Subscribe to Comments for this Post 
Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures: Humanities in a Digital Age Symposium
On November 11th, the University’s new Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures hosted a daylong symposium on “The Humanities in a Digital Age.” The symposium included two panels—one on Access & Ownership and the other on Research & Teaching—and two keynote talks.
The first keynote was given by Stephen Ramsay, Associate Professor in the Department of English and Fellow in the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.
The second keynote was given by Dan Cohen, Associate Professor in the Department of History and Director of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History in New Media at George Mason University.
Panel 1: Access and Ownership
Jeremy Boggs, Humanities Design Architect, UVa Library Scholars’ Lab
Ann Houston, Director of Humanities and Social Sciences, UVa Library
[audio:http://dhnow-old.lndo.site/files/Panel1.mp3|titles=Panel 1: Access and Ownership]
Keynote: Stephen Ramsay, “Textual Behavior in the Human Male.”
Respondent: Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor, UVa Department of English
[audio:http://dhnow-old.lndo.site/files/Textual_Behavior.mp3|titles=Textual Behavior in the Human Male]
Panel 2: Research and Teaching
Alison Booth, Professor, UVa Department of English
Mitch Green, Horace W. Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy, UVa Department of Philosophy
[audio:http://dhnow-old.lndo.site/files/Panel2.mp3|titles=Panel 2: Research and Teaching]
Keynote: Dan Cohen, “Humanities Scholars and the Web: Past, Present, and Future.”
Respondent: Jerome McGann, Professor, UVa Department of English
[audio:http://dhnow-old.lndo.site/files/Humanities_Scholars.mp3|titles=Humanities Scholars and the Web]
Comments on Ramsay’s talk:
Though this is a great endeavor, it’s more difficult to peer review podcasts or talks. It will be interesting to see how this develops with non-textual material.
When Steve refers to a “list” (around 26mins), can the podcast include a visual somehow? And, again when he says “here’s what we found” about Woolf’s gendered difference in dialogue (at 33 mins). Would be good to see those slides if the editors can make that happen.
In general (and to keep notes for myself), Steve points out the difference between science and humanistic inquiry is “it’s resistance toward finding the answers.” Instead, Steve asks us to focus on the process essentially, that conversation based on the artifacts of the human experience. The crux comes at the conclusion when Steve reminds everyone that Humanists are uniquely positioned to not only ask the questions but also to build the structures by which we analyze.
Ok. This seems to be a defense about digital humanities actually being part of the Humanities — but who is Steve arguing against? or introducing to DH? Brad seems to bring us into this argument by supposing that Digital Humanities doesn’t close read. (This isn’t even a quibble with Steve’s talk; it’s more about locating the talk for all potential listeners in this venue.)
Ah, but Steve gets to this: “What are the secret fears embedded in my argument?” and answers himself by supposing that the fear is rooted in the use of the machine as opposed to text. Interesting.
When Steve laments the disappearance of Old Franco Moretti, and this is the issue with “old” talks, there’s a moment of immediacy: Franco is doing semantic network analysis now that combines the computational scientist with the humanist. Is there a way for Steve to offer a brief update or even ask Moretti to respond?
One response for the interesting talks given by Mitch Green & Alison Booth. If this particular session is about research & teaching, where’s the discussion about teaching? Perhaps the two speakers can also discuss a bit more how their digital projects have worked in the classroom or included student work.