“I am uncomfortable with any culture that encourages taking on an entire identity rather than expressing a facet of my own identity (‘maker’ rather than ‘someone who makes things’).
Debbie Chachra, Beyond Making, Making Things and Boundaries
I was drawn to this passage because the difference Chachra points out seems small at first, but it actually says a lot about how we define ourselves through the things we do. Calling yourself a “maker” turns an activity into an identity, while saying that you are someone who makes things leaves room for all of the other parts of who you are. I think this stood out to me because I have a lot of interests that do not necessarily fit neatly into one category. I am interested in literature and writing, but also theater and film. I would not necessarily want any one of those things to become the defining label for who I am.
This also made me think differently about Digital Humanities. The first reading describes Digital Humanities as an intersection between traditional humanistic inquiry and computational methods, rather than something that completely replaces the humanities. I like that idea because I am more interested in adding new methods to what I already do than completely changing how I think or work. Chachra’s distinction between being a “maker” and being “someone who makes things” seems relevant here. I do not necessarily need to become a programmer, designer, or “digital humanist” as an entire identity in order to experiment with those methods.
Because of that, this term I am most interested in exploring areas where digital methods can interact with literature and other forms of storytelling. I am especially curious about digital archives, textual analysis, visualization, and multimedia projects. This chapter makes the field seem much broader than simply learning how to code. I want to experiment with these methods while still approaching them from the interests and skills I already have.
Beyond Making, “Making Things and Drawing Boundaries”, Chachra, Sayers
https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/untitled-aa1769f2-6c55-485a-81af-ea82cce86966/section/daed12ff-5373-41a2-8b19-8438ab0004cf#ch36
“Humanities to Digital Humanities”, Burdick, Drucker, Lunenfeld, Presner, Schnapp, 2012
https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9248.001.0001