{"id":1054,"date":"2016-11-29T16:03:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T16:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/?p=1054"},"modified":"2016-11-29T16:03:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-29T16:03:45","slug":"overtime-academics-must-walk-the-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/uncategorized\/overtime-academics-must-walk-the-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Overtime: Academics must Walk the Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is difficult for me to think of an approach to anything that is clearly related to politics [as in structures of power, but also in the governmental\/administration sense] without including advocacy as a means of change.\u00a0 Whether or not advocacy is 100% effective is a different conversation.\u00a0 I make call to action for many academics, especially those who are studying people <\/em>and policy rather than documents and traditional texts.\u00a0 Queer Theorist should use their knowledge of institutional oppression and idiosyncratic situations to advocate for the marginalized.\u00a0 Political Scientists should be\u2026 politically involved [once they have tenure, I suppose].\u00a0 I get impatient with Feminist Scholars who are all talk, but no walk [but seriously, volunteer and walk as an escort at your local women\u2019s clinic.]<\/p>\n

That may seem a little off topic, but I hope it stands to serve as an example of the philosophy I hold for academics when we venture into these waters.\u00a0 I return to that philosophy when we\u2019re looking at DH in this way.\u00a0 By now we can tell the issue is not how DH conducts scholarship, but the means by which it can <\/em>conduct its scholarship.\u00a0 If we acknowledge ties between the neoliberal structure of Universities and DH\u2019s success, then people in position to critique the academy must make that critique.<\/p>\n

Funding seems to be the most useful way to approach the problem.\u00a0 DH projects dry up with the grant runs out, research in one subfield becomes less popular when the departments move on, tenure lines open and close.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about money in the university.<\/p>\n

The academy is a sinking ship\u2014if it is\u2014because it sinks our students into debt, and this debt, generated by this optimistic belief that a university degree automatically guarantees a job, is what both sustains and kills us. This residual belief\/hope stems from another time when most of us could not go to university\u2014another time when young adults with degrees received good jobs, not necessarily because of what they learned, but because of the society in which they lived. [Chun]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is DH on the ship or is it standing on the dock waving a hanky?\u00a0 DH touts a certain level of job preparation.\u00a0 It tries to walk two lines, the technical and the humanistic.\u00a0 If we are in a society that creates jobs that want less specialization and more \u201cskills\u201d then DH is the path and it is supported by the university structure.<\/p>\n

Back to my call to action. Academics who are able should call out practices that cater only to business models and not goals of education.\u00a0 They should challenge the notion that their classes should only \u201cprepare\u201d students for jobs but not also for being students.\u00a0 I want to make sure it\u2019s known that when I say \u201cacademics who are able\u201d I am not only talking about physical ability, but I am talking about their job security.\u00a0 It means more for a full professor to speak criticially, publically, than it does for them to only air grievances at the department coffee stand.<\/p>\n

I already fall into part of the trap of the neoliberal structure, calling on already worn out humanists to take political risks for their students and colleagues.\u00a0 Academic work weeks already stretch well beyond that of the average full time employee, political advocacy not included.\u00a0 It\u2019s all really just words, words, words.\u00a0 The things we say [and frankly, throw a fit about] have an effect on how the university functions, including funding.<\/p>\n

[It] is largely due to the apparently instrumental or utilitarian value of the digital humanities that university administrators, foundation officers, and government agencies are so eager to fund DH projects, create DH undergraduate and graduate programs, and hire DH faculty. And because there is no sign that these funding streams are going to dry up any time soon, and no sign on the horizon of an increase in funding for the \u201ccrisis humanities,\u201d there is great potential for increased tension between the \u201chaves\u201d of digital humanities and the \u201chave-nots\u201d of mainstream humanities. [introduction excerpt]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If we believe the humanities have a specific purpose, we need to advocate for that.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll be real: That sounds shitty.\u00a0 We should not have <\/em>to justify our own fields of study, but apparently we do.\u00a0 \u201cThe humanities are sinking\u2014if they are\u2014not because of their earlier embrace of theory or multiculturalism, but because they have capitulated to a bureaucratic technocratic logic\u201d [Chun].\u00a0 We need not to fall into that \u201cbureaucratic technocratic logic\u201d but to stick to our guns.\u00a0 Our research is important for real people.\u00a0 Humanists study humans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a teach in on Dec. 2 in the Loading Dock.\u00a0 Facebook event here: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/1029907150488359\/<\/a><\/p>\n

About the Event:<\/p>\n

Teach-ins are ways of having timely conversations with a focus that is practical, participatory, and action-oriented. This teach-in is about diversity and racism on college campuses, and was created as a way to improve inclusion and understanding on our campus.<\/p>\n

This teach-in is for all members of our campus community, and is designed to actively involve students in critical conversations about free speech, racism on college campuses, and ways of creating an inclusive and supportive campus environments. You can pop in for any part of the day to listen, learn, and share your voice. A detailed schedule will be posted to this event page.<\/p>\n

This free event is organized, facilitated, and hosted by a grassroots interdisciplinary group of faculty and students on campus with a goal of expanding healthy dialogue beyond the classroom. Please contact faculty members Rebecca Weaver-Hightower or Melanie Sage with questions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is just one example of what I\u2019m talking about.\u00a0 But things don\u2019t need to be like this all the time.\u00a0 The biggest take away should be that academics need to remain active even after they receive they.\u00a0 Write to the paper.\u00a0 Write a letter to the Office of the President.\u00a0 For God\u2019s sake all we do is write.\u00a0 This may not seem concrete, or even directly related to DH, but DH can only \u201cchange for the better\u201d if the University system asks it to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is difficult for me to think of an approach to anything that is clearly related to politics [as in structures of power, but also in the governmental\/administration sense] without including advocacy as a means of change.\u00a0 Whether or not advocacy is 100% effective is a different conversation.\u00a0 I make call to action for many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054","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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1055,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions\/1055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}