Questioning Digital Humanities

The Digital Humanities is a field that I have been introduced to and subsequently immersed in in very recent months. When I was first offered this fellowship, I was excited because it was a new aspect to my discipline, one that I wouldn’t have to be embarrassed to admit I was pursuing. After reading the article by Daniel Allington, Sarah Brouillette, and David Golumbia, I realized where these feelings were coming from, and what exactly was so problematic within them. While there are aspects to their argument that I do not agree with, I think that it is very important to critique our experiences and our endeavors in order to ensure that we are practicing in the best ways that we can.
The concept of neoliberal education was one that I was unfamiliar with until reading the article “The Neoliberal Arts: How College Sold its Soul to the Market” by William Deresiewicz. But when I read the article, I understood it perfectly, because it is something that I have felt pushing against me for the entirety of my college career. As a philosophy major, I have often been asked “What are you going to do with that?” I have struggled with attempting to justify my search for knowledge because my path does not translate perfectly into a career. And I have known many peers who go through the bare minimum motions in order to receive the letter grade they want because they are in classes that they deem unimportant for their goals.

I felt calm and finally proud in telling people about my fellowship this summer. I didn’t worry about people’s reactions because the word ‘Digital’ signified it had inherent worth in our society. But I didn’t realize that I was complicit in devaluing my own Humanities work thus far.

But the flip side is this: The Digital Humanities are an amazing field in many ways regardless of whether or not they make humanities students more marketable. Simply because aspects of Digital Humanities question the integrity of traditional humanities does not mean that Digital Humanities is inherently problematic as a field. Of course there are great benefits to opening humanistic inquiry and ideas to the public. College is an institution that costs a great deal of money as so many know, and thus only a privileged few have access to its knowledge. The principles of openness and public facing are important ones that have challenged the closed off walls of universities, and many have responded by placing greater emphasis on the Digital Humanities.

In the end, we must stop pitting traditional humanities against Digital Humanities. They are in many ways entirely different fields. Whereas the Digital Humanities place great emphasis on teaching others, the traditional humanities place emphasis on developing the self. These are both important and worthwhile endeavors. Both areas can affect society greatly. The Digital Humanities will lend its ideas straight to the public, while the traditional humanities trickle down through the elite and eventually affect entire cultures. The postmodern movement was born in the office’s of professor’s in universities, yet it affected an entire nation for generations to come.

I will have to continue to think critically about these questions because I think they are of great importance. Through my own work in my classes and now here I have seen great value in both fields of humanities work. As Digital Humanists, I think it is important to understand we have the upper hand of progress. We need to think carefully about whether it is right or beneficial to use that upper hand to break down traditional humanities and usher in a new era.