Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 202.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: Manfred Thaller <manfred.thaller@uni-koeln.de>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.195: a (disputable?) thesis (95)
[2] From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
Subject: Fwd: [Humanist] 38.196: a (disputable?) thesis (32)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-10-22 07:57:39+00:00
From: Manfred Thaller <manfred.thaller@uni-koeln.de>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.195: a (disputable?) thesis
Dear Willard,
I waited a bit with my answer, as I sincerely hoped, that somebody would
contradict you. Unsurprisingly nobody did, as your diagnosis is
extremely convincing.
What should be discussed, in my opinion, is not so much the diagnosis -
DH has been absorbed by the traditional disciplines - but the
consequences. Just a few fleeting remarks from me, which might help to
start a discussion.
(1) Some time ago, the idea has been, that computation had two roles to
play within the humanities: As a content agnostic tool, which could
enable routine tasks. But also as a methodological enabler, which could
allow epistemological approaches which would not be possible without
such tools.
Of cause, the two interact. Nevertheless, I find it very difficult to
understand what additional epistemological venues are opened, if you
just find it easier to do what you always did.
(2) How dangerous is it to apply tools you do not understand? How many
network visualizers are completely aware, that the distance between two
nodes in a hairball is completely without meaning and a result of the
algorithmic aim to use the display space as completely as possible?
(Which would require a training in the conceptual background of such
analyses, which I see not in many curricula and have not seen reflected
in the last papers / presentations I saw using or praising such
visualization tools.)
----------------------------------------
I draw a line here, as the two previous items have, I think at least,
the potential to be majority concerns. My own agenda - and I have
explicitly stopped considering me part of DH - is probably weirder.
(3) Computer science is solidly linked to requirements derived from hard
science concerns. The WWW was derived from considerations about the
requirements of physics. Is it healthy for the Humanities, if
computational approaches are developed and contributed to the infosphere
by hard science and the Humanities may consume what others produced as
outsiders? (That business applications as well have opened up much more
information technologies with conceptual consequences than anything
coming from the Humanities is in my opinion no improvement against the
first two sentences.)
(4) Are the underlying assumptions about "information" used by computer
science today really appropriate for the Humanities?
(1 - 4) Is somebody who wants to keep a publishing deadline for a paper
the value of which is derived by 100 % from the content-defined
discipline it should serve able to answer (1) or (2), leave alone (3)
and (4)?
Kind regards,
Manfred
Am 21.10.24 um 09:58 schrieb Humanist:
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 195.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2024-10-21 06:56:36+00:00
> From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
> Subject: a thesis
>
> I want to put before you a thesis you may wish strongly to dispute. In
> fact that's what I am hoping for, that someone here will provide
> evidence that my thesis does not survive close inspection. It is this:
> that the dominant tendency in digital humanities is its absorption into
> older disciplines and departments as a set of tools and techniques to
> pursue existing agendas.
>
> Go to it, please. But evidence (if any) to the contrary is essential.
>
> Yours,
> WM
> --
> Willard McCarty,
> Professor emeritus, King's College London;
> Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews; Humanist
> www.mccarty.org.uk
--
Prof.em.Dr. Manfred Thaller
formerly University at Cologne /
zuletzt Universität zu Köln
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-10-22 07:42:41+00:00
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
Subject: Fwd: [Humanist] 38.196: a (disputable?) thesis
In Humanist 38.195, I asked for evidence that "the dominant
tendency in digital humanities is its absorption into older
disciplines and departments as a set of tools and techniques
to pursue existing agendas." Catharine Mason has asked
whether I was querying the effect of digital humanities on
older disciplines. Actually my question was the obverse:
whether these disciplines have had appreciable theoretical
influence on digital humanities.
In 1997 Philip Agre argued in Computation and Human Experience for "a
critical technical practice - a technical practice for which critical
reflection upon the practice is part of the practice itself." (xii) He
saw that there was "no formal community of critical technical
practitioners" within AI and looked to philosophers and social
scientists to reform his discipline. Among a few others, Lucy Suchman
paid attention in Human-Machine Reconfigurations (2007), and more
recently, Alan Blackwell in his latest, Moral Codes (2024).
My favourite example of a bad example is one I participated in because
it was all the rage at the time, namely that kind of "text-analysis"
which simply operationalised New Criticism but didn't have the standing
or interdisciplinary breadth to talk back effectively and move on. Am I
being unfair? Please say so if so.
I suppose I could rephrase: is digital humanities learning from
genuinely interdisciplinary interactions with other disciplines? As a
subspecialism, is it looking beyond its container--without getting
swallowed by another one? Is it developing a critical technical practice
which goes beyond its local envelope?
Yours,
WM
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