Thanks again, David, for sharing this link.
I am surprised at Andrew's take against the MLA, particularly when I think it's been one of the few larger professional associations to encourage digital methods and discussions about DH. (It is also tragically funny that as an example of how the MLA is "the smallest and most self-absorbed of worlds" he refers to 'Occupy MLA', which was in fact revealed nothing but a 'performative' prank). Calling the MLA a "horrible institution" is indeed very harsh and unjustified. Andrew is right to point out how damaging some of the discourse around DH within MLA circles has been to digital humanities in general, but can the whole association be held responsible for what their members say and publish? Isn't this "horrible institution" Andrew is talking about tenure and the phenomenon of contingent faculty? It seems to me that is the case.
I think the post holds well without the first two paragraphs, though. Andrew is spot on in noticing that indeed there is a danger "that DH becomes one of the means by which an Anglophone globalization of world culture is implemented."
Three links to my work might complement these views. The first two are short posts on HASTAC: 'What Is (and Isn't) Digital Humanities (June 2010)http://hastac.org/blogs/ernesto-priego/rt-what-and-isnt-digital-humanities-1http://4humanities.org/2013/04/rosemary-g-feal-interview/, 'My Discipline is Bigger than Yours: Digital Humanities and the Conflict of the Faculties' (October 2012) http://hastac.org/blogs/ernesto-priego/2012/10/30/my-discipline-bigger-yours... and finally my recent interview with Rosemary Feal, executive director of the MLA (April 2013) / http://4humanities.org/2013/04/rosemary-g-feal-interview/.
Best
e
On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 2:19 PM, David Golumbia dgolumbia@gmail.com wrote:
I also thought it's worth mentioning the following blog post by Andrew Prescott, which takes at least the DH community (or maybe the DH community in the US) to task for its failure to be global enough, and mentions listmember Dominico Fiormente's work, as well as pointing to the excellent Cologne *Controversies around the Digital Humanities* volume edited by Manfred Thaller ( http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/zeitschriften/ausgabe=6950).
While I personally agree with some of Prescott's notes about the parochial nature of *some* DH as practiced in the US, as I am an English professor and one of my primary concerns is the effects of DH on English as a discipline, I find Prescott's invective toward the MLA more symptomatic than helpful.
http://digitalriffs.blogspot.com/2013/05/small-worlds-and-big-tents.html
David
-- David Golumbia dgolumbia@gmail.com
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