Terras Response: She doesn’t even go here
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 3 “Being a part of a discipline gives a scholar a sense of belonging, identity, and kudos. But the idea of what constitutes a discipline is muddy, and often hinges around the bricks and mortar proof of a university department’s existence” [72]. Terras frequently refers to the Humanities Computing field as a community. This assertion is makes Terras easily connected to Lisa Spiro’s “This is Why We Fight.” Spiro’s attempt to create a values system for Digital Humanists not only aligns her perspective on the feeling with Terras, but also with Becher and Trowler, cited within Terras: “Disciplines have identities and cultural attributes. They have measurable communities…” [73]. Of course, this connection is only made with the understanding that a discipline is a community, a focus of study, with or without varying degrees of autonomy within the academic support system of a university. That connection and community, for these scholars, seems to appear more as a focus of study than a methodology, which is slightly at odds with some of our other scholars. Terras is not as concerned with the minutia of defining DH, from her perspectives, others have a handle on that argument.
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¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 2 I was a little surprised when Terras made sure to note the language barriers of scholarship. That almost never seems to be an issue of concern for scholars, but for a someone in DH or HC, it apparently is. Is that because of Terras’s engineering background? Maybe. But as an inclusivehippyliberalhumanist, I’d like to think we are normally good about taking culture, ability, and access into consideration [whether we actually care about those things, is a different debate]. I would wager it is the Digital part of a DH that invites a scholar to think critically about the accessibility of scholarship. The internet is accessible, the tools DHers make are accessible, but “Is participating in the DH community accessible?” becomes the question. Normally if a discipline is represented in higher education, we can conclude, if someone accesses higher ed they can access this discipline. That appears to come into question for Terras when she notes the “domination” of U.S. and Canadian scholarship. “Only five abstracts were accepted in other languages: French, German, and Spanish. … Additionally, the scholars are all…. Also noticeable in their absence…” [84] We get the sense Terras is on the outside looking in, for a number of possible reasons. She is English, rather than American or Canadian, she’s a literary/engineering hybrid, and she takes a very social sciences inspired writing approach.
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¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 2 At the end of the day, whether Terras is a part of the community does not seem to matter much. She seems concerned about the standing, just like everyone else. If only from our perspective, Terras is a Humanist Computer. That may reveal that taking concern with DH, using the methods, and participating in the shaping of that community, makes you a Digital Humanist. That implies the field is more an open system than closed.
First off–your title cracked me up.
You introduce an interesting dichotomy that seems to be quietly cropping up in many of our authors, and that’s explored more explicitly in Terras: the discipline v. community. It seems to be a one-way street in that a discipline always has a community, but a community is not necessarily a discipline. What’s interesting to me, though, is that in an effort to argue for DH being a discipline, Terras discusses those features of a discipline that generally are NOT measurable, e.g. their identities and cultural attributes. In this, I think you’re right to point out Terras and Spiro share more ground than they might realize.
I also think that there’s an important distinction between a discipline or community as sharing a methodology v. a “focus of study” (though even that is a murky concept). And while Terras is certainly not wading into the murky minutia of defining the DH, this distinction feels relatively weak. Still, it seems we’re not left with much else to go on in trying to understand how DH fits into the larger system of disciplines, or doesn’t fit it. The weakness of the distinction between a community sharing a focus and a methodology is what propels many of these essays.
Is anyone else completely irritated by Terras’ use of the word “kudos”?
It reminded me of Spiro’s reliance on the phrase “Internet values” (which include, what — downloading stuff for free, instant access to pornography, and the ability to order a pizza without picking up the phone?).
I would also argue, in opposition to your point about “minutia,” that arguing about whether or not DH constitutes a “department” or a “discipline” certainly qualifies as “minutia.” I mean, what are the stakes associated with such debates, and why are we, as members of the larger scholarly community, supposed to care?
[Playing devil’s advocate a bit here.]