Two things surprised me from this week’s readings:  The first comes from “The History of Humanities Computing” by Susan Hockey  and the second from “Complicating a ‘Great Man’ Narrative of Digital History in the United States” by Sharon Leon.

I never imagined the origins of humanities computing to arise from an Italian Jesuit priest in 1949. To think that one arm of the Catholic Church was the first to utilize and employ computer technology to index a religious text seems contrary to many preconceived ideas about who, where, and how computers were first used. After reading the entire article by Hockey, I now realize this, to a certain degree, fits with the impulse to archive using whatever methods and technologies are available. The citational and tagging abilities that computers provide reflect the desires of historians and literary scholars to categorize, analyze, and synthesize the texts they study.

Although I had little doubt that women would appear less often than men in the field of digital humanities, Leon’s chapter from Bodies of Information: Intersectional Feminism and Digital Humanities revealed a different story. Her research shows how difficult it is to recover women’s contributions because of the collaborative and citational practices within the field. In order to more equitably represent the contributions of all participants in DH projects, institutions and practitioners have an ethical duty to highlight all involved.

In addition to these two surprises, I found the conversation we had in class regarding the tensions within the academy about using digital humanities as a valid representation of scholarly work interesting. It is difficult to justify being a PhD student in a humanities department many days, especially when much of the work, research, and writing I do seem to be for niche and siloed audiences. As an idealist, I like to imagine the greater purpose and aims of literature and its role in society; however, much of the work done daily seem to oppose these aspirational goals. Viewing digital humanities as an “instrument for real resistance and form,” as Matthew Kirschenbaum states in “What is Digital Humanities and What’s It Doing in English Departments?”, feels both important and risky. At what point in one’s professional path is it possible to resist? How does one weigh the risks with the rewards, especially in competitive job markets?

Listening to my colleagues discuss these questions and parse the nuances of our position in the university helped to clarify some of my thoughts and feelings about the purpose and usefulness of digital humanities projects. I have ideas and hopes to create a public facing aspect of my research, and it is encouraging to hear from others who also hope to contribute something in the public realm.