Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 11.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org


    [1]    From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.8: now I am 37 + 2 days (53)

    [2]    From: David Zeitlyn <david.zeitlyn@anthro.ox.ac.uk>
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.8: now I am 37 + 2 days (22)


--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2023-05-09 21:33:27+00:00
        From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.8: now I am 37 + 2 days

hi Willard,
i focus on this part of your message
> I have been reflecting over the last months on the perhaps related
> compulsion to scoop up everything somehow related to whatever topic I am
> working on--in the spirit of being helpful to readers, I tell
> myself--that is made so irresistible by online resources. This is the
> late Roy Rosenzweig's 'problem of abundance', noted in "Scarcity or
> Abundance?", in Clio Wired: The Future of the Past in the Digital Age
> (2011). If one cannot in good conscience think that it's possible, with
> a tight and narrow focus, to drill down to the core of what something
> REALLY IS, then is one condemned to amass ever more related things in
> the sure and certain knowledge that 'the right track' is a
> will-o'-the-wisp?
>
> Perhaps not a persuasive way to celebrate a birthday. But then my ideal
> has for many, many years been the long conversation, not so much only
> "between two friends, where one thing leads to another", as David Jones
> wrote in The Anathemata (1952), but one whose wandering slowly maps out
> a growing field of study.
because i think that it contains hints to the reason why Humanist has
its meaning.
the reason is "conversation": we need to have conversations about the
things we (love to) study.

but on one side this is not so easy: insightful conversations about DH
subject with colleagues who are physically present is not so frequent.
and on the other side having conversations about DH subjects in Humanist
shows/brings in different approaches related to different cultures.

announcements are useful but are not the core of Humanist, from my point
of view its core are the threads of discussion. they imply a sort of
commitment to (the community of) Humanist by those who intervene.

BTW about the "compulsion to scoop up everything somehow related to
whatever topic" i would recall your message of 29 March 2021 with
subject "tackling the problems of abundance & of radical thinking"; and
also your message "36.228: the general-purpose machine and unlimited growth"

best
Maurizio

------------------------------------------------------------------------

non credo a nessuna liberazione né individuale né collettiva
che si ottenga senza il costo di un’autodisciplina,
di un’autocostruzione, di uno sforzo
Italo Calvino

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maurizio Lana
Università del Piemonte Orientale
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2023-05-09 08:42:05+00:00
        From: David Zeitlyn <david.zeitlyn@anthro.ox.ac.uk>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.8: now I am 37 + 2 days

Willard

thanks for your birthday reflections. I know I am a late joiner having
missed the halcyon early days - I only joined sometime in late 1990s

On your "compulsion to scoop up everything somehow related to whatever
topic I am working on"

In art worlds and collecting  that talk about different sorts of
collectors: some want variety,  others are "completists" - they need to
complete the set

so perhaps you are an "information completist". Does it help to have a
label for a condition?

best wishes and belated happy birthday: but Humanist did get an extra
bank holiday  to mark its birthday. (I don’t think anything else
happened of any note last weekend).

best wishes

davidz


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