Month: December 2016

Something that we digital scholars like to always mention when teaching digital scholarship, is that digital scholarship is very flexible and fluid. We often tell people “Anything can be a digital project”. I think that this one aspect of digital scholarship allows us to teach it “accordingly”. The flexible nature of digital scholarship allows us to mold projects based on the needs of one person or a group of people. The needs of who is in front of us can vary greatly. Sometimes the person in front of us is just one person who needs to know how to use StoryMap JS for a project that their professor assigned them. Other times it is society that is in front of us, needing tolerance and someone to listen and understand them. Digital scholarship molds itself accordingly and addresses the needs of society. I would whole heartedly say the project “What We Did Here” was created out of a campus need for inclusion and understanding. The website was created as a safe space for people to share their voices to what is happening in the world. Digital scholarship provides that safe space for people who want and need to share their voice and opinions. Digital scholarship has no borders and you can truly create a “room of one’s own”.

Being a humanities major, I study the human culture. I try to assess, analyze, and understand the actions of humans throughout time. Digital humanities strives to do the same but for present day audience. We do digital humanities for those in front of us when we are able to listen to those in front of us. We need to listen and address a wide range of issues for those in front of us. And as my co-worker Lauren has pointed out,  diversity and inclusion are two things that I think society needs more of today and digital humanities is doing an excellent job of addressing these two issues. The two keynote speakers at the Bucknell Digital conference focused their speeches on the issues of diversity, the need for it, and how digital humanities can play a role in shaping a more diverse society.

I think that the most valuable thing about my experience as a digital scholar this year is to be in an environment where I can grow as a scholar and a person. I absolutely love who I work with and in the words of Julia Wall “I wouldn’t give my cohort up for the world”. Another valuable aspect of my experience is being able to form relationships with the faculty I worked with. Also, it was really neat to be able to see the students’ final projects and see them grow as “digital humanist”. Overall, it has been a great semester and I hope to have another great semester with you all in 2017.

Best Wishes,

Keira

In her latest blog post, Teaching Teachers in the Age of Trump, Roopika Risam writes the following: “look at who is in front of you, identify their needs, teach accordingly.”

This mandate is especially important in the digital humanities, which is a developing field and thus has the potential to teach in a more inclusive and revolutionary way. Obviously, this is not an easy task, as an event as big as the election affects students and teachers alike. But, as Risam points out in her blog post, we have to actually go teach, even if that’s difficult. Teachers are sources of leadership–their students look up to and rely on them. If we do not make ourselves present and available in difficult times, the student loses that locus of support and guidance. Leading in this context also means allowing time and space for students to express their emotions. To distance or try to separate what is happening in a student’s life from their expectations in the classroom is impossible. Teaching holistically means acknowledging the lived experiences of students and recognizing the impact their lives have on their scholarship. Even though devoting time to emotions may seem like a waste of time, allowing room for processing can help to enhance a student’s scholarship by making sure that their personal investment in a project or course is channeled healthily.

It is also especially important that digital scholarship devote time to integrative and intersectional projects that explore and give attention and space to a variety of identities. Documenting the lived experiences of people of color, LGBT+ individuals, immigrants and their families, people without class privilege, or other people who are at risk for worsened marginalization is especially important now. We also have to make sure that the digital humanities expand to those to aren’t literally in front of us–in other words, it is easy to look at DH through the lens of a small, predominantly white liberal arts institutions, but what are we doing to include community colleges, historically black colleges, or tribal colleges? Those colleges may have populations even more affected by recent changes caused by the election. As such, it is critical that they are given the tools so they can take advantage of their education to the fullest extent possible and express their experience.

Our boss, R.C., asked us to finish this blog post by reflecting on what has been valuable about our experience this semester both as students, and peer mentor/teachers. First, I want to re-emphasize the importance of the digital scholarship cohort. On the morning following the election, I was lucky to be surrounded by people who were willing to offer support and discussion about everything that had taken place. The cohort also helped to create What We Did Here, a project meant to document activism at Gettysburg and give every student a voice. In general, this semester helped me realize the need for change, and I am thankful that I have been able to bring it about in some regards, especially through What We Did Here, and in emphasizing the need for the dissemination and sharing of knowledge to the students I’ve worked with.