Journal 7

Given my freedom to choose from the incredible mix of fantastic articles from DDH, I settled on these three:

 

• Navigating the Global Digital Humanities: Insights from Black Feminism – Roopika Risam
• Ecological Entanglements of DH – Margaret Linley
• Human Computation – Stephen Ramsay

 

There are a few reasons why these particular pieces drew my attention, most importantly was the diversity of topics that all interrelated and intermingled to the point of being interdisciplinary. While each topic is different, that diversity has interesting points of intersection in which to pull out an array of possibilities that are applicable to my own work within the humanities. I won’t deny that each article also held an interest for me beyond their inherent relationality. The idea of exploring DH from the perspective of a black feminist held its own fascination for me. Risam brought out some really interesting ideas for me, especially from a historical and ideological sense wherein the power dynamics in DH have hindered more marginalized communities. Thinking of marginalization in terms of how best to approach ideology and theory, especially in terms of interdisciplinary studies, and how DH can improve is what so interested me about this article.

 

I also really like the thought of rethinking a digital space within ecological terminology and ideology that is at the forefront of Linley’s article. How different people have approached this subject from a variety of positions and yet, the terminology is rooted (no pun intended) in ecological verbalism. I think it is extremely helpful to view the digital space, space signifying a place to be used or occupied, indicating a physicality that is integral to the digital realm. From this point of view, our interactions are both digital and physical, we inhabit these spaces and interact with them. This is what is what I found fascinating about the Linley article… The tracing of these entanglements.

 

If I am entirely honest with myself, I wasn’t sure what to expect exactly from Ramsay’s Human Computation article. I had certain expectations in my head and was under the impression that it might bring up Haraway’s theory on cyborgs. However, what I thought and what the article is are two entirely different things, and it was a pleasant surprise that made more sense within the context of the work being done through the entire project. The focus on why the Humanities and DH are so integral to each other really tied all of my readings together. It really made me appreciate all of the readings we’ve done through the semester.

 

All these articles tie together with our previous readings in different ways, but the ones that tie everything together in a neat bow would be: interdisciplinarity, importance of the humanities to DH, and interactions/communications within a digital space. These aspects also work into my own project, or at least, give me ideas that I can utilize in realistic and productive ways. I think that is important, the conceptualization of productivity. Not so much in terms of quantity, but in overall quality. It makes me consider these aspects in terms of productivity: is it useful? Is it inclusive? What does it say and how does it say it? I really like the idea of creating something useful, something that will outlast me, or at least benefit others. It puts into perspective the fact that the humanities has something to contribute to DH, that I have something to contribute to DH and that it can be a stand in for the humanities and projects beyond just data mining and algorithms that are cold hard sources of pure math and science.

 

 

Journal 6: Techne

Jacqueline Rhodes and Jonathan Alexander’s work on Techne is interesting on multiple levels, from the personal to the theoretical and then from a meta-perspective of how these aspects interrelate within the digital realm. Techne is presented in a multimodal fashion utilizing “video, short animation, text, and sound—as well as darkness and silence” and in this way “create an excess of experience and observation, not always linking in predictable ways, and leaving room for getting lost—and thus asking for our readers’ active engagement in order to make sense of the changeable experience of Techne” (Rhodes and Alexander). Though the experience is presented as changeable, it is also consistent and asks the reader to reexamine the way in which they digest the material.

I think this might actually be one of the better ways in which to engage with complex theories. The mix of the personal stories and videos, being interwoven and punctuated with theories like the Rhizome from Deleuze and Guattari to the feminist renaming of Rhizome to rootstock, helps the reader not just engage with Rhodes and Alexander’s lives and experiences, but also helps the reader more easily interpret the oftentimes difficult theories they are attempting to contextualize.

This is important work that Rhodes and Alexander are doing. It manages to blend multiple genres, theories, and purposes together to form a cohesive whole. The reason this work is so important stems back to the fact that it engages the audience on multiple levels, expressing itself in new ways and simulating the behaviors and values of society within the wider context of the computational methods they are using: video, text, theory, and their use of space.

RDH: Journal 5

This chapter seems to want us to consider the ways in which we disseminate data. The chapter suggests that we should consider making the data accessible, interactive (in the sense that the reader has some form of control over things like annotations and metadata), as well as being thoughtful as to how the flow of data is spread. What we choose to include, where we include it, who has access to it, and the options available are inseparable from the power dynamics and ideology which inform our choices. That is the very reason why we should attempt to become more aware of our own decisions, because there is an inherent rhetorical argument being made by the very act of choosing. For instance, this chapter discusses google and how google chooses what to include, as well as what it doesn’t include, from examination when we use its search bar. If we were to type in certain key words, what would pop up and what would be held back?

