Skills for the Modern Humanist? (...Digital or Not)

Amanda Visconti
9/26/2009 - 4:03pm
  1. 21st Century Literacies
  2. Technology
  1. digital humanist
  2. skills
  3. technology
Scholar
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In my first HASTAC post, "Five Computer Skills for the Aspiring Digital Humanist", I listed some skills working digital humanists recommended for aspiring Dh web designers/programmers. In the comments, several people brought up different ideas of what a digital humanist does -- or needs to be able to do.

I'm starting to see DH'ers as falling into two categories: people who focus on content but use technology to express that, and people with a love for a specific content area, but also a driving desire to focus on the tools to advance that content. My previous post was really intended for the latter group: people who want to find a tech job where their projects are always DH-related.

The people in the former group -- "traditional" scholars in the sense of focus on content, but modern in their use of technological means to that end -- are going to have a more varied skillset, depending on whether they're using technology for basic scholarly activities (gathering and sharing research, annotating and analyzing texts, etc.), or online pedagogy, or some other pursuit. Such scholars may also be working in a DH team that draws on the skills Dh programmers for anything too technically involved.

I'm interested in hearing what people think the basic skillset of the modern humanist should be, then. Beyond the ability to synthesize, analyze, and communicate, are there skills you view as indispensable to all but the most stubborn Luddites?

I'm especially interested in what "digital" skills you feel have passed from the tech-savvy to the general crowd (MS Word and Excel, one imagines, at least).

Jentery Sayers
Jentery Sayers2 years 19 weeks ago

Medium Specificity?

Thanks for your post, Amanda.  I'll just respond quickly here with one competence that might be included in the humanities skillset you reference, and that's an understanding of the particulars of a given medium, how it informs and shapes interpretation, and why (or why not) it persuades audiences.  For someone in literary criticism, this competence wouldn't demand, say, a knowledge of humanities computing in order to articulate how Mallarme's "Throw of the Dice..." (particularly in the last quarter of the 19th century) influenced poetry and print.  And on this note, related to why Mallarme and when, I would likely add to this skillset some competence in historicizing/contextualizing cultural artifacts. 

That's all I have for now, but I'm looking forward to hearing more!

Amanda Visconti
Amanda Visconti2 years 19 weeks ago

Good points -- the ability to

Good points -- the ability to historicize/contextualize suggests a "whole humanist": someone who can bring in different areas of the humanities/social sciences to understand their content area. I can't imagine working with literature without an understanding of pertinent historical eras, for example, or psychology, though certain theories emphasize these or attempt to remove these fields from analysis.