Compromise – 11/14 Response
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 1 Given everything we’ve read this semester, it’s difficult to evaluate the truthfulness of the Golumbia et al post. It would appear that this field is dramatically split into two sides and without more (outside) perspectives, it’s difficult to make an accurate judgement. For example, I would like to hear from college administration staff about the claim that DH is pushed more by administration than by scholars. I think that accusation, if true, would drastically alter my understanding of DH.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 2 That said, I do not think that “Neoliberal Tools (and Archives): A Political History of Digital Humanities” portrays an accurate history of DH. The article itself is very politically motivated, as it should be as a work of the humanities, but this reveals bias which always corrupts histories. The way the article discusses DH makes it sound like a conspiracy to drive out the humanities from colleges. This is probably a reaction to the perceived “state of emergency” that the humanities is in but I want to believe that the advocates of DH do it for collaboration, open access, and all the other wonderful things that come out of DH.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 4 However, I do think some of Golumbia et al’s concerns and anxieties are applicable for DH and the Humanities. In class, we discussed the differences between expertise, which DH favors, and knowledge, which the humanities favor. The main differences are that expertise is more skill-based and that it implies a finish. This directly relates to the article’s claim that DH is not political. The humanities study and try to explain human behavior, which has and always will be political. Humanities methods reflect, and even propagate, particular political ideas. For example, cultural studies politically acknowledges the idea that individuals are never really individuals, we are explicitly influenced by our surroundings (which relates to collectivism over individualism). These are all political ideas. In addition, the political nature of the humanities relates to knowledge because there is no end. The humanities involve a constant cycle of trying to explain and trying to change things but there is no utopian universe where politics and social conflicts won’t exist. Therefore, humanities has no end goal, just progress. On the other hand, DH inherently lacks politics and emphasizes expertise because the advocates of DH do have end goals. They have a point they will reach when they can call it good and either focus on that or learn a new skill. These skills cannot be politically involved or there would be no end. This reveals a dramatic split between the two fields.
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 This difference between knowledge and expertise is motivated by economics, as Golumbia et al point out. One of the goals of DH is to market itself as more applicable job training than the humanities, because it has presentable skills which can be evaluated. The article states:
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 “Rather than act in vocal opposition to the university’s transformation, and to the forces driving it, the Digital Humanities social movement seeks to prove that a humanities education is beneficial to job seekers by reinventing that education as a course of training in the advanced use of information technology. It unavoidably also suggests that other approaches in the humanities fit less well into the contemporary university, because the implied measure of success is economic.”
¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 As the authors point out, one of the key consequences of the dichotomy of DH and the humanities (expertise and knowledge), is that in the current economic environment, results are preferred. Employers want skills they can see and DH gives them that. It just puts the humanities scholar in a bad position where all they have are their ideas on paper. These ideas are equally important as technical skills, if not more so, but the current economic model of America and capitalism favors products and skills.
¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 1 The article does seem a bit paranoid, like the suggestion that “the institutional success of Digital Humanities appears to be explained in large part by its designed-in potential to drive social, cultural, and political critique from the humanities as a whole,” but the anxieties are valid. I don’t think DH purposefully sought to devalue critique but I do think that was a consequence of the rise of DH. It is another blow to the declining perception of the humanities that a faction of our own is starting to look more like the STEM fields (in both their goals and their methods). However, I do not believe the answer lies only in changing Digital Humanities as a field. While DH may play into neoliberalism and use economic models to their advantage, there are also some wonderful benefits of DH and we cannot blame one field for the neoliberal takeover of the university. That takeover has been in progress for a long time, before DH was even conceived. So I think that maybe DH could try to use cultural critique more, and this would help, but the humanities also need to consider large-scale outreach efforts to re-establish our importance. Expertise and knowledge are both great things and they don’t need to devalue each other.
I’m interested (and a bit perturbed) by your comment that you’d like to see administrators weigh in here and evaluate this claim. I’m perturbed because that comment begs a couple of immediate questions: why? What right do administrative professionals in universities have to dictate the standards of academic success, performance, or discourse?