As is often true of Willard, he does not take us to the mundane challenge of how do we deal with this attitude, but, much more profoundly, he take us in the more interesting direction of “how do we make it clear to our colleagues that the situation is one of fluidity and hybridity, that taking positions and establishing boundaries only impedes the discovery/invention of the world coming into being?”

I am often flummoxed myself when confronted with this attitude. One always wants to take on the easier challenge and say, “really, can’t we just move on.” But as students of history, we know we cannot and the row to plow is a good deal longer than we would wish. Yet I wonder if we should expend much energy in convincing traditional historians or literary critics of the value of DH. I would argue, to the contrary, that our energy, whatever we may want to expend outside doing our own projects, may be better spent in a different direction.

Let me back up for a bit to set the stage. As product of American Studies, I have always felt the sting of being unreal. Not quite historians and not real literary critics, American Studies folks have always been on the outside of disciplines. “Sting” is really not a good term to use for it was never a painful place since there was always a good group of people at regional and national meetings who accepted you and did the same kind of things (not unlike DH). As we know, it is not a bad place to play around the periphery of the disciplines and hang out with others who like the same flavor of Kool-Aid. But it is not an entirely safe place either since area studies are prone to being poorly funded and even cut (American Studies no longer exists as a separate program at MSU — now I am really homeless), and promotion and tenure is always tricky and a bit scary.

We can take the position that time will take care of things. Although we do tend to be poor historians of our own domains (you would think that historians should be better at knowing their own histories, the “fluidity and hybridity” of the putative “real”), we know at heart that our “traditional” disciplines are always in a state of flux and change. Little over a century ago, American history and American literature were not “real” things worthy of study. And slowly (and at times very painfully), the great man narrative of history and cannon of “great” literature has crumbled (fitfully and nowhere near completely) to allow in a greatly expanded set of voices. It is so very weird. We know this story so well (we churn out books by the bushel about it) and yet we easily claim space for the “real.”

But there is something deeper to be mined here. I do remember (a long time ago and far far away) when I was starting out, I was told by my chair that we could teach women’s history as long as we taught “real” history first. One knew at once that the defense of the “real” was not simply a check against the inevitable, but that realization that the new ways of thinking about history were not simply something that could get along with (not threaten) the “traditional” but were something that would profoundly change the “traditional” as it did. As we all know, it was not a simple matter of placing women’s perspectives along side of “real” history but a foundational change in how we thought about and did history. Again a story of fluidity and hybridity that we know so well.

Of course, I want to stop here (rather quickly) to say that I do not want to claim similitude between the digital humanities and other area studies. There are surface similarities in terms of battles over place, forms of scholarship, legitimacy, promotion and tenure, and such. But the kinds of political hardships and pain that has propelled many of the area studies (political and cultural battles that are still being fought out daily, sexism, racism, homophobia), are not, for the most part, part of the digital humanities landscape. In fact, we have a bit of the opposite problem. While we have done a good job of embracing alternative career paths and have a bit of a disdain for rank (we are a bit geeky, too), we tend to be overly white and male. We also need to underscore this with the complex history of the connection between technology and power.

So here is my proposition. We should not expend our time trying to convince the disciplines to take us in (that we really do “real” history and “real” literary scholarship — that we are safe, cute, and crudely, or even that it does not make sense to create artificial barriers). To the contrary, we should (we must) spend our time making connections with others doing work in the margins. We need to do much better at reaching out to those doing black studies, women’s studies, native studies, queer studies, Latina/Latino studies. We need to be much better at unraveling and revealing the connections between power and technology. As we know, the digital divide is not a simple gulf but a complex landscape of power, access and exclusion.

The scholar in the elevator has cause to keep his distance, to create a gulf between “real” and digital history. The digital is making and will continue to make foundational changes to how we go about doing humanities scholarship. But there is no guarantee that the changes and transformations of the humanities will be more inclusive. For us to lean over, and say, “no need to fear, we are just like you. In fact, we can hook you up, get you an inside track to more funding and power” may not be our best move. Rather than trying to make DH appear safe to take home to mother, straight arrow clean; it may be time to be making things a bit more queer.

There is a very real danger that as the digital becomes more mainstream and acceptable that we forget our own fluidity and hybridity or lack thereof. This is not another call for DH (criticism of DH) to be more theoretical but a more general prod to think more about who is in the room and what rooms we want to enter, partnerships and projects.

We can for the time being put aside all of the rhetorical fallacies in the article.  I mean, any call for reform is always a slip-slidey away down the slope to the end of peer review and the monograph.  It is not even worth the glyphs to argue against such things.  What interests me most here are both an appeal and a premise that are becoming ever more popular in these types of arguments.

