

What Is Digital Humanities? - ethanmiller
http://humanscode.com/what-is-digital-humanities/

======
pluma
I studied* Humanities Computer Science, as it was called at my university at
the time. Behind closed doors, the professor was fairly explicit about it not
being as world-changing, innovative or new as it was presented whenever they
were seeking funding. Their work ranged from metadata tagging to version
control to long-term digital archives.

In fact, he said the field had been renamed several times, largely to make it
seem like a new field when it wasn't. Digital Humanities, Humanities Computer
Science, and so on all refer to the same loosely defined field.

Although there certainly is something in it that isn't entirely nebulous, I'm
not convinced "Digital Humanities" in itself, really is a thing or that the
definition has any practical use other than providing a label when you seek
funding.

*note: I was enrolled for a lengthy period of time and spent most of my time in university with their department and in the student association but I left without a degree.

~~~
ethanmiller
It is in many respects nebulous, but that I think is because it's not quite a
discipline. It can't quite mark out it's domain and jurisdiction in the way a
traditional discipline might, and that's in large part because the
transformation in cultural practices -- economic, analytical, subjective, etc
-- that the advent of computing, software, and big data is generating is so
momentous. It will require a transformation of the basic assumptions that lay
at the base of professional training in the humanities all across the board.

------
quinndupont
Here's a better assessment from one of the leaders in the field:
[https://mkirschenbaum.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/what-is-
digit...](https://mkirschenbaum.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/what-is-digital-
humanities/)

It is something of an understatement to say that DH pays a generous amount of
attention to its own roots and limits... At this point it is basically a
cliche to ask "what is DH?"

~~~
ethanmiller
Thanks for the link @quinndupont. Do you care to elaborate about what is
better about Kirenschenbaum's analsysis? What, I mean, is the substance of
your opinion?

~~~
quinndupont
I would suggest that it is more a matter of position. Kirschenbaum writes from
_within_ mainstream DH, and is aware of the many discussions of DH that have
occurred since its inception in 1949[1] (an arbitrary, but useful date). In
another work of his (and he's not the only one analysing these matters), he
lampoons the kinds of critique offered by Ethan Miller.

Kirschenbaum writes: "Herewith, then, are some of the terrible things of my
title, hardly any of which are exaggerated for effect: Digital humanities is a
nest of big data ideologues. Digital humanities digs MOOCs. Digital humanities
is an artifact of the post-9/11 security and surveillance state (the NSA of
the MLA). Like Johnny, digital humanities can’t read. Digital humanities
doesn’t do theory. Digital humanities never historicizes. Digital humanities
is complicit. Digital humanities is naive. Digital humanities is hollow
huckster boosterism. Digital humanities is managerial. Digital humanities is
the academic import of Silicon Valley solutionism (the term that is the
shibboleth of bad-boy tech critic Evgeny Morozov). Digital humanities cannot
abide critique. Digital humanities appeals to those in search of an oasis from
the concerns of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Digital humanities does
not inhale (easily the best line of the bunch). Digital humanities wears
Google Glass. Digital humanities wears thick, thick glasses (guilty). Perhaps
most damning of all: digital humanities is something separate from the rest of
the humanities, and—this is the real secret—digital humanities wants it that
way. Terrible things indeed these are!"[2]

Miller reiterates many of these positions without acknowledgement that not
only have they been discussed before, they have even become points of
ridicule. Perhaps one does not need to agree with those _within_ DH, like
Kirschenbaum, but to regurgitate "MOOCs", "silicon valley" and "big data"
without at least a passing familiarity with the discussions that have been
going on is more than a little shallow.

Yet, DH usually thinks of itself as "big tent", so competing histories and
conceptions are part of its very fabric, and sure to be welcomed. The problem
with assessments of DH from the _outside_ is that they usually end up rather
unsavoury and polemic, hence Kirschenbaum's invocation of William
Pannapacker's rabble rousing and the attendant fallout.

[1]
[http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/view?docId=blackw...](http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/view?docId=blackwell/9781405103213/9781405103213.xml&chunk.id=ss1-2-1)
[2]
[https://mkirschenbaum.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/dhterrible...](https://mkirschenbaum.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/dhterriblethingskirschenbaum.pdf)

~~~
ethanmiller
I think you might be right about the perspective being partly a matter of
"position". Looking over your own impressive body of work, I can see that you
are also a deep traveller in this world. So first off, much respect for all
the good work.

I think, however, you misread the text, or rather projected a certain easily
dismissed critique onto it. My point was to understand what digital humanities
is, as I put it, as an "epiphenomenon of the tectonic encounter between this
world of computing, with its newly acquired 'Silicon Valley sex appeal,' and
the world of ideas." The point of the supposed "Sex Appeal" line is not to
denigrate the importance of computing or the digital humanities; quite to the
contrary, it is to note that in contrast to the past computing has been
elevated to a level of cultural importance that perhaps matches the
revolutionary nature of the technological changes it has produced.

I agree completely with Kirschenbaum in the passage you quoted above when he
rejects the notion that: "Digital humanities is complicit. Digital humanities
is naive. Digital humanities is hollow huckster boosterism. Digital humanities
is managerial. Digital humanities is the academic import of Silicon Valley
solutionism...." My point here is precisely that "digital humanities" is that
domain through which the academy is renegotiating its relationship to the
broader culture, redefining the relationship of its traditional values of
critique in relationship to the properties of the cultural world "outside"
that is being so radically redefined by computing.

