Blog Post #4: Digital Humanities Outside the Center

 The promises and perils of digital history outside of the institution are very similar to those within – open access resources, collaboration, and public discourse are all promises that digital history can provide. Both digital history within the institution and outside the institution can also discuss previously ignored narratives buried by traditional history, while both settings promote community inclusion; shared authority and increased immersion is still possible, even without institutional support.

In terms of perils, one is the traditional academic form of graduation and promotion within history departments. Orthodox tenure and its requirements do not necessarily include digital history projects, even if they are as time consuming and rigorous as book writing, and the same goes for thesis projects.[1] As digital history itself is struggling to become a widely practiced form of history, digital history projects, both within and outside of the academy, sometimes fail to hold as much weight as a traditional historical project does.

Both settings struggle with funding – some institutions are unable to ascertain enough funds to maintain operation, and outside projects fail to find funding, if not self-supported. Labor is an issue, where teams of students and volunteers are not always readily available to work on projects, but also maintain them for future use. While not all universities have centers created explicitly for digital history tools and projects, this struggle would be even more difficult for teams outside of the institution. Without centralized support, digital history projects could run into a lot of loose ends, ultimately unable to come together.

One aspect mentioned in People, Practice, Power: Digital Humanities Outside the Center, is the discourse between state-level universities and small, local community colleges and schools.[2] The introduction notes that the editors failed to gain any submissions from these small institutions – telling of the field’s projective costliness. Digital history, in its technological requirements and curricula necessities, places itself among discontinuities of privilege and disadvantage. While traditional history and archival research are mostly available (I say mostly because I know that not everyone has access to the archive – but common online resources better facilitate a traditional history project than a digital one) to small institutions, digital tools and instruction are just not. These “institutional chasms” present perils to digital history practice altogether.[3]

Furthermore, as digital history is still an emerging field, there is really a lack of accepted practices. If a small, community institution or outside organization wants to adopt digital history methods, investing in the technology and instruction required is a hard bullet to bite when things are constantly changing. As discussed in People, Practice, Power: Digital Humanities Outside the Center, perhaps establishing a consistent practice and set of standards among the digital history profession would lead to better adoption of it across small and large organizations.[4]

Focus on this practice and how it can be applied inside and outside of the classroom are touched on in “A Generative Praxis: Curation, Creation, and Black Counterpublics,” where the praxis is defined as documentation, preservation, and presentation – where documenting communities within open-access spaces, preserving images and videos of communities holistically, and presenting these materials within context to the public are the keys for creating transformative digital work.[5] These practices all reinforce points we have discussed in earlier readings; community involvement, narrative inclusion, and public discourse are foundational to digital history as a substantial form of doing history. Collaboration with the public also allows for support outside of the institution, while the establishment of a solid practice and methodology, with engaging examples of projects being successfully undertaken with this methodology, will further prompt historians to adopt digital history tools.

While institutional support seems more likely to substantially support digital history projects, the same issues of funding, labor, credibility, and practice permeate digital projects outside of the institution. The same solutions are prescient – collaborating with the public, establishing a set idea of practice, and understanding the gaps of privilege and disadvantage that inherently lay at the feet of digital history and technological tools and advancements. Working together and reaching outside of the academy, as we have mentioned before, will better facilitate digital history – whether within the academy or outside of it.

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[1] Scot A. French, "VisualEyes This: Using Visualization Tools to Engage Students in Historical Research and Digital Humanities R&D," in Quick Hits for Teaching with Digital Humanities: Successful Strategies from Award-Winning Teachers (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020

[2] McGrail, Anne B, Angel David Nieves, and Siobhan Senier. People, Practice, Power: Digital Humanities Outside the Center. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022, pg. xviii.

[3] McGrail, Anne B, Angel David Nieves, and Siobhan Senier. People, Practice, Power: Digital Humanities Outside the Center. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022, pg. 160.

[4] McGrail, Anne B, Angel David Nieves, and Siobhan Senier. People, Practice, Power: Digital Humanities Outside the Center. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022, pg. 142.

[5] Chambliss, Julian C., and Scot French. "A Generative Praxis." Volume 39, Scholarly Editing 39 (2022).

