“the revolution must be within”
This past Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending Ignite Ann Arbor. It’s the second Ignite event I’ve gone to, and it’s one of my favorite events in the area. The excitement in the room was palpable, and the demographics of the attendees seemed far-reaching. There were presentations on everything from Story Collider – a project seeking to collect people’s personal stories about science – to Ann Arbor Roller Derby, to Creative Commons licenses and how to start using them in your own life (check out Open.Michigan to learn more). I love events that cater to a wide audience, and it felt like there was something at Ignite for everyone.
While there, I made a new friend – a woman in med school, looking to combine her interest in environmental issues with the ability to help people who have been affected by them. In the course of our conversation, she asked what I use Twitter for. “To find interesting things,” was the gist of my response. I told her that unlike Facebook, which I use to stay connected to friends and share information about my personal life, I use Twitter as a personal, professional, and academic database that keeps me connected to relevant information that I may not otherwise find out about. I told her about a project I had heard of some time ago through a friend at UofM iSchool where people were using smart phones as a way to aggregate data on medical issues in Africa, bringing medical services to areas that might not otherwise have access to them. She seemed intrigued.
I friended her on Facebook that night, and the next day I posted on my wall about an event at Eastern Michigan University put on by the GLBT Resource Center. She posted a comment, something along the lines of “How exciting! I’m starting to see some of the benefits of technology.” My heart fluttered a little, a tiny slice of tech activism achieved.
Today Cathy Davidson wrote a blog post on HASTAC titled “It’s Not a Crisis in the Humanities, It’s a Crisis in the Society.” She talks about Humanities programs slipping away, and how inane the notion is that these programs are not compatible with the technology of the Information Age. There was a line in her post that jumped off the page and started the wheels turning in my brain:
“… the revolution must be within or we deserve to lose.”
YES! I wanted to yell at my computer screen, although I didn’t because I’m outside and the neighbors might look at me funny. This idea is not unfamiliar to me – I’ve long been involved in political activism, and there is a constant push in those circles to organize and rally from within. It’s not enough to sit idly by and chatter amongst ourselves while we wait for other people to pay attention. If we don’t work hard for what we believe in, and if we’re not coming together as a group first, why would anyone listen?
I’m excited to see this principle applied to Digital Humanities. When I first discovered DH through HASTAC not too long ago, it felt like a gap had been filled in my universe that I didn’t know was there. I’ve had this experience many times before, knowing something but not having the words to describe it accurately, and finally stumbling into something that pulls all the pieces together for me. Here we are, a bunch of people who believe that merging science and thinking, as Cathy describes it, only makes perfect sense. And unless we are pushing ourselves to create a space where we can talk about it, grapple with it, define it, and enhance it, no one is going to listen to us. Of course, this is exactly what we are doing, thank goodness.
It’s interesting to observes people’s reactions when I tell them what I’m doing at school. I’m an English major, and my Honor’s Thesis revolves around the benefits of merging traditional Humanities programs with more advanced technology and information systems. I describe this to people, as my fellow HASTACers will no doubt have picked up on, as Digital Humanities. I tell them about HASTAC, about the work people are doing, about how exciting it all is to me. Some of them think it’s neat, some of them look at me sideways, many of them respond with a sort of blank stare. Outside of the world of Academia, it seems that this concept is not one that many people have heard of.
“You’re an English major, so you’re going to… teach?” people ask me, as if this is the only option for those of us with a love of literature or other brainy fields. “No,” I say, “I’m going to change the world.” Okay, so that’s a little idealistic, and not actually what I say. But the point is this – Humanities are not just about sitting in dark oak-covered room dusting off old books and speaking in long-winded sentences full of twenty-dollar words. We are creating a revolution, a way to not simply fit Humanities into the new structure of society, but to merge seamlessly two things that we know full well are meant to be together. And it’s up to us to convince the rest of the world that this combination is as natural as coffee and scone.
When I have the opportunity to teach someone about the merits of Twitter, or plant a seed in someone’s mind about the basic concept of Digital Humanities, and then come home to a world of people doing the same thing, I know the revolution has started. I know that behind my words is a group that is rallying in the same big and small ways. And I know that we won’t lose – because we are all here together, and the rest of the world would be crazy not to notice.
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