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Digital humanities and media studies: staging an encounter
This is the introduction I gave to a workshop on media studies and digital humanities at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual conference in Chicago on March 8, 2013. Fellow participants: Eric Faden, Hannah Goodwin, Jason Mittell, Jason Rhody, and Jasmijn Van Gorp. Many thanks to the SCMS livestreaming team. You can view…
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No Half Measures: Overcoming Common Challenges to Doing Digital Humanities in the Library
I recently published this article in a special issue of the Journal of Library Administration devoted to digital humanities and the library. You can find a non-paywalled copy of the article here. Many thanks to Micah Vandegrift for drafting an open-access addendum to our publishing agreement with Taylor and Francis. Micah has also posted an…
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Notes on DH and sharing your work
These are notes and links for a talk I’m giving on digital humanities and sharing your work at the University of California, San Diego, on November 5, 2012. DH projects I discuss The Real Face of White Australia, by Kate Bagnall and Tim Sherratt. For more on this project, see Tim Sherratt, “It’s All about the Stuff:…
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Very basic strategies for interpreting results from the Topic Modeling Tool
Written with Andy Wallace, with methods and ideas borrowed from Zoe Borovsky If you’re reading this, you may know that topic modeling is a method for finding and tracing clusters of words (called “topics” in shorthand) in large bodies of texts. Topic modeling has achieved some popularity with digital humanities scholars, partly because it offers…
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What are some challenges to doing DH in the library?
You may be familiar with the scenario: the faculty member groaning (often justifiably) that it’s taken so long to get one simple project off the ground that she’s given up on trying to work with librarians. Or the administrator who wonders why librarians aren’t trying harder to learn new skills. Having actually done some digital humanities in…
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Call for participants: SCMS workshop on digital humanities and film/media studies
Among those who care about such things, it’s become clear that there’s a bit of a divide between film and media studies, often thought to be primarily theoretical or historical, and digital humanities, which often emphasizes the importance of hacking or making. Is such a divide irresolvable? Let’s find out! Jason Mittell and I have…
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The digital humanities postdoc
In the last few years, I’ve noticed a certain kind of job ad appearing with more and more frequency. I think of it as the “make digital humanities happen” postdoctoral fellowship. Often based in a library, these positions’ descriptions include some combination of “liaison,” “catalyst,” and “hub,” with a heavy dose of coordinator syndrome thrown…
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Things we share
So, that post. I’ve never written anything that’s gotten much attention before, and the experience has been strangely, intensely stressful. Is it too divisive?, I wonder. Too hastily written? When I wrote the post, to be honest with you, I was livid about job-market news from friends, not to mention the latest VIDA stats. Should I have…
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Some things to think about before you exhort everyone to code
Oh, how I hate being the bearer of bad news. Yet I feel I have to tell you something about the frustration I’m hearing, in whispers and on the backchannel, from early-career women involved in digital humanities. Here, there, and everywhere, we’re being told: A DHer should code! Don’t know how? Learn! The work that’s…
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Utopianism and its detractors
This year, the American Historical Association’s annual meeting included a THATCamp, which I was happy to attend. Andrew Hartman, a professor at Illinois State University, published an interesting response, which I wanted to take a moment to address. Hartman enjoyed himself but wondered if the scholars attending THATCamp evinced an unwarranted utopianism about the prospects…