{"id":598,"date":"2016-07-12T13:09:04","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T17:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/?p=598"},"modified":"2016-07-12T13:09:04","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T17:09:04","slug":"in-defense-of-digital-humanities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/week-7\/in-defense-of-digital-humanities\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Digital Humanities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Kirschenbaum\u2019s \u201c<\/span>Am I a Digital Humanist? Confessions of a Neoliberal Tool<\/span><\/a>\u201d and Roopika Risam\u2019s \u201c<\/span>Digital Humanities in Other Contexts<\/span><\/a>\u201d affirms my personal feelings towards and experiences with the digital humanities. <\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span>Far from focusing on the supposed corporate devils that were waiting to consume my soul as I practiced the digital humanities, \u00a0Kirschenbaum and Risam focused on the individuals that make up the DH community. In his piece, Kirschenbaum writes that<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cthe people most drawn to the early humanities computing centers at UVA were the book nerds. Far from seeing computers as an abandonment or repudiation of books, archives, and the material remains of culture and society, the new technologies were understood to be extensions of those preoccupations.\u201d I can apply this quote to all the people I\u2019ve worked with this summer without hesitance. Everyone at the Musselman Library, or in other DH circles, work to expand the humanities by presenting their passions in a digital space. Not one person has refuted the importance of the physical humanities. Risam also heralds \u201ca digital humanities of the students, by the students, and for the students\u201d, which I have undeniably experienced at Musselman this summer. The library fosters an environment where we, as undergraduate scholars, can immerse ourselves in our projects and work to be mentors to the next future digital humanists. Risam aslo notes that <\/span>\u201cinstitutions like [her\u2019s] \u2013 whether regional comprehensives like Salem State, access universities, or community colleges \u00a0\u2013 are left out from trenchant critiques of digital humanities\u201d even though they \u201cserve the vast majority of students receiving post-secondary education, often the most diverse groups of students\u201d. In my mind, this quote emphasizes the idea that the digital humanities are for everyone; they are built by diverse and often unrecognized people–not popular and wealthy corporations. \u00a0Perhaps this concept is best summarized by Kirschenbaum, who writes, \u201c<\/span>It\u2019s hard to avoid naming names in these paragraphs since the individuals were so much a part of what was happening\u201d. The digital humanities could not thrive or be the robust field it is today without the people who make it up. <\/span><\/p>\n

In my mind, the number of individuals who contribute to DH and their personal investment in the field cause the impassioned debates surrounding the topic. As Kirschenbaum so eloquently states, \u201cwhat we do, what we choose to work on and who we choose to work with emerges out of a complex skein of personal history, personally held values, circumstances, encounters, and all the other agents of chance, privilege, and socialization.\u201d Because each person experiences the digital humanities in their own way, and develop projects out out their own passions, it makes sense that people are quick to be defensive of the way their experiences and interpretations. However, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the digital humanities primarily relies on community, and can only exist if people listen to each other and think critically about other people\u2019s stances. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Kirschenbaum\u2019s \u201cAm I a Digital Humanist? Confessions of a Neoliberal Tool\u201d and Roopika Risam\u2019s \u201cDigital Humanities in Other Contexts\u201d affirms my personal feelings towards and experiences with the digital humanities. Far from focusing on the supposed corporate devils that were waiting to consume my soul as I practiced the digital humanities, \u00a0Kirschenbaum and Risam … Continue reading “In Defense of Digital Humanities”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dssf.musselmanlibrary.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}