- Jun 2024
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digitalhumanities.org digitalhumanities.org
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but it also gives me the very strong sense that for any generalization/observation I may want to make, the object of my attention is in constant flux and transformation and is being studied from thousands of diverse disciplinary and cultural perspectives: what the hell do I know?
This would seem to be a "bug" and not a "feature" for academic research in or about anything that exists, entirely or tangentially, in a technology driven environment. Research is slow, methodical, and focused. Technology is rapid, a little bit wibbly-wobbly, and diffuse. But also, what the hell do we know? It could be a hidden feature.
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It follows that the consequences and implications of digital media for research into cultural studies themes, problematic, and questions cannot be explored simply by using the recognized, legitimate, preconstituted, disciplinary forms of knowledge: literary studies, philosophy, sociology, history, psychoanalysis, and so on. Digital media change the very nature of such disciplines, rending them “unrecognizable” as Derrida says of psychoanalysis. [Hall 2008, 81]
I am not certain that I agree with this. It seems to suggest that a digitized item becomes an entirely different entity once it is placed in the digital environment rendering it useless to traditional methods of analysis. While that is possible I suppose, It makes more sense to me that digitized and digital born items are available to different methods of analysis perhaps based on the conceptual foundations of traditional methods such as sociology, history, etc, but tweaked for their new iteration and environment.
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Hayles identifies two different strategies for promoting a digital humanities agenda: assimilation and distinction. According to Hayles, assimilation extends existing scholarship into digital domains whereas distinction emphasizes new methodologies, novel research questions, and the emergence of new fields.
The two strategies Hayles has pointed out, assimilation and distinction, are the 2 most distinct and dissimilar options. However, the digital environment is both a distinct domain, or rather, an extended domain of Humanities, and also provides a tool set that can be utilized by traditional and digital humanities. Given the significant overlap in domains between the two as well as the ever evolving differences brought about by continually advancing technology, traditional and digital humanities will almost certainly have to meet in the middle in some fashion.
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echnology is a key participant in the decentering of authorship, credentialing practices, reward systems, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration.
I haven't had a chance to read Davidson's article yet so I may be misunderstanding or extrapolating in ways that are addressed by the article. However, "decentering authority and credentialing practices" seems a slippery slope. I will need to read Davidson't article to understand his vision of decentering. Technology can, of course, be a key ingredient in the advancement of digital humanities, but it may be too Pollyana to envision the advances made by good actors without also considering the harm bad actors could cause. I am specifically thinking of Fake News, AI postings, and generally malicious humans that seem to argue the need for tighter or more trusted authority and centrailized credentialing.
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