“People are actively doing intersectional digital humanities work in all but name in other arenas of the academy”
Bailey, Moya Z. “All the Digital Humanists Are White, All the Nerds Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave.” Journal of Digital Humanities, 2011,
In the past I’ve been interested in various seemingly unrelated subjects, and am curious to learn more about if/how these subjects can be tied together. The concept of intersectional digital humanities fully encapsulates this notion that interdisciplinary studies can be quite niche. Consequently, this reminds me of the potential different fields, when joined, have, and that it becomes more of a matter of identifying what can be accomplished.
Specifically, I’m interested in music and computer science, two fields that intersect through math and logic. Both of these fields are primarily explored by white men, so the inclusion of digital humanities helps bridge the gap between them and minority groups by increasing accessibility. The emphasis on establishing a succinct digital identity to distribute and share works produced will also expedite this goal. Overall, addressing this factor not only progresses said fields in terms of diversity, but it also allows for new and different art to be made given the new perspectives.
In terms of how these goals can be achieved, I’m eager to pursue data visualization and text analysis. Within music and tech industries, there’s been an overarching discussion surrounding how sonic media can be visualized. This conversation strives to answer questions such as “What constitutes good music?”, “How can music be charted for aesthetic quality?”, “How does computer generated music compare to human performances?” and more.
As for text analysis, the discussion around lyrics is less extensive, but I find it to have an important role in analyzing modern music as a whole. My experience with music has taught me about the intent behind what syllables are chosen, and how they can be manipulated to fit melodies. With this line of thought, I’m interested in seeing what kind of types of textual analysis can be applied to lyrics and what makes certain words more suitable for an instrumental compared to others.