Digital Humanities

Prompt 11/28: Chun et al., “Darkside of the Digital Humanities”

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Last week, we read an essay by Daniel Allington, Sarah Brouillette, and David Golumbia arguing that the digital humanities are, as a field, contributing to the “neoliberal” / corporate takeover of the modern university — not just in the U.S., but in countries like the U.K. and Canada as well. Then, for class today, we read an essay (actually a collection of conference materials) by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Richard Grusin, Patrick Jagoda, and Rita Raley that similarly posits a connection between DH practice and neoliberal economic agendas, focusing on the ways in which modern universities, through an emphasis on “networked” exchange, have started to look more like corporations. To this end, Chun et al. pointedly ask, “What are the relations … between DH as a strict tool- and interface-based practice and the institutional logics of the new neoliberal networked universities?”

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 What’s distinguishes these two essays is that, while Allington, Brouilette, and Golumbia clearly define themselves as “outsiders” speaking out against DH, Chun, Grusin, Jagoda, and Raley can, to a certain extent, be fairly labeled as digital humanities insiders: all of them have connections to digital projects or initiatives, or else have publicly proclaimed that they employ digital methods and tools in their scholarship.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 What this indicates, then, is that both DHers and non-DHers are concerned about the link between digital humanities scholarship and the encroachment of corporatized logic within the university. My question for you, then, in this last blog post of the semester has nothing to do with the logic of true / false or agreement / disagreement. Rather, I want you to think about what can and should be done in order to sever the ties between the digital humanities and the neoliberal gutting of the traditional university. What can DH do, as a field, to respond to and perhaps even prevent increased corporatization within the university? How can DH scholars and practitioners disrupt or complicate the relationship between digital methods and neoliberal practice? And should they — is it their responsibility to do that?

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