{"id":1027,"date":"2016-11-30T03:42:58","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T03:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2016-11-30T03:42:58","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T03:42:58","slug":"the-next-steps-for-dh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/uncategorized\/the-next-steps-for-dh\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Steps for DH"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seeing that professionals both inside and outside the digital humanities are concerned with DH’s relation to the neoliberal takeover of the university, I think the DH community should make significant\u00a0efforts toward solving the problem. I do not believe it is the sole<\/em> responsibility of the DH community, because neoliberalism in the university is a much larger issue; but DHers are realizing that their field is contributing to the problem in some ways\u00a0(whether this is intentional or not), so they share some of the responsibility in fixing it.\u00a0The first step is to share their opinions about the matter, as Chun, Grusin, Jagoda, and Raley have done through this conference roundtable. They cannot stop here though; they must take action. If Chun et al. are concerned about this issue, as they have demonstrated through their conference papers, they should not be content with sitting back and watching the same problems continue to happen.<\/p>\n

The next step might be to organize meetings (which could be done online) with other DHers who are invested in solving this problem, for the purpose of brainstorming what steps the field should take next. These DHers could publish another article or present at another conference in order to recruit more DHers for the cause. The danger here is that this group will create another clique within DH, but if all DHers can understand the problems going on and also understand that this group is working for the greater good, the group will be less of a problem. I do not want to let other humanists off the hook, either – if the DH community can recruit “outsiders” that are also passionate about stopping the problems of neoliberalism, they will be a much stronger force. Chun explains\u00a0that doing this means\u00a0“taking on\u00a0our fears and biases to create deeper collaborations with the sciences and engineering.\u00a0<\/span>It entails forging joint (frictional and sometimes fractious) coalitions to take on problems such as education, global change, etc.”<\/span>\u00a0Although these collaborations will not always be easy, they are necessary; in fact, it may even be\u00a0impossible for DH to make a change in the university\u00a0without help from non-DHers and representatives of\u00a0several different fields of study.<\/p>\n

After this group has brainstormed and decided on the best possible solutions, they must make a plan of action. I am not the one to proclaim what the best solution is here, as I am still relatively new to the DH field and do not actively practice it, but I think one of the first steps on the plan of action should be for DHers to reconcile with “traditional” literary scholars. From the beginning of the semester when we read Stanley Fish’s “The Old Order Changeth”, we have continually seen that many (not all) DHers and “traditional” scholars have great bitterness toward each other; this rift only harms the humanities. If DHers and all humanists are truly passionate about fighting the neoliberal takeover, they must work through their differences and find unity again. This may sound too optimistic, but I have a hard time seeing DH and the humanities fight the neoliberal system\u00a0if they cannot work together; their separate, smaller efforts might be fine, but\u00a0taking bigger<\/em> steps together<\/em> would be more effective.\u00a0Chun echoes this plea:\u00a0“I call for us to work together\u2014across the various fields and divisions\u2014to create a university that is fair and just for all (teachers, students, researchers).” Once this first step is achieved, the group can move forward with implementing the next steps on their plan of action. If the humanities\u00a0and the academy are truly “sinking”, as Chun suggests, it is time for scholars to\u00a0do something about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeing that professionals both inside and outside the digital humanities are concerned with DH’s relation to the neoliberal takeover of the university, I think the DH community should make significant\u00a0efforts toward solving the problem. I do not believe it is the sole responsibility of the DH community, because neoliberalism in the university is a much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1068,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/1068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}