11/14 Golumbia, Brouillette, & Allington
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 2 What the authors of Neoliberal Tools have to say about the beginnings and evolution of DH stand in contrast to what many other scholars have written on the subject previously this semester. One thing that was immediately apparent in reading their article was what they highlight as the beginnings of Humanities Computing. As they elucidate, “Humanities Computing professionals were frequently called upon to help professors get their computers to work” (pg 7). The other articles and essays we’ve read that discussed the origins of DH didn’t describe Humanities Computing as campus tech support the way this piece does. Golumbia and Co are sure to highlight the difference between “faculty” and “staff” (pg 7).We’ve discussed many times the way that DH work is difficult to quantify in terms of tenure-track work compared to more traditional publishing work, and this harkens back to an early discussion in class about part time instructors being required to pay their own way to gain experience and skills in the field.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 2 Early in the semester, Terras used the term “Humanities Computing in her piece in the Digital Humanities text. As I remembered it, she offered a distinctly different description from the view offered in this reading, but going to the text it’s more ambiguous than I thought. “A lot of work in Humanities Computing is project based, usually resulting in a product for other academics to utilize, and there is concern whether this is an academic endeavor” (Defining p69). That actually sounds startlingly similar to the way it’s presented in Neoliberal tools when the two are considered together.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 The takeaway from the distinction between the way the two are framed makes for an interesting reexamination of another text we’ve read so far. In the context of this more neoliberal mindset where “…institution value academic work that produces findings immediately usable by industry” (pg 2) Ramsay’s “If you are not making anything, you are not…a digital humanist” logic has a much more commercial aspect to it. My interpretation in the context we’ve been enmeshed in was that Ramsay saw the creative process as the academic work itself, where learning to make the tools was part of the process as much as the end result. With the knowledge that many projects are abandoned or unfinished in the field this view that the process of creating is important in and of itself seemed almost necessary. Taking Ramsay’s remarks in the context of a Neoliberal mindset where DH projects are more marketable has a much darker implication. Rather than scholarly work with intrinsic value DH scholars now seem more akin to elves in santas workshop.
This is an interesting point you bring up here regarding the way Golumbia et al seemingly minimizes the scholars and work within DH, in what I personally find an unfair and reductive way.
Though to be fair, since Golumbia argues that the scholarship often produced within DH doesn’t stand out as digital or different, and instead more closely resembles “traditional” scholarship, I suppose I see where they are lead to this conclusion. However, in this sense, I don’t think they are presenting DH fairly or entirely accurately in that they aren’t offering a complete picture of DH.
Great point here re: the emergence of humanities computing in relation to “campus tech support.” And, you’re right: most of the texts we’ve read so far this semester haven’t volunteered this version of DH’s history. Why might that be the case? Why might DHers not want to advertise DH’s historical relationship to “support systems” on campus?