Jeremiads regarding the decline of educational standards, the failure of students and
Burdick et al. “One: From Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 7.
faculty alike to adequately embrace humanistic ideals, and the demise of tradition
may well be inherent to the process of education itself.
I don’t think there has ever been a change that no one has opposed. Whether it’s a restaurant in your home town being replaced by a coffee shop, or the advent of digital art, there will always be people who think that the old way of doing things is better.
This passage grabbed my attention because I often find myself on the side of restraint when it comes to change. After all, there is a reason why “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a common saying. But reading this quote reminded me that change can be and is often a good thing. Digital humanities is proof of that. The very first and most basic digital humanities projects were archives, which not only saves written works and artifacts from being lost forever, but allows them to be more readily accessible to the public.
The quote kindled a desire to not just appreciate art, but to find new ways to spread it and teach people about it. I find that even though we come into contact with so much graphic design and art in our day-to-day lives, we place very little emphasis on it in terms of academia or careers compared to math or science. I’m interested in learning how to not just deliver information, but how to use the tools in digital humanities to learn and educate people in ways that make them think about how they are receiving the information.
I’m interested in learning website creation and design as well as 3D modeling to diversify the way I create things beyond knowing how to write and draw. I’d also like to learn more about archives and what makes them work well and how we can make them even more accessible for everyone.
The conflict between innovation vs. tradition is definitely prominent in Digital Humanities. On one hand, the tools that DH introduces, like art and programming, break the traditional paper or article, which is composed of columns of text (maybe with an image or two.) Then again, there is also a big push to preserve what already exists from people who found the old stuff good enough. One could have a giant webpage with thousands and thousands of old documents and text, but one needs modern practice and UI design theory to ensure it is easily usable for the public.