Blog Post #3: The Valley of the Shadow (1993-2007): A Case Study in Early Digital History & its Enduring Lessons/Legacies

My first introduction to the Valley of the Shadow project was in my Intro to Public History course during my first semester in graduate school – not only was it posed as the leading example of digital tools being used to present historical narratives outside that of a monographic book, it was also presented as a seminal public history project. The website’s accessibility to those outside of academia, as well as the user-friendly navigation allow for non-academically trained users to interpret and interact with the sources and information presented. Prior to this, traditional peer-reviewed historical publications found themselves contained within the academic sphere – and also difficult to read because of the prevalence of thick jargon and low interest levels. Non-academic readers would either have to just trust the argument at hand or ignore the narrative altogether for more interestingly disseminated arguments (that may not even hold veritable value). Academic historians held sole authority over the information presented.

The Valley of the Shadow, by sharing the source materials and providing a hypertextual, open narrative account of two communities, allowed the user to come up with their own conclusions. This “erosion of our authority,” as Ayer’s puts it, allows for immersion, collaboration, and ultimately a larger base dissemination of historical knowledge that will extend outside of the ivory tower.[1] Ayers, in encouraging historians to embrace this new medium for historical output, encourages civic education and engagement all around.

Given the importance of the shared authority spearheaded with the Valley of the Shadow project, the site’s implications for digital tools and digital history is also important to discuss. The initial webpage used to house the archive is a bit finicky and hard to navigate, and visually, looks just like one would imagine a site from the late 1990’s would look like – however, the site makes great use of hypertextuality, where links to further information are provided in almost every page of the archive. This same hypertextuality was matched in the recreated version of the project: only this time, more navigable, less text heavy, and more visually appealing and immersive. The second version includes “rooms” that users can walk into, as if they were in an actual museum or archive.

Images of the people behind the sources presented are shared with the sources, as well as important background information. Users, with this linking feature, can learn as much as they want – avoiding fatigue of information. In fact, they might be more driven to read more as they get to pick and choose what they dive into, rather than being presented a specific, linear narrative.

Another unique aspect of this project was its ability to be refurbished, for lack of a better term. Books and articles are more permanent. If there is a mistake within a publication, a new edition containing new edits is required, whereas you can simply edit a website and republish it without needing to publish a whole new version of the project. This will allow for better historical accuracy, and a faster turnaround for accurately disseminated information.

While all of these aspects are good, there are some unfortunate challenges to this digital history method. Technology changes expeditiously and software and hardware become obsolete very, very quickly. One such example is Flash falling out of use – entire websites and projects built on this platform now unable to render or work at all because browsers no longer support it. Whereas books can last a few good years before a new edition would be required, websites and online databases take constant maintenance to ensure that they will work correctly. The efforts to preserve the Valley of the Shadows project alone were strenuous various servers, files, metadata, coding, encryptions, etc. had to be analyzed or reevaluated to avoid messing the archive up.[2] However, historical narratives are built on revision and reworking – this issue of compatibility and constant supervision is not specific to digital history.

Ayer’s Valley of the Shadow project shows how digital tools can convey an immersive, collaborative history, and how these tools can educate a wider audience. Even today, the site is navigable, modern enough to present an interesting, informative narrative, and remains user friendly, regardless of newer technological innovations. It really holds up. As with any new medium, there are growing pains, and attention to details and change are extremely important. As more historians accept the growing medium, I am positive Ayer’s project will continue to act as an apt example of the shared authority, civic engagement, and exciting possibilities that digital history can cultivate.

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[1] The pasts and futures of digital history: Edward L. Ayers, accessed September 12, 2022, http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/PastsFutures.html.

[2] “University of Virginia Library Digital Curation Services,” Digital Curation Services, accessed September 12, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20141010164712/http://www.digitalcurationservices.org/sustaining-digital-scholarship/valley-of-the-shadow/.

 

Blog Post #2: The Pasts and Futures of Digital History

 As defined in the JAH Interchange discussion, digital history is a method of historical analysis that uses computational and communications technology to present and interpret historical narratives and sources. Only recently emerging as a subfield in the 1990s following a global technological explosion, the field has found itself in an odd state of development and acceptance within the stages of traditional history – a state further fueled by the lack of instruction and well-versed standards that exist for the subfield. Traditional, well-established, and mid-career historians find themselves at odds with the technological methods of digital history, just as a person who grew up without technology feels when using phone applications and self-help kiosks. Since this subfield is so new, it is hard to incorporate its methodologies into traditional curriculum and professional training.

