Neoliberal DH
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 1 Reading over the essays and thinking about DH in my own university, I can’t really give an option as to how DH and neoliberalism can separate and still be successful. It might be a pessimistic tone, but think about it. The university system has now turned corporate and as a company, everything is about representing the name of the company and upholding this brand. Every university has a brand, it’s how we appeal to incoming students and how we uphold our own image and our own ideals. When you post a new essay or article online in the DH world, you write your name and the school that you go to/teach at. I try not to judge a book by it’s cover but when I see an article stamped by the Harvard crest vs. Delta State in Cleveland, Mississippi (my institution for the first two years of college), I’m probably going to accept and respond to the Harvard one. Chun states “…online “content modules” branded with the names of established universities, it is clear that the 21st century university is fundamentally networked” and it is. Everything is about who you know and who you interact with. Like Dr. Liming talking to Golumbia and everyone telling her to not be his friend. It’s a business and the business world is all about presentation and networks. Secondly, neoliberalism includes a laissez-faire approach, which in the DH world, applies to how people don’t tend to necessarily regulate the posts or comments or event the practice itself. DH has taken it’s own course and though there have been some scholars who try to mold and guide this practice, it’s basically doing it’s own thing. What’s great about DH is that there is such a range and that it is open to so many different fields and scholars and if you put limitations on it, then it won’t have this appeal. This appeal that there isn’t just one way to write a thesis or one way to present your data. I know I’m supposed to offer a solution, but I can’t think of one that could actually work without destroying DH and it’s brand. DH and neoliberalism are so intermingled that how can you take away one without wrecking the entire thing.
I really appreciate your honesty in explaining how it’s difficult to come up with “a solution … without destroying DH” and all the things built in it. However, it sounds like you are discouraging scholars from the search to finding a way to separate DH and neoliberalism. Do you think the two should be separated at all? or because of their success as you refer, they should be inseparable?
Also, you made a great point when you mentioned the two examples about the articles. I guess as humans, in general, we tend to stick with the things we know, instead of the things we don’t, and in your example Harvard is a very well-known university, unlike Delta State. I feel like you are suggesting that DH is smaller than trying to “prevent increased corporatization within the university”, so in a larger since it has the burden of changing the way humans think of the university name. If I am getting this right, Do you think if DH united with other disciplines or fields, it could change anything? or is it still something hard to do no matter what we tried?