The end of the semester has come!
This is actually a class that I am sad to see the end. Such great discussions about what DH is and how it affects us all.
For this module, we take a look at where DH started compared to what it is now and where it could go as it grows and reshapes itself. I want to continue a previous discussion about the ethics of the humanities, as preservation has seemingly only supported the Great White Man. We see this in the types of records saved and and what types of historic sites are promoted. Society tends to see more records from white slave owners instead of the slaves themselves. This issue of inclusion has always been a pitfall of preservation and academics in general.
This pitfall is summarized well in Roopika Risam’s, “Beyond the Margins: Intersectionality and the Digital Humanities.” Intersectionality is defined in 1989 by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, but still takes years to catch on in academics and gain the full weigh that it deserves. As Risam puts it, “those of us who work with issues of difference often perceive the ways that many digital humanities projects fail to engage with race, gender, disability, class, sexuality, or a combination thereof.” Of course, this is not new, but gaining more traction as DH grows.
Another issue with DH that has always been apart of academics is the terminology and the need to define everything. My very first post called What is Digital History shows just that very issue. I also have other posts that break down the terminology and one that I give warning to all the terms used about the topic. This means that there is a clear difference between who is deemed as qualified to talk about the topic and who is not.
“Stephen Ramsay’s well-known MLA talk from 2011 titled “Who’s in and Who’s out,” exemplifies Underwood’s welcome mat and trapdoor analogy. Ramsay’s talk, which is often read as an example of coding-as-gatekeeping in digital humanities, is more of an example of a simultaneous trapdoor and welcome mat.”
This is from Elizabeth Callaway, et al, “The Push and Pull of Digital Humanities: Topic Modeling the ‘What is digital humanities?’ Genre.” These authors do a great job at bringing up the issue of gatekeeping. As historians, most of us balance between academics and the public. However, some make it clear that they don’t focus their time on the public. Public History is, admittedly, much harder than it looks in my experience. You have to break old habits and make sure you are not assuming too much about what your audience knows. I have also seen that public history brings to light many questions academics generally just don’t think of. Did Abraham Lincoln do sports? Was Mary Todd Lincoln crazy? Both of these questions add depth to the actors and how they lived.
Removing a gatekeeping or ego to DH is another step that will change how the humanities and academics move forward. Intersectionality and inclusion can only open more doors to understanding the world as it progresses.
I 100% agree that the topic of gatekeeping in the digital humanities is one of the most important. Having an inclusive mindset in a community promotes growth, which digital humanities needs from those that aren’t as technically gifted as others. This was one of the reasons I was nervous about joining this class, but now I’m grateful I did!
Hopefully as the practice evolves, we’ll have a better understanding of those who may have not been included in the historical discussion before. Databases of electronically uploaded records I think is a great start, and then it’s a matter of letting people know that these resources are available.