I was doing an interview for my project a few weeks ago where my professor, an alum of the college, told me how different students were. He said that this new email fad where students add all of their titles under their name is so new. Beyond that, we discussed how resume oriented everyone seems to be. I think that new fad proves that there is some truth to Daniel Allington, Sarah Brouillette, and David Golumbia’s article.
They argue that digital humanities “is, instead, about the promotion of project-based learning and lab-based research over reading and writing, the rebranding of insecure campus employment as an empowering “alt-ac” career choice, and the redefinition of technical expertise as a form (indeed, the superior form) of humanist knowledge.” And I don’t think they are wrong. There is something to be said about the amount of time that I have caught one of us saying, “well at least I can say I learned this tool.” But is that really true?
We have learned all of these tools to serve our purposes, but we haven’t really worked all of these tools. The idea of project-based learning is somewhat in line with the way we were taught to write essays. Is learning just enough WordPress to turn out a website really any different than writing an essay in the 11th hour for a grade?
Can I really say that I can create a digital humanities project after this? I can say I created this one. But there is really no telling if the next time I do this it will take any less time. I think it would be slightly ignorant for any of us to think that we have really conquered the heart of some of these tools.
And then, there is the funding. The article argues that “[t]he work that the NEH and the Mellon Foundation tend to fund remains largely confined to the “tools and archives” paradigm that many in Digital Humanities claim to have surpassed, but that continues to drive the institutional expansion of Digital Humanities through its likely receipt of major research grants. This is no coincidence. Digital Humanities enabled the creation of new pools of funding specifically devoted to an entirely new conception of the humanities that was promulgated by a small minority within English departments.” The concept that we are being paid to do what we are doing, while very nice, makes me question the worth of what I am doing.
Realistically, I don’t think my work is going to positively or negatively affect anyone, other than myself. It seems a tad ridiculous that foundations are funding these programs instead of putting that money to a more worthy cause.
However, I don’t think this is the fault of the digital humanities ideology. I think it is the fault of the ideology of higher education. We have, as a society, turned higher education into training epicenters for white collar jobs. We all pride ourselves as being so open-ended in our learning processes, but we are just as goal oriented as a vocational school.
We can all do better to think of the real-life effects of what why are doing way up in the ivory tower. We need to fix this privileged ideology of education for the sake of education. There is so much that needs fixing in this world, and if we are among the privileged few that get to receive a higher education, we owe to ourselves, and the rest of the world to create a system that breeds altruistic intellectuals, rather than resume-obsessed ladder-climbers.
Your honesty is appreciated. I think in terms of the summer program, we are intentionally more broad in introducing tools, as we want you to get a general introduction and develop critical thinking skills in relation to how you interact with technology and apply it to research. Mastery is less the primary goal while awareness, building curiosity, and encouraging critical engagement are emphasized. It would be easy to create a summer program that just focused on learning how to use Scalar or mapping tools at the expense of giving students time to explore a research question … but then it’s just vocational training in a sense.
The funding question is tricky. Yes, there are lots of things that money can be used for. But there’s also the idea of paying students for labor as an ethical imperative, that if students are spending their time focused on something specific, a stipend helps defray that sort of deep dive. So it’s certainly a position of privilege, being a part of this program, which is why I think we spend a lot of time thinking about what can be conceived as problematic aspects of DH, and why we appreciate projects that draw from the margins. So don’t think of it as paying you to do research and build a website, but more a bit of relief that you don’t have to think about a job and doing this at the same time.
And I think you are absolutely right about not doing education for the sake of education, to not just train students to get white-collar jobs. There’s such a huge pushback against higher education anymore, of not giving students enough “value,” that we don’t teach “marketable skills,” that the humanities aren’t worth teaching anymore since they’re just soft skills that don’t do anything. There’s a push-pull relationship between making sure students come out of college ready for jobs, but also with a skillset that allows them to engage the world critically and thoughtfully, that they become good citizens. We’ve lost that 2nd part quite a bit as costs for education have skyrocketed and jobs have become more difficult to find. We get really focused on return on investment, which leads to lots of assessment and outcome-based stuff … and sometimes we lose sight of what we are meant to do.
I think that your response exhibits the sort of critical reading and thinking that we hope all Gettysburg graduates have. Being funded to do research is definitely a privilege. Once recognized, how do you utilize it? How can it strengthen your position in DH and in higher education generally? How do you want it to?
I really appreciate this post.