Digital Humanities necessarily partakes in and contributes to the “screen culture” of the 21st century. From stationary computer monitors to mobile tablets, postage stamp sized-LCDs on communication devices to dynamic, building-sized imagescapes, screens have become pervasive in contemporary life. What this means is that the visual becomes ever more fundamental to the Digital Humanities, in ways that complement, enhance, and sometimes are in tension with the textual.
Burdick, et al., “1. From Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 11.
This quote, from the first chapter of Burdick and Co.’s Digital_Humanities, stood out to me because it captures quite well both my excitement and apprehension in regards to the Digital Humanities. On the one hand, the emphasis on the visual in DH work adds a level of creativity to the project process that is lacking in more traditional scholarly Humanities work. In looking for interesting ways to present information visually and interactively, a DH creator gets to implement useful design with a pleasing flair in a way that is never really possible in a research paper. As much as you may want to add medieval manuscript-style fold-outs and other textual tools, for lack of a better term, such a thing being present in an academic monograph is nigh impossible if you want to be taken seriously.
On the other hand, though, there is much to the “screen revolution” that I find unsatisfactory or empty. Shortened attention spans, lack of trust (usually in response to an ease of disinformation), and a general distance from the physical world will have consequences that we can not begin to know yet which I cannot see being anything but negative at this point. In shifting the presentation of humanistic work, designed to encourage a well-rounded and thoughtful understanding of the people around us, to the digital space which increasingly erodes these values, is DH substantive and productive? Is it a force for good or, in the process of digitization, do its projects become oversimplified and uncompelling? These aren’t questions that can really be answered, especially since it’s a field that is in its comparatively early stages (like digital products as a whole). But they do sometimes give me pause.
As someone who is interested in humanities work here at Carleton and in the future, it makes me think about that future. I feel that the humanities are only going to incorporate more digital work on a wider and wider scale moving forward. It’s the way the world is moving, and no discipline can exist in that big of a bubble. If that is the case, it’s useful to have these thoughts now. They will certainly make me more purposeful and reflective on the way I utilize any digital analysis or presentation processes in the future, with the goal of never sacrificing substance in clear view.
There are a few particular methods and techniques I can foresee being particularly fruitful. As someone interested in food provision, the mapping of agricultural systems and modeling of now extinct practices seems interesting. Or, related to a comparative project I’m hoping to begin this summer on censorship, digital exhibits could allow for easy, curated access to specific texts or other instances of banned media to aid spectator understanding. A literal exhibit of digital editions, with particular notes highlighted or interactive, could go a long way towards building accessibility without sacrificing much. The possibilities are many!
