This is, by far, my favorite tweet. https://t.co/Vl19Z4I7Cq
— Roopika Risam (@roopikarisam) June 24, 2016
It’s not often that I go to a keynote speaker at a conference and feel like I’ve come away from a sermon.
Normally, keynote speakers are generally useful for setting the tone of a conference; library conferences tend to have a keynote speaker that coaleses around some common theme, especially emerging issues. Diversity, understandably, is discussed a lot (which is really helpful in DH conferences that sometimes straddle the line of pedagogy/library/tech) as DH practitioners try to come to grips with the reality that it is still a white male-dominated corner of academia (perhaps more so than the other corners).
At the 2016 Keystone DH conference, keynote speaker Roopika Risam talked more about love than any sort of technical/practical understanding of DH; yet her methodology re: love is vital to understanding how we do DH in our institutions and as a broader DH community. She spoke a bit on how love builds community and care in the digital humanities; that we, as DH practitioners, put a lot of ourselves into these projects because not only do we value what we do, but because we think we can build a better world through the world we do. We can tear down walls, seek to repair damage done from colonialism, and empower the powerless to do amazing things.
Dreamers and tinkerers can be builders of better worlds, ones built on love – @roopikarisam #keydh
— R.C. Miessler (@iconodule) June 22, 2016
We are dreamers and tinkerers in DH; one of the themes of this summer’s fellowship has been “Dream big,” which we try to take to heart. We want people to be ok with tinkering, with messing around, with failure, all on the way towards realizing dreams. Of course, not all dreams can happen immediately, but we can get them started, and nurture them throughout our fellows’ academic careers.
Of course, love has a dark side as well; as discussed, love can be exploited, especially for free/cheap labor. Often bandied about is the idea that if you really love doing something, it isn’t work … and in turn, that can become an excuse to deny or reduce compensation for something. DH practitioners at all levels should be compensated in some manner for their work in a sustainable and ethical way; often we turn to grants in DH (and higher education in general) to fund something new and exciting, but love in this context means that grants may not cut it, that we need to look to ways to make sure those doing DH are going to be taken care of in the long haul.
That love for digital humanities is why this fellowship was created, in a lot of ways, so that students could explore DH in a safe environment, with funding, and be able to tinker and dream to create new worlds. I’m glad to be a part of this endeavor, and honored to work with this core group of students.
