I came across this article today. It seems that coding can even be for children!
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Macroanalysis- Jockers
After downloading and reading this book, it left me in sort of a daze. Almost to the point that made me think, did I really understand the book, or the end of it for that matter. The beginning was very well written and informational. However, the later chapters seemed to focus on a great deal of material from British and Irish writers and included a lot of charts and graphs showing data about these writers. I felt very lost in the later chapters, and in the point that Jockers was actually trying to make. The following information provided is from the notes I took while reading the book.
The first parts of the book focused on DH and what makes up DH. On pages 10-12 the author says that it is “revolutionizing, a new way of thinking, and is a new way to read, access and understand the meaning of texts.” However, there is still no general idea to what DH actually defines. The digital age is becoming more popular with access to digital libraries and digitalization in general. This “invites a new type of evidence gathering.” (16)
Let’s Talk about Python
Based on my confusion related to the recent assignment, I thought I would start a post that would shed some light on this topic and new realm of literary/coding controversy. In the reading related to the introduction of this coding experience, there were a couple of things that stood out to me. The statement that the higher level the code, the closer it is to natural language. I was wondering if any of you felt this way. Continue reading “Let’s Talk about Python”
Evaluating Digital Humanities
Evaluating Digital Humanities has proven to be a difficult undertaking for me. As we’ve read about Digital Humanities for the past few weeks, I think we all have seen how ambiguous and nebulous the field is. I think this is due in part to the relative infancy of the field in comparison to other realms of the humanities, and I think this ambiguity and vaguery is freeing to the field as it allows for the field to take on many different shapes rather than be tethered to one singular set of standards, it also makes the process of legitimizing and evaluating products of the field to be somewhat of an arduous task.
One reason this is such a difficult task, as Dr. Schocket mentioned, is the myriad of Digital Humanities projects that exist. As I began reviewing the lists of DH projects to evaluate, there seemed to be a little bit of everything listed from things I have familiarity with like EverNote and Tumblr, to things I had never heard of (but wish I had!) such as Cornell Notes PDF Generator and QuarkXPress. While all of these products are very unique, useful for humanities in a variety of ways, promote and illustrate the scholarship of their creators, and have some connection to politics, or social power of users and creators– just some of the categories for DH as discussed in Debates in Digital Humanities— these projects are so widely different it’s difficult to be comparative of them with any objectivity to truly and fairly evaluate them.
Debates in Digital Humanities
As we read more into Digital Humanities each week, we see how the field has evolved and the controversies that have followed. This week’s readings predominantly dealt with the credibility of digital work and how to properly use Digital Humanities in academia. One of the main questions poised in this week’s readings was do digital artifacts really exist without a real world source or artifact? This question reminded me of when Facebook went public on the stock exchange. Facebook initially ran into criticisms by economic experts because it lacked any physical product in the real world and would be hard to track its “real” worth on the market. Economic experts thought this would scare investors away and Facebook would just be another failed digital start up trying to get on the stock exchange. However just the opposite happened, stock holders and company founders became billionaires and millionaires in a matter of hours proving that the general public didn’t care if a company produced a physical product. I can see a lot of carry-over from this scenario and Digital Humanities. If a piece of Digital Humanities is not tied to any preexisting commentary or artifact does it make it less relevant? I think the answer is no because if Facebook has proved anything the general public doesn’t care anymore if something has real world backing. While the ivory tower of academia might scoff at this notion it doesn’t necessarily make Digital Humanities less relevant.
While facts will always be an important part of academia, this week’s experts gave us much to ponder on how Digital Humanities could be used in education. The first theory we are given to ponder is the Thing Theory. This theory presents that Digital Humanities is a prototype that theories can be built upon. An easy way to think of this is Digital Humanities is the thesis of a paper, in which we research and build upon a topic. Another way Digital Humanities is presented in the readings is in the form of a tool or instrument. Like a telescope is used to see the universe, Digital Humanities is a lens to see the wider world of the study of humanities. The final theory we are presented with is the digital as a theoretical model. With this theory we are faced with the question can computing (coding, graphical interfaces) be a model in humanities. This theory is much tougher than the rest to grasp because you need some background in how computers work. The issues being most people in academia outside of computer programs lack the ability to read code and don’t know how computers truly operate and to try and decipher this code into something that fits into the guidelines that is Humanities is monumental task. Personally I don’t think Digital Humanities has one specific way in which it can be described and used. Like most things in humanities, Digital Humanities functions better as a combination of practices rather than a defined methodology. With these combined practices we have the ability to observe multiple ideals and are not limited to one narrative.
Debates in DH
Debates in DH Continue reading “Debates in DH”
What is DH?
What is Digital Humanities? Continue reading “What is DH?”