Recent discussions in digital humanities have drawn attention to “failure”. Projects can fail to deliver a tool or fail to innovate practices. But what practices are emphasised by speaking of “failure”, and for whom is a certain result a failure? In this post, I argue that recent discussions of failure seem to take DH as software development rather than research, shaping the discussion of what DH should achieve and whether other results are thereby failures.
Continue readingAuthor: Max Kemman
Collaborations as Trading Zones
DH is clearly a meeting of different communities. To better understand DH therefore requires the investigation of this ‘meeting’. A concept that has gained in popularity to describe the meeting between different communities is trading zones, which I will elaborate in this post. Using this concept, differences and commonalities between meetings of DH collaborations can be investigated and mapped.
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DH: between disciplines, communities, and cultures
In order to understand engagement in DH, one aspect to describe is the configurations of participating people. One approach would be to consider the interactions between different disciplines such as history and computer science. In this post, I will reflect on the concept of disciplines, and discuss alternative concepts of communities of practice and cultures.
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The mountain and the valley: 2019 will be exciting
2018 has been a great year for my wife and me. The most exciting moment was when we welcomed our second son Rowas into the world. Now that he’s almost one year already, the nights are getting easier, giving more energy to concentrate. And I will need my concentration, for 2019 promises to be an exciting year in which I have a mountain to climb, and a valley to explore.
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Cross-disciplinarity in DH
Digital humanities is commonly described as interdisciplinary. But what does it mean to be interdisciplinary, and is digital humanities truly interdisciplinary? In this blogpost, I’ll briefly discuss how “interdisciplinarity” can be understood, and how this applies to DH.
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Towards a hermeneutics of cross-disciplinary collaboration in the humanities
One of the defining characteristics of digital humanities is the emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration.[1]Klein, J. T. (2014). Interdisciplining Digital Humanities: Boundary Work in an Emerging Field (online). University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/dh.12869322.0001.001[2]Spiro, L. (2012). “This Is Why We Fight”: Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities. In M. K. Gold (Ed.), Debates in Digital Humanities (online). University of Minnesota Press. http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/13 The different facets of digital humanities research, such as computer technology, data management, and humanistic inquiry, call for experts with different backgrounds to collaborate. But how to study or reflect on DH collaborations? In this post I introduce a blog series in which I will develop a vocabulary for collaborative DH.
References
| 1. | ↑ | Klein, J. T. (2014). Interdisciplining Digital Humanities: Boundary Work in an Emerging Field (online). University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/dh.12869322.0001.001 |
| 2. | ↑ | Spiro, L. (2012). “This Is Why We Fight”: Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities. In M. K. Gold (Ed.), Debates in Digital Humanities (online). University of Minnesota Press. http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/13 |
Abstract: Power Asymmetries of eHumanities Infrastructures
In the final week of October the annual IEEE eScience conference will take place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This will be my first eScience conference, and I look forward to seeing how the eScience community is similar to or different from the digital humanities community. I have submitted a paper applying findings of my PhD research to the development of eScience infrastructures for the humanities. Specifically, my paper discusses the problems of power asymmetry in collaborations, with scholars dependent on infrastructures developers, and of knowledge asymmetry, with scholars lacking the knowledge necessary to influence the practices of infrastructure developers. A first difference between the eScience and DH communities I already observed was in the reviews of my submission, which found my topic of interest but lacking in a (technological) solution to the problem. Unfortunately, I do not have a solution readily available, but I have extended my power relation circle with a possible way out in the development of know-how. Below you can find the abstract for my paper, and the poster I will present at the conference (designed by my wife).
DHBenelux 2018 – Integrating Digital Humanities
The theme of this year’s annual DHBenelux conference was “Integrating Digital Humanities”. On the C2DH blog I reviewed the conference, and how the discussions focused on the integration of the practices of scholars and librarians. Read the full post here.
DHBenelux 2018 submissions
This week will be the fifth instalment of the DHBenelux conference. Last year, the conference was held in Utrecht, and this year the conference stays close, moving to Amsterdam. I forgot to apply to be a reviewer (oops!), but the organisation was kind enough to provide me all the data of submissions for my analysis. In this post I will analyse the submissions, authors, and keywords from abstracts. For the previous years see my analyses of 2017, 2016, and 2014-2016.
DHBenelux Abstract: Boundary practices in digital humanities
Next week the annual DHBenelux conference will take place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Here I will present the results of my online survey of digital humanities collaborations, focusing on boundary practices and the distance between collaborators. Below you can find the abstract of the paper. For those not able to come, follow the hashtag #dhbenelux. And if you are able to come, see you next week!