The Digital Humanities and the Digital Modern PDF
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JAMES SMITHIES THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES AND THE DIGITAL MODERN The Digital Humanities and the Digital Modern James Smithies The Digital Humanities and the Digital Modern James Smithies King’s Digital Lab King’s CollegeLondon London, UK ISBN978-1-137-49943-1 ISBN978-1-137-49944-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-49944-8 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017937281 ©TheEditor(s)(ifapplicable)andTheAuthor(s)2017 Theauthor(s)has/haveassertedtheirright(s)tobeidentifiedastheauthor(s)ofthisworkin accordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsaresolelyandexclusivelylicensedbythePublisher, whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation, reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation,broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinany other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafterdeveloped. Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,servicemarks,etc.inthis publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesare exemptfromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformation in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishernortheauthorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespectto thematerialcontainedhereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutionalaffiliations. Coverillustration:KiyoshiTakahaseSegundo/AlamyStockPhoto Printedonacid-freepaper ThisPalgraveMacmillanimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisMacmillanPublishersLtd. Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:TheCampus,4CrinanStreet,London,N19XW,United Kingdom A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book has its origins in conversations with Kath Bode and Arianna Ciula,whoencouragedmetoputmyideasintoamonograph.PaulArthur convinced me that it was worth pursuing. My thoughts have been influ- enced by conversations with Tim Sherratt and Deb Verhoeven, but espe- ciallybymyworkwithPaulMillar,ChrisThomson,andtheUCCEISMIC Digital Archive team at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Conversations with IT colleagues at the New Zealand Ministry of Health, Learning Media, and Catalyst IT have also influenced my approach. I moved to the United Kingdom in 2015, with the bulk of the manu- script complete but with significant work still to be done. The team at King’s Digital Lab provided an excellent work environment and showed mewhatitmeanstoundertakedigitalhumanitiesatscale.Thebookwould not have been completed without their support and encouragement. Colleagues in the Department of Digital Humanities offered a much-needed introduction to the UK higher education system. I am particularly grateful to Sheila Anderson, Simon Tanner, and Paul Spence fortheiradvice.PaulReadmanandtheFacultyResearchandImpactTeam (FRIT)helpedmesettleintomyroleasdirectorofKing’sDigitalLaband providedessentialmanagerialandcollegialsupport.Ioweasignificantdebt to Alan Liu for reading drafts and providing deeply informed criticism. Dave Berry provided feedback on Chaps. 1 and 2, and Jack Copeland, Michael-John Turp, Patrick Evans, and Deb Verhoeven read and com- mented on other chapters in the book. I am grateful for their insights and suggestions for further reading. Needless to say all errors and failures of interpretationrestwithme.Thebookwascompletedduringresearchleave v vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS at the Oxford Internet Institute. I am grateful to Eric Meyer for hosting me. Finally, thanks to Nicola McKinney, my primary motivation and influence, and my wider family for their support and understanding. C ONTENTS 1 The Challenge of the Digital Humanities 1 2 The Digital Modern 17 3 Computation and the Discourse of Crisis 47 4 Artificial Intelligence, Digital Humanities, and the Automation of Labour 79 5 Towards a Systems Analysis of the Humanities 113 6 Software Intensive Humanities 153 7 The Ethics of Production 203 8 The Culture of the (Digital) Humanities 237 Bibliography 249 Index 253 vii L F IST OF IGURES Fig. 3.1 Logicgates 68 Fig. 5.1 The foundationsofglobalhumanities cyberinfrastructure 125 Fig. 5.2 Networktypologies 129 Fig. 5.3 Layer4global humanities cyberinfrastructure, ‘Integrated InformationInfrastructure Reference Model’,TOGAF8.1.1. (December2011) ©The OpenGroup 132 Fig. 6.1 The FactoidModel ofProsopography used inthe Paradox ofMedievalScotland Project 176 ix CHAPTER 1 The Challenge of the Digital Humanities