While many
people are accustomed to ask, “What are the Digital Humanities?” Lisa Spiro in
“This is Why We Fight: Defining the Values of Digital Humanities” claims that
there is no singular definition of the Digital Humanities. She suggests that instead of limiting the
Digital Humanities to a definable construct, we need to instead outline
specific values that reflect its various goals. In creating a values statement, the community
can uphold the spirit of what distinguishes the Digital Humanities from the
traditional humanities in future projects.
As our world becomes a more digital place, the main goal of
Digital Humanities is to put scholarship online and to make it relevant and
accessible in a digital age. In part,
the Digital Humanities asks people to think about new ways of interacting with
academia. The Digital Humanities
introduces how scholarship can be personally interacted with, as the advantage
of the Internet is that networks can be created in which people can exchange
ideas, discuss scholarship, and build off one another’s knowledge.
In last week’s class, we spent a significant amount of time
discussing “What Constitutes as Critical Visual Studies” and in our discussion,
we raised points such as the methodologies needed to define academic writing
vs. non-academic writing. One of the
main differences between the traditional humanities and the digital humanities
are the concerns over ownership, as there are limitations in protecting one’s
ideas and originality on the Internet. The aim of the Digital Humanities is not to
make traditional academia and its values obsolete, but instead to introduce new
values that will allow digital forms to grow.
The Digital Humanities values fluidity and collaboration, believing that
individual voices can and will contribute something new to the field. This blog
for example, will express my own thoughts on my own platform, but overtime will
be read and commented on by people – some in this class, some in the Digital
Humanities/Visual Research field, and some who will remain anonymous, but who
will all add new viewpoints that I did not think of or decide to cover. As a whole online community, knowledge can be
spread, added to, countered, and debated and this is what makes the digital
humanities unique and special.
“For the Digital Humanities, information is not a commodity
to be controlled but a social good to be shared and reused” (22)
As a starting point to discussion, Spiro suggests some of
the values of the Digital Humanities should include: Openness, Collaboration,
Collegiality and Connectedness, Diversity, and Experimentation. A quick definition of each value as indicated
by Spiro follows: Openness is the ability to maximize the free sharing of
ideas. Collaboration allows people with a range of skills to contribute to
digital scholarship. Diversity enables
participants of a varied age, generation, skill, race, ethnicity, sexuality,
nationality, etc. to participate. Collegiality and Connectedness promotes the
notion that that texts and tools should be available for all and that
publically funded research and instruction should be publically accessible.
Finally, Experimentation suggests that a platform be built for not only
creating and spreading knowledge, but people should experiment with
transforming traditional approaches to teaching and research.
Ultimately, while concerns over authority and ownership
(that promote traditional academia) are still valid and deserve to be
considered, the question that needs to be asked is will something new and
perhaps more comprehensive derive from using the Internet as a vehicle for
communication and a distributor of knowledge?
The answer to this question will be something to explore as
this class continues…
Spiro's goal orientation is quite different from either the theory or practice (or praxis) route that other authors have taken up as the heart of DH. You're right that this links her to Mirzoeff's Critical Visual Culture project in the more overtly political nature of a "goal-oriented" research project that points to values and processes rather than intellectual "outcomes."
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Lisa Spiro’s essay I appreciated her outline of values that should be associated with the digital humanities community, rather than explicitly trying to define what the digital humanities are. By creating a values statement Spiro focused her attention on more general categories of what the digital humanities should include, like openness, collaboration, and experimentation. In effect, the digital humanities seems to be more about whatever the individual digital humanist wants it to be at the moment to fit their needs, rather than having to conform to specific theories or methods. Spiro’s values statement also makes sure that the field of digital humanities remains one that actually encompasses values, so while it may not be exactly traditional it is a field that remains ethical.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the quote that you pulled out, that “information is not a commodity to be controlled but a social good to be shared and reused.” It seems that other disciplines are very much concerned with ownership of scholarship and information. However, the digital humanities is one field in which collaboration is key to producing work and projects, but also important to making sure that information is shared. The digital humanities is a field that really seems to promote a community that is based on trust, and that so even when information is debated or added to it just means that more people are being engaged in various academic pursuits. As daunting as the digital world can seem sometimes, it really is there to ultimately foster information and collaboration.
When I read this chapter by Spiro from the Debates in the Digital Humanities I was interested in the idea creating a set of values in lieu of an exact definition for the digital humanities. Usually in order to provide an explanation for a field of study or discipline people look for specific definitions that lay out what type of texts and methods that field uses. Yet, within the digital humanities there are so many different people, disciplines, and methods in use that it is hard to come up with just one to represent what it is. Nevertheless, this seems to be the attraction and significance of the digital humanities. Throughout the chapter Spiro mentions multiple times that within the digital humanities conversation, community and connectedness are hallmarks of the field, and she suggests herself that connectedness and collaboration should be included in its values. In my opinion these values are quite important and beneficial for all scholars and academics. In fact, traditionally most scholars do participate in a community and collaborate with one another which connect them all. I mean, that is why most publish their work in books or journals, or otherwise present at conferences, because they want to share their work. The digital humanities just make that sharing process easier. The only question that really arose for me while reading this chapter was, Who would exactly be the ones who decided what the core values of the digital humanities are? I agreed with Spiro’s reasoning for why a set of values were better than a definition as it would help unite a community rather than pit one group against one another, but I was left wondering who would come up with these values and ultimately decide they were the core values?
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading your post and several of the others people our classmates have made this week, I found myself recalling the Mitchell essay from last week, which declared that there is no “visual media,” an impulse I see in this essay. Whereas Mitchell saw visual media as a relationship between many other forms of media and did not want to limit the definition of visual media, your synopsis of Spiro seems to suggest that she also strives to avoid a limiting definition of the digital humanities.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, as I have been reading through these summaries, I have also grown frustrated by the open-endedness of so many of these definitions. I agree that it is valuable to perceive projects that are still in the process of being formed as open and needing to protect their openness. However, my frustration stems from the fact that throughout the book, the phrase “digital humanities” is written in capital letters (indicative of a term with a defined meaning) and everyone seems to know what this means. As a newcomer to cultural studies, I am unaware what this term supposedly means, and in the summaries of the debates, scholars such as Spiro seem to be pushing away from defining the term and instead suggesting that it represents certain values. This doesn’t sit right with me, as in having an open meaning the term becomes meaningless. I realize that this is part of the debate covered in the first chapter, and it ultimately brings me back to the Mitchell essay I first started writing about. I look forward to coming across the first summary that suggests we start referring to the field as “so called ‘digital humanities.’”