In other words, I see digital humanities as one of the most exciting cultural
sites of complex cultural transformation that there is today, and in no way am
I reiterating the critique to which your refer.

One point, however, where I'd like to challenge you. Your reference to
"position" is I think an interesting one because it points to a fairly
traditional approach to professional formation in the academy. It's a fairly
common posture within a new or emerging profession to attempt to establish a
"domain", to establish lines of jurisdictional control, and to begin to build
a historical narrative that grounds that new domain in time, giving it a
"tradition." There's a certain parallel here between the myth-building that
goes along with constructing national narratives to reinforce the idea of the
nation and what the myth-building that professions do about their own history.
This I would suggest is why the 1949 date is so "useful," as you put it. It
provides digital humanities with its own ontology.

That said, one of the things I find interesting about digital humanities is
the way it is on some level potentially so fundamentally interdisciplinary.
Indeed, one of the interesting consequences of thinking of digital humanities
not as a traditional "profession" but rather, as I did here, as a site of
cultural renegotiation, as a "tectonic" meeting of cultural spheres, capable
of creating a cultural "quake" (forgive the metaphors), is that it eludes this
tendency to define a profession in terms of a specific domain and orthodoxy.

So I guess what I am suggesting here is in some respects an alternative and
unorthodox way of assessing the growth of a new sphere of cultural production
and exploration. I wonder if this isn't particularly appropriate for the
digital humanities. So I guess that's my question for you: would you like to
see the digital humanities as its own professional domain, e.g. one day that
every university will have its "Digital Humanities" or "Humanities Computing"
department? I wonder, somehow, if this kind of outcome would mean that the
kind of cultural renegotiation that I was (rather hopefully) anticipating had
fallen on its face. Curious to know what you think.

------
brianstorms
At my most cynical I view Digital Humanities as the latest clever way of still
getting grant funding for projects and explorations that probably otherwise in
this day and age would not be able to obtain it. I follow some digital
humanities mailing lists, read the Calls for Papers for upcoming conferences,
and read the program agendas for conferences in this space, and frankly I just
don't get much of it.

A similar thing is going on with "Data Journalism" which is, again, viewed
cynically, a way to keep one's job but take advantage of incorporating sheer
masses of information and "infographics" into conventional stories.

Asking "what is Digital Humanities" also reminds me of the angst certain
communities felt over "what is blogging" and "what does it mean to be a
blogger." I sat through many conference sessions on such topics. I did not
gain much insight.

I worry that anything digital is ephemeral, and that is not a good thing for
the humanities. I prefer dusty old books. They're a proven technology that
tend to stick around long after whatever the latest file format, O/S, or cloud
solution has passed from being in favor to being forgotten.

Finally, I will say that if the field of Digital Humanities helps imbue in
people a better sense of, and better set of skills for, information
comprehension, information composition, and critical thinking in the digital
age of always-on, ubiquitous firehoses of noisy information about the world
and everyone in it, then that is a good thing. We desperately need upcoming
generations to be really good at what I call the three C's (composition,
comprehension, and critical thinking). Just a brief glimpse at Twitter or any
cable news outlet would suggest these skills are not often on display anymore.

~~~
matthewwiese
> I worry that anything digital is ephemeral

After I read that I immediately thought of a bit of _why's Printer Spool. In
it he poses a question that if something written by Kafka was on 32-bit
PowerPC that it would have been forgotten about more easily than if it were
simply left in his collected notes. I would write the actual quote by _why,
but it looks to me China has blocked archive.org and I am unable to access it
at this time (should've configured a proxy or something before my trip,
drats).

You can read it here:

[http://archive.org/details/136875051WhySCompletePrinterSpool...](http://archive.org/details/136875051WhySCompletePrinterSpoolAsOneBook)

------
theodorewiles
I think it's only positive that academics are realizing they can take
advantage of this new, low-cost method of information proliferation.

Had a brainwave about putting small-scale humanities discussion with the power
of MOOCs:

[http://theodorewiles.github.io/tuto/](http://theodorewiles.github.io/tuto/)

Put a landing page and a Show HN out there but didn't get any positive
responses.

~~~
ethanmiller
I really like this idea Theodore! Would love to hear more about it. Get in
touch.

------
yarrel
"What’s at stake, of course, is very much a question of authority."

Which explains the moral panic that accompanies any mention of the Digital
Humanities in certain quarters.

------
markhahn
jeez. worrying about books is pretty much antipodal to DH as I see it
practiced...

~~~
nkelber
I disagree. Much of the digital humanities is actually of direct descent from
bibliography and textual criticism. I would argue, in fact, that the field of
book history owes a great deal TO digital humanities which exposed the nature
of the book as a writing technology with unique textual affordances. A large
amount of digital humanities work is centered on how to capture "bookness" in
the digital realm including digital editions of just about any literary text,
the Textual Encoding Initiative, etc.

~~~
ethanmiller
@nkelber, thanks for this clarification here. can you recommend some good
texts on this issue: "how to capture 'bookness' in the digital realm..."? It
would be me much appreciated.

