While I have noticed "DH" as a proliferating job category on lists such as the MLA job list, and while I've heard about various DH projects, this article provides a push-into-the-deep-end-of-the-pool/general context for the debate about this newly ascendant academic discipline. Kirschenbaum enters the discourse by pointing out that DH is both a "discursive construction" and a diverse array of specific practices and projects.
While articulating an array of "dark side" critiques/worries/realities about DH, Kirschenbaum ultimately argues for the historicization of DH as a construct vis-a-vis "prior academic discursive formations...[so that] critiques of 'digital humanities' can ameliorate the construct (as opposed to indulging its brutal metric perpetuation) by acknowledging--historically, materially--that 'digital humanities' is in fact a diversified set of practices, one whose details and methodologies responsible critique has a responsibility to understand and engage" (59).
He cites Alan Liu's essay "The Meaning of Digital Humanities" as an example of a piece that conducts a close reading of a specific project. I'd be interested in reading this article. I am intrigued by K's claim that Liu uses "the science and technology studies (STS) approach" since he then asserts this is the "best basis for relevant critique of and in the digital humanities" (60). This is particularly provocative for someone like me trained in the humanities....and I am wondering how different this approach is, whether in fact it *is* different. Or is K calling for close reading of "the material conditions of knowledge production in scientific settings or configurations" (60). Is this what history of science folks do?? And is K suggesting that digital humanities is in fact interdisciplinary as well?? At any rate, to better understand K's claims--which are engaging--I need to read the Liu piece.
In the end, while not disputing the emergence of DH in a moment of intense neoliberalization and corporatization of higher ed, Kirschenbaum calls for examining the work, the specific works and projects, of the digital humanities rather than remaining solely in the discourse of the construct, a discourse that tends to generalize rather than responsibly historicize and *read*--through whatever method of reading one chooses--specific DHprojects and endeavors. It is pretty hard to disagree with that call!
There is a tone of exasperation in Kirschenbaum's piece that seems to be marking the distance between all the TALK ABOUT digital humanities on the one hand and actual UNDERSTANDING OF digital humanities on the other. This is the difference between what MK calls DH "things" or "actually existing projects" vs. DH as "the construct" or a "discourse."
It does seem to be the case that in the current state of higher ed and the humanities more generally, DH often serves as a *signifier* of either hope or despair, but usually without much sense of what is actually *signified* by the term. The Liu piece represents for him a rare example of a critique of DH that is responsibly engaged with and informed by actual DH work in all its diversity.
I also really appreciated MK's reminder that the history and origins of DH lie in eastern land-grant institutions and composition studies rather than the Silicon Valley tech world with which it is too often identified. I would recommend some of the opening essays in the collection DEBATES IN THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES (2011, Minnesota) for some of the "computers and composition" historical context for DH. Kirschenbaum's own earlier essay "What is Digital Humanities and What's it Doing in English Departments?" is also reprinted there.
While I have noticed "DH" as a proliferating job category on lists such as the MLA job list, and while I've heard about various DH projects, this article provides a push-into-the-deep-end-of-the-pool/general context for the debate about this newly ascendant academic discipline. Kirschenbaum enters the discourse by pointing out that DH is both a "discursive construction" and a diverse array of specific practices and projects.
ReplyDeleteWhile articulating an array of "dark side" critiques/worries/realities about DH, Kirschenbaum ultimately argues for the historicization of DH as a construct vis-a-vis "prior academic discursive formations...[so that] critiques of 'digital humanities' can ameliorate the construct (as opposed to indulging its brutal metric perpetuation) by acknowledging--historically, materially--that 'digital humanities' is in fact a diversified set of practices, one whose details and methodologies responsible critique has a responsibility to understand and engage" (59).
He cites Alan Liu's essay "The Meaning of Digital Humanities" as an example of a piece that conducts a close reading of a specific project. I'd be interested in reading this article. I am intrigued by K's claim that Liu uses "the science and technology studies (STS) approach" since he then asserts this is the "best basis for relevant critique of and in the digital humanities" (60). This is particularly provocative for someone like me trained in the humanities....and I am wondering how different this approach is, whether in fact it *is* different. Or is K calling for close reading of "the material conditions of knowledge production in scientific settings or configurations" (60). Is this what history of science folks do?? And is K suggesting that digital humanities is in fact interdisciplinary as well?? At any rate, to better understand K's claims--which are engaging--I need to read the Liu piece.
In the end, while not disputing the emergence of DH in a moment of intense neoliberalization and corporatization of higher ed, Kirschenbaum calls for examining the work, the specific works and projects, of the digital humanities rather than remaining solely in the discourse of the construct, a discourse that tends to generalize rather than responsibly historicize and *read*--through whatever method of reading one chooses--specific DHprojects and endeavors.
It is pretty hard to disagree with that call!
There is a tone of exasperation in Kirschenbaum's piece that seems to be marking the distance between all the TALK ABOUT digital humanities on the one hand and actual UNDERSTANDING OF digital humanities on the other. This is the difference between what MK calls DH "things" or "actually existing projects" vs. DH as "the construct" or a "discourse."
ReplyDeleteIt does seem to be the case that in the current state of higher ed and the humanities more generally, DH often serves as a *signifier* of either hope or despair, but usually without much sense of what is actually *signified* by the term. The Liu piece represents for him a rare example of a critique of DH that is responsibly engaged with and informed by actual DH work in all its diversity.
I also really appreciated MK's reminder that the history and origins of DH lie in eastern land-grant institutions and composition studies rather than the Silicon Valley tech world with which it is too often identified. I would recommend some of the opening essays in the collection DEBATES IN THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES (2011, Minnesota) for some of the "computers and composition" historical context for DH. Kirschenbaum's own earlier essay "What is Digital Humanities and What's it Doing in English Departments?" is also reprinted there.