In Chapter 3 of Debates in Digital Humanities, Lisa Spiro attempts to define the values of the Digital Humanities community. Spiro believes that creating a value statement will help make Digital Humanities more effective and provide a greater understanding of their work to a larger audience. Throughout the chapter you get the sense that Spiro is shooting blanks into the sky hoping to create an illusion that she actually might hit something. She goes back and forth between suggesting solutions on how Digital Humanities can improve, to how she realizes that her suggestions may not actually help to remove any criticism. She insists that the value statement be written by the community for the community, but yet the only thing a reader gains from this chapter are Spiro's values. Her fight seems to be to remove Digital Humanities away from traditional humanities, but somehow this chapter does more to reinforce the sameness of the two. They both don't know how to do "diversity" and their "community" is actually a gentrified block.
I agree with a lot of the points you made in your posting. But, I believe, what Spiro proposes is valuable, starting a dialogue with the DH community as to what it's values are and this is not such an easy task given the diversity of the DH community. Establishing a set of values also illuminates those who consider themselves part of the DH community and in this process more voices may be heard. I like the idea Spiro proposes about establishing values over a system of ethics based on her definition, because according to her, ethics curtails behavior, and a set of values does not do this.
Reply
alex
9/24/2014 09:32:08 am
I'm not really sure what or who you mean by but I can guess: "They both don't know how to do "diversity" and their "community" is actually a gentrified block." They is DH? Diversify in what way? Not sure there is a community but "they" may be trying to make one. You are assuming they are white or male or both? You might be interested in dhpoco: dhpoco.org
Reply
alex
9/24/2014 09:59:48 am
http://transformdh.tumblr.com/
and this!
Reply
Leave a Reply.
Author
Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.