If chapter 17 was about how we disseminate data and the importance of who has access, chapter 19 is about the importance of creating a more appealing space for many audiences. This chapter encourages DH scholars to make their work more accessible and aesthetically pleasing, what the authors call a User-centered design, or UCD for short. They stress the importance of speaking to, and bringing in, audiences outside of the intended audience. In order to do this, they stress thinking of what exactly the purpose is, what kinds of content will be included, and whom the content is for. Thinking rhetorically about the digital humanities, and how to bring in new users and readers that can help contribute, or at the very least engage, to and with the material is important. This chapter points out that the over-all approach to design has been clunky and less than up to the task of engaging multiple audiences, something that the authors hope will change.

Chapter 23 is actually very fascinating for me because I plan to be working in the field of New Materialism as I go further into my studies. I appreciate the way in which this chapter shows the reader how to implement, in some ways, the ideas from chapter 17 and 19. The sentient chair is especially interesting in how it can relay information from the human and non-human into the twitter-sphere, so to speak, and digital spaces. Taking that feedback from the sensors and having it published on twitter, especially in the way that it is disseminated, opens up the scholarship to a wide array of audiences. It promotes conversation and annotation of the material within the digital in interesting ways.

The ways in which working with archival material helps me think about, or rethink, cultural and rhetorical traditions is in the way that I am able to interact and engage with the archive. Honestly, from the archive data that I am currently handling, I find it to be very rough and not as engaging for a variety of audiences. It feels cold and, quite honestly, scholarly. But these readings have opened me up to the possibilities that are inherent within these digital spaces for communicating outside of the academic realm. I think that is the most important part of how I am beginning to re-conceptualize the work being done. There is so much more to it than just archiving, but recognizing how other people might be able to participate.

Method and Practice

One of the things that kept coming back to me while reading through Tanya Clement’s article, “Where Is Methodology in Digital Humanities?”, is how she brings up the theoretical as being more of the focus than the methodological aspects. I bring this up because it seems that much of her article deal with the theoretical, as opposed to Dennis Tenen’s article which goes in-depth into the methods used. I think that, from what the articles suggest, content doesn’t just inform method, content also seems to inform product and practice. It also seems that method and practice are also different dependent on whether the researcher considers the qualitative aspect of the research to be of the upmost importance. The way that this shifts my thinking is in how I see these working in my own studies and research. Marking out important words or sentences with more information. Marking up my digital book with text that pops up in a bubble (more practice than method).

The application is what is most important and interesting to me. It informs the way I relate and return to DH day in and day out. I think my current experience isn’t nearly large enough to discuss this at great length. However, I can see how data mining text could lead to quicker evaluation. I wonder at the difficulties of creating content, or scholarly databases that can data mine text for specific words, but does more interesting things with the content. I think every time that we go online we see new ways of engaging with material, and a lot of academia content that I’ve engaged with so far, especially the digital content, feels stiff in comparison. There is something to be said for streamlining that can help with method and practice.

DDH: A Response to a Few Articles

The Emergence of the Digital Humanities (as the Network Is Everting)

            By Steven Jones

            Steven Jones’ idea of eversion is an interesting concept that folds together the symbiotic relationship between actor and cyberspaces that the actor is engaged with. Between reality and cyber-reality, the intermingling of real world and cyberspace, is where this leaking (eversion) is taking place. It brought to mind things like augmented reality wherein the accumulated data invades the natural world (Pokémon Go, PlayStation 3’s Play Room, and even the projection of streamed data onto buildings like the recent activists have done at the Trump hotel). This also brings to mind the recent surge of virtual reality technology, wherein the human invades the digital world. Contextually speaking, there is a lot to be said for digital environments and the idea of eversion is a malleable term, much like the image Jones conjures up with ‘leaking’, as water conforms to the spatial and temporal constraints reality places on it, of which there aren’t many.

