Digital Humanities & The Disciplines Part 2

So I attended the 'Digital Humanities and the Disciplines' Conference a couple of weeks ago and I have just come around to collecting my thoughts about it. Here they are - and they seem to be quite relevant to our discussions on Media History (Here's part 2 of my write-up):

Enclaves: Perils & Possibilities

Martha Nell Smith

Dr Smith put forth more of a self-described "thinking piece" with several questions that set off an interesting discussions come the roundtable. Smith talked about the purpose of the 'digital humanities' and questioned: if indeed we are using digital humanities to improve our quality of life, are we utilizing them to our best of our abilities? In a sense, couldn't one argue that the increase in using digital technology in the humanities supports a drive towards data over knowledge? (This is something she has strove to stay away from: look for the Emily Dickinson electronic archive for an example of what she means).

Speaking of an issue I have seldom seen discussed when talking of digital humanities, Smith brought up the issue of whether computing has offer a space away from the "messiness" of Identity Politics. And further asked whether Feminism, Queer, Gender or Race studies could enhance the work of the Digital Humanities? Here she referred in particular to Donna Haraway's projects.

Smith also brought up questions of the changing nature of authority brought about by the increasing ability and ease of collaboration and insisted that Academia needs to start rethinking some of its long-held ideas about what passes for academic writing and academic editions.

David Jaffe 

Jaffe offered - more than anyone else in the panel, a wide variety of interesting academic and pedagogical resources. Here are a few:

http://dohistory.org 

http://hypercities.com

http://www.picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/ 

http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/

(And by favorite because of its political valence right now): http://americanpast.richmond.edu/voting/

 Basically Jaffe spoke of the teaching aspect of the digital humanities. Echoing most of the panelists, Jaffe seemed interested in the ways technology could be use not just as supplemental to knowledge-making/seeking but also as an integral part of the classroom (more interaction, less powerpoint). For this, he argued we need a change in practices. These practices need to incorporate collaboration and need to look for ways in which we can re-think the way we teach (see some of the links above to see what those would look like): in a sense, looking for embodied pedagogies that utilize technology, or experiental digital spaces where we can start building theory out of practice.

Roundtable

Most of the roundtable was made up of questions regarding what Academia and institutions should be looking at when thinking of the Digital Humanities:

- Suggested: no tenure track position being considered if work is not Open Access.

- Changing the Vertical Structure of the Institution.

- Increase and encourage interdisciplinarity.

- Encourage open-access publishing (See Rice University's all digital/open access Press)

- What would an open-sourced/digital product/project look like?

- And then of course, whatever funding and economic questions that arise from these questions.

A lot of interesting questions and provocative if not altogether pragmatic suggestions of ways Academia should tackle the Humanities 2.0.