{"id":423,"date":"2016-09-14T13:53:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T13:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/?p=423"},"modified":"2016-09-14T13:53:58","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T13:53:58","slug":"mcgann-essay-blog-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/uncategorized\/mcgann-essay-blog-response\/","title":{"rendered":"McGann essay blog response"},"content":{"rendered":"

McGann\u2019s essay highlighted a great number of questions and concerns I\u2019d had in our previous work in this class. I\u2019d had a lot of trouble identifying where the rubber met the road, or where theory met practice. In my understanding that\u2019s what he\u2019s identifying when he\u2019s saying things like \u201cwe must learn by going where we need to go\u201d pg 51. I greatly appreciate the way he frames the connection between scholars and scholarly work as one of labor and laborer with the repeated references to Lenin and Marxist theory. To push this idea further, I would identify humanists as the Party proper. We are the ones who must identify and navigate the intersection of theory and practice. <\/span><\/p>\n

Following on that meeting of theory and practice, he identifies the necessity of such a revolution of thought and action. We\u2019ve mentioned problems with tenure and publishing in the abstract in class and I didn\u2019t relate or understand the connection until the first section of his essay. I would agree that the current system is showing it\u2019s age and in connection to his relation to labor and laborer, unless we change the system we are working against the tide. Here the humanist can benefit from adopting new tools in the digital humanities, tools which have been available to the world at large for years. McGann is more blunt about the subject, saying on page 52 \u201cI\u2019ve spent almost twenty years studying this subject in the only way you have a chance of doing something useful\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

More difficult to discuss and understand than tenure and publishing as the way he connects scholarly work in the area of textual and bibliographical studies. His example of the arrangements of Hamlet from different textual sources was helpful in illuminating where the rubber meets the road in this context. Here it\u2019s up to humanists to embrace the tools available to engage with creating, changing, synthesizing, perhaps simply, <\/span>engaging<\/span><\/i> with texts in any meaningful way. The tools he outlines in section three under the umbrella of NINES were wholly unfamiliar to me previous to this class. I\u2019m technically literate enough to understand the value of different tools that \u201coutput XML coded data\u201d so that they can share information and work across platforms and toolsets, but I don\u2019t know how to put that in practice currently. <\/span><\/p>\n

On that note, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m in the minority. As he says on page 63 \u201cFor some of us, this will be a road not taken\u201d. I have a good friend working towards his history PHD who is incapable of setting up email on his phone. Certainly he\u2019s a bright minded humanist with much to contribute to the Humanities, but I seriously doubt if he\u2019s interesting in learning any new toolset to engage with his chosen field. I agree with McGann that there is a danger in not adopting new tools to enhance the practice of our craft, so to say. <\/span><\/p>\n

One final note, as someone whose interest lies in teaching the Humanities, I feel an obligation to have some proficiency in learning to use the tools that can be adapted to the Humanities. In the college of education there is a constant forward motion with tools and technology to always change, always do better. Kids are fast to adopt new methods of communication and technology, it seems imperative to teach them to use the full range of tools that exists to engage with text in all it\u2019s facets. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McGann\u2019s essay highlighted a great number of questions and concerns I\u2019d had in our previous work in this class. I\u2019d had a lot of trouble identifying where the rubber met the road, or where theory met practice. In my understanding that\u2019s what he\u2019s identifying when he\u2019s saying things like \u201cwe must learn by going where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions\/424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilaliming.com\/428DH\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}