 

What’s Next: The Radical, Unrealized Potential of Digital Humanities

            By Miriam Posner

            The representationality of our lived experience, our very corporeality from the tiniest strand of genetic material that tells us the pigment of our skin, to the way we in which our gender forms over temporal and spatial bearings,  is a surprising way to reinforce how DH can come into play. The idea of representing human/nonhuman qualitatively and sociologically in cyberspace, as a model that tells a story of a living and complex biological entity, is at once subversive and powerful. This movement to decolonize and de-gender (re-gender?) cyber territory could very well pave the way towards new applications in the natural world, especially from a societal point of view wherein the boundaries between sex, gender, and race are closely connected to success and legitimization/constitution of citizenship. As an environmental humanities scholar, I add in nonhuman to represent how the DHs can take this beyond the human, to the lived experience of all entities and environments.

 

Making a Case for the Black Digital Humanities

            By Kim Gallon

            Frantz Fanon tells us that language is power, and further, that language is used to subjugate and colonize the mind. DH is dealing with new forms and representations of language in our techno era and within that discourse (techno-discourse?) comes the same racially oppressive paradigms that have plagued our species since our first step into a societal dialogue. This, to me, cuts to point of the work that Kim Gallon is attempting: a decolonization, or reclaiming, of cyberspace and DH. Gallon, and others, are attempting to find and create a space for black identity to thrive and nourish within the field.

 

QueerOS: A User’s Manual

            By Fiona Barnett et al

            A QueerOS, to me, comes across like a metaphor for what queer and trans individuals already experience. An attempt to harness that identity and individuality into an operating system is a shocking and revelatory experiment that doesn’t just seem, but is by its very nature, antithetical to white patriarchal capitalist ideology. It isn’t just that Fiona Barnett and her compatriots are creating something that is opposed to our current political establishment, they are also commenting on, by the very nature of their project, the way in which current OS’s lack diversity. The leading principles of a QueerOS seem to integrate not just queer identity, but also identities along racial and gender lines. Integration is a key aspect of this ideology, much like eversion, it is a trickling, a leaking of the human/nonhuman into and through the digital realm and vice versa.

What are the Humanities to me?

The field of humanities that I plan to engage with throughout my academic career are the Environmental Humanities. I believe it was Rosi Braidotti, in her seminal work The Posthuman, that discussed the absolute necessity for interdisciplinary studies. Braidotti isn’t the only academic to call for interdisciplinary research, but perhaps, vitally for me and my work, she calls for the mixing of the sciences and humanities. Of course, posthumanist thought is being replaced by the nonhuman, yet Braidotti‘s work is still very important, especially when it comes to the discussion of interdisciplinary work. For more on Posthumanism see the embedded video below:

Why interdisciplinary?

For me, the environmental aspects of my research depend upon my ability to work within various fields. To understand how deeply rooted our current climate issues are, we must also understand capitalism, geology, history, the elemental and even the prismatic. Perhaps, most importantly for my current class in the Digital Humanities, is the technological research that goes into the study of eco-criticism, which in turn goes hand in hand with much of the more recent cognitive research in affect theory. Each aspect giving a new clue into various discourses within the environmental humanities which in turn helps to inform the various other fields that we are in discourse with. 

If we are honest with ourselves and our fields of expertise, we would realize that we all are in need of collaborations. These collaborations, for me, go beyond translating science into the common tongue. It is in engaging with and honoring the ideas of others in the past, present, and future. It is in realizing that we need each other, that though my work is in the humanities, it is no less vital to the understanding of the world and how the world works, than is the quote on quote “hard sciences“. We all have contributions and those contributing should not worry so much about the territoriality of their fields, but embrace the amalgamation of hybrid theories and thinkers.

So lets go back to the original question, what are the humanities to me? To me, for me, the humanities has become a hybridization and breakdown of the nature-culture divide which separates those within the humanities from those within other fields long considered more concrete. The humanities can no longer be seen as just about how humans experience social and cultural events, but how we live within and relate to the wider universe. The human as an afterthought, because we have never been fully human to begin with, and with the technological advancements that we’ve made over such a short period of time (give the relatively short lifespan of humans in general) we have become less and less human as time goes on. Our bodies are made up of the microbial, our genetics are constantly in flux, our minds are being altered at the chemical level by code flashing across the tiny screens in our hands, and all of this doesn’t even get into the idea of what constitutes being a human. 

With this change in the way humanity sees the world, given to us by scientists and the humanities, we must necessarily change the way in which we envision our job within the humanities. The sciences and humanities need to come together, especially if we are to continue evolving in the way we think about the world, nature, culture, and society.