As my classmate Kris pointed out to me, perhaps the best quote from this week’s readings is “Digital Humanities has a definition addiction.” My initial instinct is to wonder why definition even matters… why can we not just do cool work and applaud each other for being awesome scholars. I recognize now though, that that is a bit naive and maybe, to my lament, there is a legitimate reason to keep fighting over this.
This debate often feels like the academic version of “you can’t sit with us,” or “she doesn’t even go here.” It feels like an effort to shrink the group. While I do believe there has to be some parameters so there is some cohesion, I think the establishment of parameters should be done to mostly to grow the group, to give more people a scholarly home base. I think it’s most meaningful if the debate is centered on who should be included in this group (expansively), rather than who should be included in this group (exclusively). I could be wrong, but I imagine that not wanting to have to categorize my work is kind of a privilege, since at my university digital scholarship is openly accepted and ruminated on daily. However, if I was going to a different school or perhaps were from a non-English speaking nation, having the label “digital humanities” to attach my work to might be helpful. Rather than fighting to be recognized on my own, I could make the case that I’m joining a field (or discipline or whatever it is) that is growing in size and prestige globally. By deciding on a definition or at least thinking about one, maybe we are providing opportunities for folks in less funded or digital humanities-inclined spaces than George Mason University to engage with this work in an acknowledged way.
Our class discussion of what it even means to be a discipline is part of what got me to admit there was a purpose in defining Digital Humanities. We came up with a set of characteristics that all disciplines share so that we could measure DH against them. Of everything listed below, we basically decided that DH either meets the requirement or is currently hashing it out:
- People
- Questions
- Society
- Publications
- Training
- Degrees
- Agreed standards of research output
- Jobs
- Careers
We also spoke of what the future of training looks like specifically in a university setting. Beyond DH specific classrooms, faculty members, at least at GMU, have become more receptive to alternative final deliverables. Instead of a seminar paper, Kris and I once created StoryMaps for our professor. They graded it with the same expectations of academic rigor, but gave us more freedom, appreciating that we had an interest in learning new tech skills. Though I don’t expect this to be adopted universally, it is an embrace of DH that I think is probably most accessible to the most educators.
I think the simplest most easily acceptable definition of Digital Humanities is that it is a meeting place for technically innovative humanities scholars. The multi-disciplinary nature of the group is crucial, as has been evidenced by many of our readings and particularly the poster exercise from last class. However, the melting pot of methodologies, or methodological magpie behavior (as Dr. Otis termed it), is not the only or most important element of the discipline. We have been continuously reminded through theoretical readings and our own work that the centrality of humanities questions and inspirations must continue to be the focus when digital tools are introduced. The innovations that seem to define Digital Humanities are but new mechanisms to answer the same sorts of questions historians and others interested in the human condition have been asking for centuries.
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