IS A CRITICAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES POSSIBLE?

LESSONS FROM POSTCOLONIAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

Roopika Risam

Salem State University

@roopikarisam

OBLIGATORY DIGITAL HUMANITIES DEFINITION

“For me it has to do with the work that gets done at the crossroads of digital media and traditional humanistic study…. On the one hand, it’s bringing the tools and techniques of digital media to bear on traditional humanistic questions. But it’s also bringing humanistic modes of inquiry to bear on digital media.” –Kathleen Fitzpatrick (@kfitz)

THE EMERGENCE OF CRITICAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

THE EMERGENCE OF CRITICAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

THE EMERGENCE OF CRITICAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

THE EMERGENCE OF CRITICAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

“…additional critical technical practices and habits in the use of new digital methods and tools are needed, such as antisocial media, hacking, critical encryption practices, iteracy, critical digital humanities, and politically engaged computal praxis. This will ensure that we can read and write outside the streams of data collected in the service of computational capitalism and government monitoring…” –David M. Berry (@berrydm)

RETROFITTING CRITICAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

“Digital humanists will need to find ways to show that thinking critically about metadata, for instance, scales into thinking critically about the power, finance, and other governance protocols of the world.” –Alan Liu (@alanyliu)

RETROFITTING CRITICAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

“A critical discourse of digital humanities work: (1) must be concerned with both interpretation and evaluation; (2) is central to establishing the importance of the kind of scholarly and even cultural work that it does.” –Fred Gibbs (@fredgibbs)

POSTCOLONIAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

“Global explorations of race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability within cultures of technology.”

–dhpoco.org

RETROFITTING POSTCOLONIAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

The Postcolonial Web (thepostcolonialweb.org)

POSTCOLONIAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES THEORY

• Postcolonial science and technology studies

• Postcolonial computing

• Decolonial computing

• New media studies

BICHITRA TAGORE ONLINE VARIORUM PROJECT

Bichitra Tagore Online Variorum (bichitra.jdvu.ac.in)

1947 PARTITION ARCHIVE

1947 Partition Archive (1947partitionarchive.org)

AROUND DH IN 80 DAYS

Around DH in 80 Days (www.arounddh.org)

A DISTANT READING OF EMPIRE

A Distant Reading of Empire (readingfromadistance.wordpress.com)

CHALLENGES TO POSTCOLONIAL DIGITAL HUMANITIES

• Underrepresentation within broader landscape of digital humanities

• Copyright and fair use laws restricting data

• Uneven distribution of infrastructure globally

• Legibility of digital scholarship for hiring, tenure, and promotion

• Challenges to publication

WORKS CITED

Berry, David, M. Critical Theory and the Digital. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Print.

Gibbs, Fred. “Critical Discourse in Digital Humanities.” Journal of Digital Humanities 1.1 (2011). Accessed 17 Feb. 2015. Web.

Liu, Alan. “Where is Cultural Critique in the Digital Humanities?” Alan Liu.Accessed 16 Feb. 2015. Web.

Lopez, Andrew, Fred Rowland, and Kathleen Fitzpatrick. “On Scholarly Communication and the Digital Humanities: An Interview with Kathleen Fitzpatrick.” In the Library with the Lead Pipe. Accessed 17 Feb. 2015. Web.