This book is about the digital humanities and their relationship to the contemporary world. Myprimarycontentionisthat the digitalhumanities are historically significant, regardless of their perceived intellectual worth, andhavetobeexplored—anddeveloped—inseriousways.Thisextendsto takingcriticismofthemseriouslyandacknowledgingcommentators’deep concerns regarding their effect on humanities research. Theintriguingthingis,ofcourse,thathumanistshaveusedcomputers, toagreaterorlesserdegree,forseveraldecadesnow:ithardlyseemslikea subject that would warrant another extensive monograph. Novelists and researchers started using word processors in the late 1960s,1 the first electronic library catalogue systems were installed in university libraries in the late 1970s,2 and the first major intellectual furore about the use of computationalmethodssurfacedinthe1970s.3Regardlessoftheirattitude towards it, older researchers will recognise ‘digital’ as an important theme in their careers, whether it be the transition from hand-written essays to a QWERTYkeyboard,thetransitionfromcardcataloguesandmicroficheto OPAC and web browser, corridor conversations about the evils of Wikipedia and Twitter, or disaster stories about dropped stacks of main- frame punch cards. Future historians will beintrigued by how difficult ithas been for some humanists to reconcile themselves to this reality. Accepting that the humanities are deeply entangled with digital technology represents an important moment of recognition. It renders the adjective ‘digital’ redun- dant and freezes us in time, a generation confronted with new tools that neither we, nor the wider culture, fully understand. It is not a matter of whetherwewantdigitaltoolsinthehumanities,buthowweusethetools ©The Author(s)2017 1 J.Smithies, TheDigital Humanities andthe Digital Modern, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-49944-8_1 2 J.SMITHIES thatwehave,howwecreatemoreeffectiveones,andwhatperspectivesare mostconducivetograduallyincreasingourunderstandingovertime.Thisis thekindofcuriositythatdrawspeopletothedigitalhumanities,ratherthan arepressedurgetoshareinthefinancialrewardsandideologicaldominance ofSiliconValley,oreventheneedtojoinacommunity. This is reflected in the myriad different instantiations of the digital humanitiesaround theworld,thewiderangeofpractices andcriticalposi- tionsofpeopleinterestedinthesubject,andtheconsternationofcriticswho would like to undermine it. After multiple interviews with leading practi- tionersforanarticleintheLAReviewofBooks,MelissaDinsmannotedthat thedigitalhumanitiesare‘largeandincreasinglyindefinableevenbythosein itsmidst’,encompassing‘computationalresearch,digitalreadingandwrit- ing platforms, digital pedagogy, open-access publishing, augmented texts, and literary databases … media archaeology and theories of networks, gaming,andwaresbothhardandsoft’.4 Itisindefinablebecausethedigitalhumanitieshave,inafascinatingand revealing way, become a floating signifier for the conditions of contem- porary scholarship.5 Digital humanities departments, laboratories, and centres exist to focus local efforts on that signifier, to understand its capacity to create and obscure meaning, to produce new scholarly prod- ucts, and in doing so to contribute to the future health of the tradition. Theyarenotsomethingthathastobedecidedon(fororagainst)asifthey can be grasped whole and either accepted or rejected. They emerge from theconditionsofearlytwenty-firstcenturycultureandsocietyandcanonly be approached on those terms. As Alan Liu suggests, ‘the digital human- ities serveas ashadow playforafutureformofthehumanitiesthat wishes to include what contemporary society values about the digital without losing its soul to other domains of knowledge work that have gone digital to stake their claim to that society’.6 This is a nuanced reading, and important. Conversations about the digital humanities that attempt to anesthetise and dissect them reflect a misunderstanding of their nature. Resistance to the tired discourse of technological innovation is important, but the assumption that it is even possible to be a humanities researcher without being in some way ‘digital’ suggests a failure of interpretation of paradigmaticscale.Itissofarremovedfromcommonsensethatitprovides evidence of a distorting mentalité. Exploring digital aspects of the humanities is important work, precisely becauseitgeneratessuchopposition.However,myguidingassumptionin the present book is somewhat radical. Partly out of practical necessity and
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