“Those already marginalized in society and the academy can also find themselves in the liminal spaces of this field. By centering the lives of women, people of color, and disabled folks, the types of possible conversations in digital humanities shift. The move “from margin to center” offers the opportunity to engage new sets of theoretical questions that expose implicit assumptions about what and who counts in digital humanities as well as exposes structural limitations that are the inevitable result of an unexamined identity politics of whiteness, masculinity, and able bodiedness.”
Moya Z. Bailey, All the Digital Humanists Are White, All the Nerds Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave
As a woman studying computer science, this passage grabbed my attention because it identifies what can happen when historically limited spaces are opened up. My interpretation of the meaning of Digital Arts & Humanities is that it is about sharing humanistic information in new ways through different technologies. This sounds like a broad definition, doesn’t it? This means to fit the ever-growing field we must bring in all sorts of voices. As Moya Z. Bailey writes when the focus of the field shifts to the “lives of women, people of color and disabled folks, the types of possible conversations in digital humanities shift”. This passage piqued my interest because it forces readers to consider everything that the field is missing out on. When voices are excluded from the conversations they are severely limited.
The passage reminded me of my involvement in a group called W.I.S.E. It stood for Women In Science and Engineering. Each year the group would work to create a conference for young women from the New York City area to come together and celebrate their interest in science, technology, and engineering. In my final year, the conference was expanded to include art. The acronym went from STEM to STEAM. At first, I was extremely skeptical about including art because it felt completely different from what had been done in the past. After listening to the keynote speaker and attending a workshop or two, I realized that including art enhanced the overall experience. The young women from artistic backgrounds brought in fresh perspectives which I had not considered before. The quote from the article brought me back to this experience because, in a sense, it’s what is happening in the Digital Arts and Humanities world. When we let in and encourage more people to come together and take part our collective experience is enhanced.
Moving forward in this course, I am looking forward to taking a more creative approach to my work. I am excited to see the cross-over between multiple disciplines that I had not yet considered. Specifically, I’m interested in using databases for interesting things (not just for trivial coursework). I look forward to learning about different software and figuring out how to add them to my toolbox of creativity.
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Your thoughts on the STEM vs STEAM conversation are very interesting. I have been hesitant to view the arts and sciences as falling under the same umbrella, but perhaps by thinking about what you said about what they can add to one another rather than the ways in which they are different, I will understand more why many are eager to unite them.