Upon rereading my first blog post, I think that the line that stood out to me the most was “the sharing of ideas and knowledge from people at all levels of experience is crucial to the success of a digital humanities project.” As these ten weeks come to a conclusion, the aspect of DH that has proved most striking to me is the collaboration that occurs within the field.
Throughout the summer, we as fellows have not only collaborated with the working group, but have also been introduced to the wider DH community, especially through our sessions, twitters, and our day spent at Lafayette College. DH’s uniqueness is borne out of the interactions that happen between scholars in the field. Each person’s vision, interests, and knowledge contribute to and advance the humanities–not to destroy them, but to transform them. Projects are made possible by entire support groups who each bring their skill set to the table. For example, an individual’s level of technological expertise or research ability is not critical so long as the person has a desire to learn and be a scholar who is engaged and involved.
It is my opinion that my project highlights this kind of collaboration. It is the result of multiple people’s input and help, as well as my own passion. With the assistance of the working group and my fellows, I was able to create a project that presented the humanities in a new and dynamic way. Collaboration also extends past those people who have experience in the digital humanities to those who make up the narratives documented in the humanities. As such, I make an active effort on my site to bring more people into my project and expand it by providing users with a survey.
I am tremendously excited to see what next year’s fellows will create. Another aspect of the digital humanities I have come to appreciate is that it is about the advancement of knowledge. Knowledge is dynamic, not static, and subsists on new ideas. My advice to the incoming fellows is this: Let your passions drive your projects. Do not approach them with fear. More so than they are intimidating, they are exciting and will return all the love and care you put into them ten fold.
Do not be afraid to fail–this is something that was hard for us to grasp. But failure is productive; it moves you forward instead of setting you back. Everything is at your fingertips, and there is a whole community of people waiting and wanting for you to succeed. I hope that this summer inspires you to fall in love with digital humanities, just as this summer has done for me.
Warning: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /home/musselma/public_html/dssf/2016/wp-includes/class-wp-comment-query.php on line 405
