Digital Humanities

11/28 response

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 I suppose to begin, its best to outline where I see the responsibilities existing, and then how they will ultimately play into what can, and ultimately needs to be done. To an extent, I think Digital Humanists can take some responsibility to start to separate the field of DH from the corporatization of the University, insofar as that no one else is likely to take up this responsibility for them.  So, if they want to be distinguished separately, I think they need to be the ones to do so.

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 So then, I think in order for DH to begin to separate itself from the more increasing neoliberal university upheaval, one of the first things that needs to be done is to continually attempt to be more inclusive.  They need to begin to take steps to more openly include the “traditional” humanities scholarship that they still use and rely on quite heavily.  As Chun points out, “DH projects have extended and renewed the humanities and revealed that the kind of critical thinking (close textual analysis) that the humanities have always been engaged in is and has always been central to crafting technology and society”. Traditional humanities might not call itself DH, but often they are doing some of the same things.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 Part of becoming more inclusive means embracing the “inhumanities” (Chun) as well. To once again echo Chun, “This dark side also entails taking on our fears and biases to create deeper collaborations with the sciences and engineering…It means realizing that the humanities do not have a lock on creative or critical thinking and realizing that research in the sciences can be as useless as research in the humanities—and that this is a good thing. It is called basic research.” And so, as Chun also argues, I think DH needs to begin to embrace the dark side in that dark side is where the most growth in terms of moving forward may come. As Chun points out, it means recognizing and embracing criticisms to move forward and to begin to identify itself as something separate from the corporatization of University as a whole.  Although I’m hanging out with Chun here, Chun et al. all note issues with DH that need to be addressed, and I do feel that more inclusions, perhaps best accomplished by embracing the dark side, is the way to begin.

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