Terras prompt 9/19 Response
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 3 Thinking about Terras essay “Disciplined, Using Educational Studies to Analyse ‘Humanities Computing;” there are a number of questions raised that ring similarly to other texts we’ve read so far, but a contrasting style in answering those questions is present. It’s not surprising to learn that she’s an engineer by trade before coming to the field of Digital Humanities. Reading back through the text I would say the essay is written with a more statistically driven answer to some of the questions others have answered. While Digital Humanities as a whole is already more likely than traditional Humanities work to feature data driven texts, Terras frames her essay around such information.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 The questions she raises are not unfamiliar territory for us. What is Digital Humanities? Should we consider it a discipline, a field, or a department? What types of scholars work in the Digital Humanities? What overlap between different field of scholars occurs? How are DH scholars and academics trained, which also begs the question what is the curriculum for passing on that knowledge and skillset to the next generation? In one way or another we have approached these questions before, but Terras is unique in her answer to these questions.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 As I said earlier, her approach to answering these questions is data driven. She delves through all kinds of presentations and conference rosters to determine who presents in the field and what their place in the scholarly word is. There’s much less ambiguity in this angle I will admit, but it was odd to tables of data included in an essay, even if it is a reader on DH. It’s hard to argue that the field is inevitably growing she she presents you with the raw data on the number of programs worldwide that offer degrees in DH whether they by masters level or undergrad. Interesting to note that your opportunity to be a DH specific scholar is almost nonexistent. Everyone approaches the field after being trained in another first (With the minor exception of one school offering a minor in DH).
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 1 This leads to the most interesting question Terras addresses, which is whether the amorphous nature of DH and it’s difficulty to define and codify standards of teaching is a strength or weakness. In her conclusion she says:
“This gives the discipline and the scholars within it additional freedom:if they are not defined, or their activities are not prescribed, they they are free to develop their own research and career paths, which may not fit into the normal mode of operation for academic subjects, but allow the subject to remain fluid and undefined. Is it such a bad thing if a definition of the subject does not exist?”
¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 3 My personal opinion is that this statement raises a weakness in the field when it comes to the underlying economics of choosing a field of study. We have discussed at length the struggle of fitting DH into the traditional tenure track. A field that is difficult to define is also difficult to sell to a young scholar as a “safe” place to spend their time and energy. Perhaps it is safety enough that when her essay was originally published nearly everyone that came into DH was from another discipline already.
I actually like the way Terras answers all these questions. Sometimes it’s easier to understand than others who are more in touch with the traditional humanities responses. Having that outside, engineer approach gives new light to a situation that seems to constantly need debating. But then the need for debating it in the first place is important too.
Do you have a judgment on Terras’s essay being written my like an engineering article? Did it feel out of place, compared to the rest of the essays?
You’ve got some wacky punctuation going on here (missing an apostrophe in Terras’, misplaced semicolon, etc.).
But that’s just a minor observation. I’m interested by your statement that you see Terras’ adopting a more “statistically driven” outlook in order to “answer some of the questions others have answered.” If she is pursuing the same sets of answers as others (and, presumably, the same questions), does it matter if her method / writing style differs? Does it matter that she relies on data instead of anecdotal / narrative evidence? Or do her “answers” end up looking the same as others’, regardless of these innovations?