Women in the Humanities

More diverse groups of people are entering the field of digital humanities and feminism is becoming more and more existent.  Feminism in the digital humanities was our main topic of discussion this week.

“My Body: A Wunderkammer,” a hypertext fiction by Shelley Jackson, does a great job of expressing femininity through a very interesting topic: the human body.  This piece of digital literature begins with a drawing of the female human anatomy.  As you click on the names of each body part, you are taken to a new page with Shelley Jackson’s personal story about that specific body part as she is growing up. Each personal story has hyperlinks that will take you to another new page with another new story about a different body part.  Jackson was very detailed with her writing and did not hold back while talking about these very personal things.

No matter who we are, we are always aware of our physical appearance.  Our bodies go through many changes as we experience puberty and many of us may become self conscious during that awkward time. Since we all go through the awkward stage, I thought this piece was very relatable which made me want to keep reading.

Another piece of digital literature we looked at this week was “Pieces of Herself” by Juliet Davis.  It is a click and drag story that talks about the female embodiment and the interactions with private and public spaces.  It’s about finding yourself and interacting with your surroundings.  When objects are dragged to the body it can “trigger audio files ranging from music to a biblical pronouncement about the "proper" socio-cultural function of women.”  This gave more emphasis to what was happening in the story and created a gray atmosphere.  Each of the environments has a different story to tell and different objects to drag.  Overall this hypertext was a great representation of the female embodiment and her interactions with the world.

Mr. Plimpton's Revenge and Tailspin

Electronic literature is a part of digital humanities containing a combination of interaction and story.  E-lit can also be defined as “a genre of literature encompassing works created exclusively on and for digital devices”.  The first story that was studied this week was “Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge” by Dinty Moore.  This was a story made using Google Maps which was very interesting.  It was about a college student junky journalist that was in charge of chauffeuring his idol, famous writer Mr. George Plimpton, to his desired locations in Pittsburgh.  Later both characters met at various locations throughout the story.  This journey was an interesting one and the title is a little misleading.  There wasn’t really a revenge involved at the end.  The revenge was that Mr. Plimpton forgot who the student was.  He just thought that the student was a junky that went to school.  It was not really a revenge, and for some people it doesn’t count as a revenge.  Overall the plot was simple and very enjoyable.

The next story we read was “Tailspin” by Christine Wilks.  The purpose of this text was to simulate what it would be like to have a disease called tinnitus.  The usage of various images and sounds made the text swirls connect to the overall theme.  It did not matter which order the swirls were viewed in, as the story made sense in either direction, which was neat.  Wilks remembered that her father had tinnitus and that inspired this story.  He refused to get a hearing aid to soften the noise, and kept getting angry at Wilk’s children for being too noisy.  The noises do get annoying after awhile, but that’s all part of the simulation.  Tinnitus is a condition where sounds will be heard without a cause. It’s usually caused by constant exposure to loud noises. The father, being an aircraft fitter during WWII, most likely obtained this condition from being around loud planes so often.  Each layer of this piece gave hints to the father's condition and annoyance towards noise.  The visuals were amazing to look at and brought the essence of the children and sound through various images.  Overall the noises can get annoying after awhile, but the overall story and simulation make the noises fit.

Digital Humanities? HUH?

Digital humanities is a newer topic in the last decade. The term digital can refer to computers, cell phones, game systems, social media. Whereas the term humanities refers to literature, languages, philosophy, musics, and a few other categories. If you want to explore the world of digital humanities go to electronic literature online and check out the array of subjects and literature there is available. When the two terms are put together they do not refer to just a computer doing research for a humanities project. They are used to show how the humanities are created digitally. When the humanities are digitized they become available to many more people. The digital world is now accessible to a very wide range of personnel on many different devices. The newest form of digital humanities is the social media. The Twitter, Facebook, and other social media networks are being used to make people aware of the uprising of digital humanities and how they affect the world around them.

~Mike McConnell

What is Digital Humanities?

Digital Humanities. Two words, hundreds of meanings. Digital humanities may be hard to define, but to me, it is a field full of research, creativity, collaboration, and words mixed with sound, color, music, animation, etc. As the name infers, it involves digital media and the humanities.  A few types of media platforms, for example, are computers, cell phones, gaming systems, and social media. However, these digital medias on their own are not considered "digital humanities." The pieces of work must be interactive using literature, history, languages, philosophy, sociology, or visual arts.  As technology advances over time, the digital humanities will as well.

What is Digital Humanities?

  Digital includes computers, mobile devices, gaming systems, and social media. 
Humanities includes literature, history, languages, philosophy, music, and more. When 
these two words come together, they form a definition. Digital Humanities is something that involves a group of people who use online tools such as a computer to analyze and understand literature, history, and more. The exact definition of Digital Humanities is an area of research and teaching at the intersection of computing and the disciplines of the humanities. As Jason Boyd said, "Digital Humanities involves the use of computers, the internet and related technologies to enable the creation and sharing of humanities scholarship in ways not possible in traditional humanities practice". 

                                                                  Athena Velazquez

What Is Digital Humanities?

Digital humanities doesn't have a singular definition or application.  Both words that make up this term are so different that they almost don't belong together.  Digital reminds me of technology while humanities reminds me of literature and history.  When these two words are combined, they make a new way to experience literature and technology.  It creates an environment that "creators and users experiment and interact with source materials in ways that yield new findings, while also facilitating community building and information sharing."  Digital humanities is the connection of the humanities that how been know to humans since before most of us were born, and the growing use of technology started in the last century.  That's my digital humanities.

Sarah Conte