Regardless of the lack of associative standards and practices that exist for digital history, the medium provides an excellent and new approach to interaction. Open-source tools, such as websites, archival programs, coding applications, and more, not only allow historians to pursue their topics and narratives with limited funding but also provide the opportunity for community involvement and shared authority – by publishing work on a communicative platform that fellow academics can comment and interpret from, historians now have the opportunity to promote inclusive history. This specifically has wonderful implications for the subfield of public history, allowing people to form their own interpretations based on the sources provided, allowing historians to present multi-faceted narratives that were previously ignored, and generally opening discussion on historical themes in a more palatable manner than dense monographs have previously provided.

Traditional history, not to be dismantled by any means, was founded on the analysis and research of great problems, great ruptures, and great men. Traditional historical academia, usually written in heavy, impenetrable prose, can often push a single-minded narrative that much of the public would be unwilling to challenge, or even worse, unwilling to read because it is solely geared toward an academic audience. Digital history and communicative technologies allow historians to leave this “ivory tower” of information dissemination. Narratives, unwritten about or unread about, can now be communicated to a larger audience, allowing for previously ignored narratives and stories to break through.

While digital history is able to provide inclusive narratives and analysis, this accessibility is also part of its perils: much of the public does not have access to digital tools, such as computers or the internet, and this version of history may not be as accessible to them as a published book may be. Some sources cannot be digitized, and access to them may still be challenging to get – while digital methods have helped bring inclusivity to narratives and practice, there are still many problems to address.

Born digital sources, digitized sources, and digital archives are another reason digital history is a prominent development in the field. Now, documents that would have required a trip to an archive, sometimes in a different country, can be accessed through a simple Google search. At the same time, born-digital records force the historical profession to embrace digital technology altogether. Recent historical events will have primarily digital records to accompany them, whereas our primary sources have mainly consisted of written materials and paper documents. How would we be equipped to handle the millions of emails by the Clinton administration, alone, without digital history tools?

Another issue to consider is this ability to Google everything, even in historical research. Context is integral to source analysis, but with text and keyword searches, historians are now able to find exactly what term or event they are looking for without having to read the whole source. This can create a monster of analysis, where sources can be used to push a certain argument out if its actual historical context – which is extremely concerning. This same concern applies to the advancement of pseudo-historians, who can now use monster of source analysis and research out of context to push and publicize historical narratives that may just be entirely incorrect; more concerningly, these individuals using sources out of context allows for the dissemination of harmful misinformation on the very digital platforms we are asking historians to use.

Realistically, all of these issues boil down to one solution: training and education. Historians encouraged to use platforms and methods they do not know how to use are likely going to avoid using them. We have already discussed in class how interdisciplinary measures and better curriculum involvement would help close this knowledge gap, but in other ways, if historians were more open to using public-facing platforms to publish their work (not even necessarily fancy, computational applications, but things like Facebook and Twitter), academically trained professionals could spread accurate information and engage the public in helpful civil discourse. Wouldn’t it be a lovely world if source-based information made waves around Facebook, rather than screenshots of screenshots of Wikipedia pages being reposted every minute of every day?

Sources:

Brennan, Sheila. “Digital History.” The Inclusive Historian's Handbook, August 23, 2019. https://inclusivehistorian.com/digital-history/.

Cohen, Daniel J.; Frisch, Michael; Gallagher, Patrick; Mintz, Stephen; Sword, Kirsten; Taylor, Amy Murrell; Thomas III, William G. and William J. Turkel. “Interchange: The Promise of Digital History” in Journal of American History (95)(2): 2008. pp 452-491.

Cohen, Daniel J. and Roy Rosenzweig. “Promises and Perils of Digital History”. George Mason University, 2006.

Leon, Sharon. "Returning Women to the History of Digital History." 6floors [bracket] (2016).

Seefeldt, Douglas, and William G. Thomas III. "What is digital history? A look at some exemplar

projects." (2009).