The Spectrum of Digital Humanities
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 1 If I were to imagine the spectrum of digital humanities, I would have three main categories. On one end of the spectrum, I would put what some scholars call the “thinker.” On the right I would have the people are “building things” as Stephen Ramsay puts it, and in the middle of the spectrum I would put the people who are using those tools that have been built and “thinking” about them in a digital humanist way.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 2 Based on the essays we have read so far, the thinker side of the spectrum would have people like Lisa Spiro and Matthew Kirschenbaum. In their essays, they were concerned with how to define digital humanities and its inclusiveness in departments and institutions. The thinkers may focus on criticizing somebody’s scholarship about digital humanities. The thinkers are people who are not focused on “building” something for their humanities scholarship, they are focused on making an argument about digital humanities or things related to it. To be part of this portion of the spectrum, scholars will probably have a background and interest in lots of textual analysis, so many will be English scholars. I believe people could be part of more than one portion of the spectrum too, and this side is what many people can also be included in, if they so desire.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 The right portion of the spectrum would have the “builders.” Like Ramsay says, “if you are not building anything…you are not a digital humanist” (Ramsay 241). The people on this side of the spectrum would be those who are focused on doing as Ramsay says and building the tools needed for digital humanities to continue. Many of these people will have a background in computer science, given the coding aspect of many of these tools. With a computer science background, and perhaps an interest in literary studies, people will be able to create tools like Zotero, or like McGann’s the NINES project. I would argue that as long as you have a part in creating something used for the digital humanities field, you can be a part of this side of the spectrum.
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 1 The middle of the spectrum would consist of the people who are doing both the “thinking” and building.” The people included here can build the projects they need in order to make their claims about an idea. People like McGann can also be included here. In the scholarship we read from him, he wasn’t just focused on his NINES project, but he did use the project as a way to try to fill a gap he saw in scholarship. I believe Melissa Terras is loosely included in this section, maybe more towards the right side of the spectrum because she does gather data and presents her findings, but she didn’t really overly elaborate or critique her findings. The people in this category will have some sort of training in creating a product, whether that be computer science or otherwise, and will also need to be critically interested in how their product will shape and impact their chosen idea or field.
It looks like we organized things in much the same way, though I have another category or two. Based on the essays we’ve read, these categories make a lot of sense.