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99 Problems, but a Glitch Ain’t One

A couple things stood out to me in this week’s reading, and I have been ruminating on them all week. I will attempt to articulate them here.

What struck me first was that this week’s reading, “Practicing the Digital Humanities,” really seemed like a continuation of the previous Debates reading we did, which was all about problems in the Digital Humanities. For example, Paul Fyfe covers how we handle “electronic errata” in our transition to digital publishing, voicing his concern that “we have not sufficiently considered error correction as a structural feature and theoretical premise within the transition to digital publishing.” Neil Fraistat also voices a concern when he discusses DH centers and their place in the growing field. He attributes a multi-faceted function to DH centers, as local centers, global networks, and nuclei of transformative action, but he also wonders about the futures of such centers. Furthermore, both Matthew Wilkens and Amy Earhart wrinkle their brows over the role of DH in canon formation and diversification. Earhart particularly focuses her attention on what she calls the “narrow digital canon” as providing impetus for further work in the field.

Keep on reading!

A Big Tent Revival: Productive Problems in the Digital Humanities

To the average reader perusing part three of Debates in the Digital Humanities, things look bad. Tara McPherson’s self-proclaimed polemic problematizes the “modularity of the digital era” as it separates issues of ethnicity and gender from legitimate study. Elizabeth Losh explores the ethical, political, and institutional gray areas of hacktivism as it relates (or does not relate) to the Digital Humanities, and Mark Sample reveals through Don DeLillo a major shortcoming of the field. While George Williams uncovers the less-than-inclusive interfaces ill-equipped for universal users, Charlie Edwards tackles still other usability issues. Beyond this, William Pannapacker and Ian Bogost share similar concerns about the members of the humanities: Pannapacker fears that the Digital humanities cool kids alienate others and Bogost calls attention to stubborn humanists in general. Bethany Nowviske, on the other hand, is tired. Tired of participating in the DH “gentleman’s club,” tired of the institutional melee, and tired of being helpful and nice. It seems, in light of all of this, that there is trouble under the big tent. Read more about what these problems mean…

Debates in Digital Humanities- Take 3

The theme of part three of our readings this week seem to be focusing on the “user”. I put that in quotes for a couple reasons. First we think of the user as the person who is viewing the Digital humanities project. That would be the main focus of the majority of the articles.  These users span from race, gender, disability, and level of technical experience. The second interpretation of user I got from the readings was the people who are participating on behalf of the digital humanities initiative.  Continue reading “Debates in Digital Humanities- Take 3”

DH – Who’s In? Who’s Out?

The common thread through all the essays in Part III of Debates in Digital Humanities goes beyond the question of who is or isn’t in the dh, and it asks questions about who should be included but isn’t. After these readings, one might see a picture of dh that is white, male, and ableist, which runs contrary to the themes of social justice and activism. This isn’t meant to be an accusation so much as it’s an observation that, given that dh attracts personality types who care about social justice and activism, it’s interesting to me that lack of diversity and other social issues need to be solved within dh, while dh-ers are also working on them within general society. I don’t know – maybe it’s a naïve assumption that many people share that issues would be solved within a community if the members’ attention is directed outside.

In the tradition of “language shapes reality,” the overall theme of this section was “computing shapes reality.” I struggled most with Tara McPherson’s “Why Are Digital Humanities So White?” I didn’t struggle with the need for more racial diversity in dh – I was completely on board with her on that issue the whole time. The struggle for me came with the comparison of “modular” coding to segregation. At the end of the essay, it’s clear that she doesn’t mean that coders are making the world racist; rather, that a compartmentalized, modular world view is reflected in both things. Again, I don’t disagree, but for me, it was harder to concentrate on her larger point when the thought of, “But…modular code that lets computers run smooth and reliably and that’s a GOOD thing! Everyone likes it when their machines run well, no matter who they are!” kept intruding. I had to let go of the good/bad judgment for a bit, realizing that a racist would argue that a “modular” (segregated) society makes things run more smoothly (at least for them). I’m not advocating bloated, clunky code any more than McPherson is saying that writing modular code creates racial problems; rather, I had to remove myself from “good/bad” subjectivity in order to keep following. This will likely be an essay I revisit as I contemplate the ideas of computing shaping our experience.

The essay I found most interesting is “What do Girls Dig?” by Bethany Nowviskie. Following the flow of the tweets, particularly when people were telling Brett Bobley to invite women in data mining to the conference by name, vaguely reminded me of the #WheresRey hash tag in the wake of the strong, central female character being absent from much of the merchandising tied in with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This association was especially strong in my mind when the tweets in the essay turned to “Boys & unicorns & SPARKLES!” Similar conversations ensued among Star Wars fans who wondered why they’ve been left out as a target demographic when they’ve been active consumers of Star Wars and its merchandise since 1977 – and furthermore, why would they undermine the strong, self-reliant lead character by excluding her? While the data mining conversation didn’t result in the same occasional vitriol and tone-deaf defenses of why such an exclusion would occur, both situations identify a need to examine why women are participating in some activities and not others.

Much to digest in this section – almost too much to cover in a single blog post – but these are the things that stuck with me the most after reading.

From “Scary” to Valuable: Macroanalysis

I confess that when I read Part 1 of Macroanalysis, I was a little thrown by the idea of distant reading/macroanalysis versus close reading/microanalysis for literature. I haven’t taken a literature class since my undergraduate days, and it seems like everything was about close reading back then.

Continue reading “From “Scary” to Valuable: Macroanalysis”

Macroanalysis vs. Close Reading

I am a crafting snob. There was a time in the not so distant past that I highly prized hand embroidery above all else. True, it took me several hours to complete even the smallest project, but I believed it was the struggle that added to the special-ness of the project, and anyone who would resort to using an embroidery machine was “cheating.” (That is, until I got an embroidery machine of my own, which I will discuss presently).

But what does all this have to do with Macroanalysis? While reading the beginning chapters of the book, I saw a parallel between my sewing by hand vs. machine and close reading vs. big data. I liked that Jockers made it clear there are places for both close reading and using big data for literary analysis. (I started to feel myself bristle at the idea of setting close reading aside for more computational methods). Continue reading “Macroanalysis vs. Close Reading”