Friday, January 30, 2015
"What is the Digital Humanities?": A Comic Strip
Below you will find a short comic strip that meditates on the question, "What is the Digital Humanities?" I recommend expanding the comic strip to full screen, as it's much easier to see and navigate that way. I know that this is a somewhat unorthodox forum for addressing this matter in presentation form, but I hope it inspires a laugh or two and maybe deeper insights into the pedagogical implications of not only relating information about the digital humanities to students, but also expecting them to engage in projects in the digital humanities as well. Enjoy!
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Mark,
ReplyDeleteThat. Was. Awesome. Who ever thought I could learn about DH from a comic? Certainly not I. I'm curious, though, what texts did you create your working definition from? It seems that your observations served as the theme for the first section--an inclusive field that celebrates the disparate contributions from both technology and humanistic scholarships. Many of the definitions we've come across, I think, seem to generalize the DH as (at least in section 1) they don't present methods for negotiating the differences in approaches. For example, how could a humanist incorporate the quantitative methods while still retaining their theoretical approach, and vice versa? Inclusiveness is a great foundation, but do you think DH needs a more specific definition to address how that inclusiveness ought to be practiced?
--Lacy
Lacy,
DeleteThank you so much for your feedback. I may have been a bit too literal in terms of my approach to answering the question, "What is the Digital Humanities?" And that was certainly a critique I had of the authors that we read in Section One of Debates in the Digital Humanities. I guess the comic strip served as more of a meditation on what it might mean to extend these conversations to our own undergraduate classrooms. In this sense, I probably missed the mark on what the blog assignment was asking us to do, though I think it is important to consider what, specifically, this idea of "hacktivism" means not just for the work that we do in digital humanities projects, but also with regard to our pedagogies. The question that's kind of buried (too deep?) underneath the comic strip is this: How might we establish partnerships with our students and perhaps also feature our students' projects in our own work in the digital humanities? Again, that question may not exactly take center stage, so to speak, in the comic strip, but it's certainly an idea that I am concerned about in my own thinking. Thanks so much for your comment.
Mark
Hi Mark,
ReplyDeleteNice comic! I hadn't heard of that resource and am definitely planning on playing around with it for my 101 course. While I found your presentation to be very informative and entertaining (loved the dance moves of your characters), reference to the articles that we were supposed to flesh out for this blog post would help to ground us in the application of your presentation. You talk about the idea of hacktivism in your comment to Lacy, and I'd really like to hear more about that as you relate it to our pedagogy (especially as someone who hopes to teaching the DTC program in the coming years). I agree with both of you that the first section does generalize a bit in terms of fleshing out what is DH, but I think that section 3, and especially section 6 give us an idea of what it needs to be or what it could be, and I look forward to your thoughts on those sections (especially as they pertains to issues of race and access).
I can see that you've clearly considered the scholarship from class (and perhaps taken it a step further in that you're actually applying it in a narrative framework), It might be useful to edit a couple comic strips to give mention to some of the names to which you discuss prominent ideas. I think Dr. Withey will love your post either way (I certainly learned a lot), but I agree with Lacy, do you think this definition of DH can be expanded in a way that talks about what occurs at the intersections of the digital and theoretical underpinnings of what it means to be human? Great post! Thanks for sharing
Lucy
great comic and great feedback--you all are on point! Mark, I'd like to see a direct engagement with the authors--although I don't think you need to be heavy handed or to literal, but how might he DH definitions and their sub-points be worked into the comic? It's a great tool, I do think you can refine it and still use hacktivism as a touchpoint.
ReplyDeletegreat comic and great feedback--you all are on point! Mark, I'd like to see a direct engagement with the authors--although I don't think you need to be heavy handed or to literal, but how might he DH definitions and their sub-points be worked into the comic? It's a great tool, I do think you can refine it and still use hacktivism as a touchpoint.
ReplyDeletegreat comic and great feedback--you all are on point! Mark, I'd like to see a direct engagement with the authors--although I don't think you need to be heavy handed or to literal, but how might he DH definitions and their sub-points be worked into the comic? It's a great tool, I do think you can refine it and still use hacktivism as a touchpoint.
ReplyDelete