The appeal is a fun one and we like to pick it up from popular books on the subject of (ta da) brain science.  In this case it is Maryanne Wolf’s fun read, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain.  With a lot rigor and meticulousness, we like to apply this popularized science to anything we see fit and “prove” that people are becoming more like zombies.  In this case, none of the studies cited by Wolf apply to monograph writers vs. digital scholars.  Does the close reading of articles and books for a monograph make the mind more focused than the rigors of doing animation or the meticulousness of coding (never mind that one needs to read articles and books to do digital scholarship)?  We don’t know and can’t conclude from the science cited by Wolf.   But we can make it apply by simply saying it is so.  Once again showing how good work in the humanities is done.  The long story short, by doing really bad science, by making unwarranted claims, we can both prove to the scientists and ward off “frontal attacks, ” and then ultimately show that we are really, really, really good scholars who won’t be party to no “erosion of standards” spread by those digital sorts cause we have good brains science on our side (lots of good brains — sadly Olson does not realize that is the zombie diet).

The premise is more fun: the golden ladder of nostalgia or why we are always bad historians of ourselves.   We could point out that back in my day (getting so old), post-modern theorists were the zombies out to eat the living and the dead.  Or we could point out that the humanities have always been under attack (like Marx’ ghosts, the constant slippage of the humanities is a by-product of the invention of the modern university but that is for another post).  Or we could point out that we are all digital scholars – or at least most of us – using computers and word-processors, and in the last ten years, digital access to all sorts of materials has had profound impact on how we do scholarship.

But this is just it, since the beginning of the modern humanities after the Civil War (it was all Rhetoric before then, literally), scholarship has been changing and mutating in fits and starts.  There never was a golden age of the monograph but a lot of different versions of monograph cultures that were different in the various disciplines of the humanities and vastly different over time.  Yet all this does not matter because we can point to that one golden moment of humanities scholarship that creates good brains and has the power to save the humanities; a golden moment always a just slipping from our grip.

In the end, though, there is no sense in trying to convince the Olson types (or the mysterious callers), better to call on rules 4, 8, and 31: Wear Seat Belts, Get a Kick Ass Partner, and Check the Back Seat.  The zombies are coming and they are out to get you.

Although I do know some folks who call themselves digital humanists whose primary work has not been in traditional disciplinary scholarship but on developing methods in network analysis, scholarly communication, or HCI, for example, particularly in area of writing studies.

Part of the problem, of course, is not our dh tent but the vagaries and vicissitudes of the humanities in the academy (particularly in US institutions). Is history a humanities discipline or a social science? Can doing 3d modeling with an anthropologist (who sees herself as a scientist) be considered digital humanities work? Is a project with a natural history museum digital humanities? Is a project conducted by computer scientists working with a large store of historical audio a digital humanities project?

That is, do we define digital humanities by the content of the project or by the participation of a person credentialized by an institution as a “humanist”?  I don’t have a good answer to this.

The Assistant Director will be primarily responsible for directly overseeing MATRIX’s project infrastructure. This includes managing MATRIX’s development team (programmers, web designers, graduate assistants, and interns) as well as project development and management (including creation of deadlines for all project deliverables, project and task tracking, and reporting). In addition, the successful candidate will lead the continued development of KORA (kora.matrix.msu.edu). The successful candidate will be expected to work both independently and with MATRIX senior leadership to develop projects, identify and pursue sources of extramural funding, and publish work in appropriate venues.

The successful candidate must have significant experience with web programming, including scripting languages (JavaScript, PHP, Ruby) and with some knowledge of compiled languages (Java, C++). Ability to work in a Unix/Linux based server environment is required, and preference will be given to candidates with database, XML, and web services expertise. Strong demonstrated organizational and project management skills as well as excellent communication abilities are mandatory. A background in digital humanities, informatics, information science, computer science, library science, or cultural heritage (especially archaeology, history, classics, or museum studies) is especially desirable. Bachelor’s degree required; MA, MLS, MIS, or Ph.D. preferred.

The Assistant Director is a full-time, 12-month professional staff position at the University. Salary is commensurate with experience. The University also offers a competitive benefits package. Candidates should submit application materials through jobs.msu.edu (job will go live in the system by January 12th). Review of candidates will begin immediately, and application materials will not be accepted after Feb 15th. For more information, candidates are encouraged to contact Ethan Watrall via email at watrall@msu.edu

Founded in 1996, MATRIX: The Center for the Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online is a globally renowned research center focusing on digital scholarship, the digital humanities, and cultural heritage informatics. MATRIX enjoys productive collaborations with numerous campus units, including the MSU Library, University Archives and Special Collections, the MSU Museum, The Department of Anthropology, the Department of History, African Studies Center, The WIDE Center, and The Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Beyond MSU, MATRIX has extremely strong ties with world class museums, archives, libraries, and cultural heritage institutions both nationally and internationally.

Michigan State University actively subscribes to a policy of equal employment opportunity and will not discriminate against any employee or applicant because of race, age, gender, color, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, national origin, or political affiliation. Women and minorities are strongly encouraged to apply.

As noted in the CIC news, “CIC stakeholders are working together on identifying the emerging opportunities for collaboration in digital humanities across CIC campuses and invite CIC faculty in the field to the CIC’s Digital Humanities reception at this year’s MLA Convention in Seattle.  Mark your calendar for January 7th, 2012 and join us at Seattle’s famedTriple Door Lounge for a reception from 8:00-9:00 p.m., followed by some amazing live music.”