcel of American economic, social, cultural life as a ritual observed yearly and marketed intensively. I suspect that the holiday retains little to no religious significance, as it might initially have given the name of Saint Valentine and once a commemoration of his death as a martyr. Rather, since the 14th century with Chaucer’s poem that popularized romance in relation to Valentine, the holiday has become meaningful cultural celebration in its own secular right.
For my sources & data, I have consulted various books by the expert scholar of the field, religious historian Eric Leigh Schmidt as well as a couple other scholars who have written on the matter. For data on contemporary understandings of the holiday, various popular culture artifacts found through articles on NPR, New York Times, and other nationally-recognized news networks as well as select YouTube clips will serve as windows into how Americans have come to understand Valentine’s Day and what it means for Americans today. Thus, my sources are a combination of primary popular culture sources from today + scholarly books and articles by professors in the disciplines of social sciences and humanities covering the history of the holiday.
Doing this project digitally presents its own fruits and challenges, some of which I have tried to delineate below.
| PROS |
| *Bringing niche scholarship about more hidden aspects of the holiday, such as the tradition of exchange satire-imbued “valentines,” onto the web. There are certain facts hidden in scholarly books that people don’t know about the holiday. I want to bring light to that. *Creating a digitally engaging platform accessible across the world on a holiday that is slowly spreading across the globe, while also making it actively response and interested in individuals’ experiences and thoughts on the matter across the globe. |
| CONS |
| *Challenging to both focus on QUALITY of content as well as DESIGN/DISPLAY. To do both in a short amount of weeks when I don’t have to write a “paper” will be challenging in that it will be unique and I will have to create and adapt to new writing styles suited to digital scholarship. I’m excited! |
Social Media Networking Plan
1.Twitter @dayofvalentine
I chose to use Twitter because that’s the only social media that I am familiar with, and I like it as a platform. Basically, I like it a lot for various reasons- the short tweets, the hashtags, the trending topics, the funny accounts on there dedicated to various things like “Motivation Quotes” the metaphor of being a bird’s house and birds tweeting.
2. My bio as it stands now:
An account dedicated to St. Valentine’s Day and all that entails. A holyday commemorating a martyr saint turned holiday spreading love.
Right now, I am not pointing to my work because I don’t have one to showcase. I think I am going to modify my bio to include something of this being a place to share scholarship as well and put something about me as being a research, so there’s a person or face associated with the account.
My background: I am going to add something that says “Produced by student research @ Davidson College, Fern” …….or maybe I will make a Twitter account for FERN!
My work: I am going to alter my bio to also say “Digital Scholarship on this found here”–> and link to my site
My project: I will link to it once I have a prototype going (so next week?)
3. My cadence for posting will be every MWF sometime during the day (preferably evening) once a day. I’ll begin with that rhythm and try to increase and post as things come up or come to my mind in between.
As for finding communities, I have went ahead and followed several accounts on Valentine’s Day and love-related account. I am now also going to follow other holiday accounts and certain scholars who I may be interested. More research on this will be pursued the remained of this week.
