Humanity in a Digital World


It is no secret that we live in a digital world. This digital world we live in is a massive. It has become a part of our reality that we exist in every day. The articles we read this week What is Digital Humanities and What's it Doing in English Departments? by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum and The Literary, the Humanities, the Digital: Toward a Research Agenda for Digital Literary Studies gave a very interesting perspective into this particular area of study. 

 All semester I had heard Dr. Zamora mention this term Digital Humanities but I really didn't understand what it meant. So I was very pleased to have the opportunity to learn more about it through these works. Initially, my first takeaway from the Kirschenbaum article was this visual image of humans in the digital world. 

 
via GIPHY

As a middle school english teacher it never dawned on me that digital humanities was not welcomed in an English classroom. I welcome the opportunities to bring my class into the world. But I can see how some areas of academia would be hesitant to accept this. Even though Digital Humanities was shaping up to the be next big thing. There were about five points laid out as reasons why there is resistance to this movement. There is no denying that , "...the digital humanities is about a scholarship and a pedagogy that are collaborative and spend on networks of people and that live in an active life online." (Kirschenbaum 60) We no longer live life and/or learn in isolation. We are connected learners. I lived this first hand in my Networked Narratives class. One of my professors was not physically in the class yet we have had active meaningful and academic discussion via online networks such as Twitter, Hypothesis, Blogs etc. 

  Kirschenbaum ended is article by asking this question, "Isn't that something you want in your English department?"I found myself answering with an unequivocal yes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's Your Research Identity?

Image
Dr. Zamora asked us how we identified ourself as a research student. Yikes! Talk about an open-ended question. I really didn't know how I identified myself as a researcher. And it was because I have an old school view on what it means to be a researcher. After our discussion I find that I am stuck in the past constraints of what it means to be a researcher.  This week's article titled, Liminal Spaces and Research Identity by James Purdy and Joyce Walker talks about a scholarly identity as it relates to ones research identity. Before I could read this article and fully immerse myself in the reading I had to do a bit of research to understand what is even meant by liminal spaces.  According to inaliminalspace.org, " A liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ It is a place of transition, waiting, and not knowing." From the definition it seems like I am caught in a liminal space of sorts. My thinking of what a researcher's identity can...
Read more

Exploring the Possibilities of Writing Through Social Learning

Image
The social climate in our country is the equivalent to a pot of stew that is on the verge of boiling over. I would go as far as to argue that the climate is more like a bomb waiting to explode. Students on any grade level of the academic spectrum are over exposed this environment. You can’t turn on the TV without hearing about the happenings of our newest President and the cast of characters starring in his presidency. This coupled with a country that has never been more racially divided in recent years. It is hard to be oblivious to the talks of terrorists, building walls, dropping bombs, women’s rights, public education and other hot button issues. So my question to this as an educator is how do we use this information or the world around us to teach? You can’t ignore it. Teachers can’t close off their classrooms from the world around them. We can thank the internet for that. So since we can’t shut it out, how do we bring it in? Those probing questions led me to the selection o...
Read more