Critical making combines the concepts of critical thinking and physical production, focusing on the act of creating as an avenue for reflection. Critical making in the digital humanities is expanding through playful and experimental work.
Johnson, Emily, and Anastasia Salter. Critical Making In the Age of AI. E-book, Amherst, MA: Amherst College Press, 2025.
I have loved stories since before I could write the alphabet and that love of telling, writing, and swimming in stories has become how I most recognize myself. Writing has shaped the way I view the world and altered how I think on a fundamental basis. I am always looking for new ideas, experiences that will make me a better writer, and more notebooks I will never fill. I write, play piano, and have too many boxes of miscellaneous art supplies scattered around my house. I am a creative person and when I read this quote, I paused.
Why? Because I haven’t typically viewed Digital Humanities or the digital world in general as a way to experience creativity, or at the very least, experience the type of creativity I do. Traditional art and any sort of digital creation have always felt very separate to me. In many ways, I think this is because using technology in the humanities feels like cheating because it often initially appears easier.
Once upon a time, however, the wheel was cheating too.
I liked this quote because it both surprised me, made me think, and framed Digital Humanities in a way I hadn’t fully considered before: not only is Digital Humanities a legitimate way to express creativity, but it is another way to look deeper into both ourselves and various subjects. And this, in my opinion, is the entire point of any creation.
I haven’t been entirely persuaded yet, and I think there is real value in creating in a messy, tangible room, but I hope that I can continue to challenge my assumptions on what Digital Humanities means and how I can incorporate it into my personal creative ventures. I took this course for a reason, and I look forward to learning more about “the wheel”. 3D modeling in particular grabbed my attention because I can see many applications for it in future worldbuilding projects.
(It would be so cool to 3D model a character’s house.)