Porsdam’s article raised an interesting point, one that I have not considered much. How do we balance the need for more scientific methods and the values of the humanities? I had only briefly heard of Snow and Leavis before this article and I don’t think I really appreciated at the time the importance of their debate. Obviously, the bridging of the gap between the ‘two cultures’ is crucial to the development of digital history.

Again, a new example of one recurring theme of the class is present in the readings. In this gap-bridging, there is a focus on the “process rather than the finished product” in history. This methodological transparency was mentioned in the Gibbs and Owens reading as well, but the risk of wide engagement of the general untrained public in history needs to be tempered with the training of traditional historical academia. The problem with this is that, as Porsdam states, “the humanities have come to be seen today as out of touch with life outside the walls of the university. This has in turn led to an attempt to move more students into vocational training in order that higher education may be reserved for more elitist-minded students.”

A bridging of this gap may involve redefining the humanities through a vocational filter. As humanistic research becomes more digitized, there may be a more blue-collar (or maybe ‘less-elitist’ is a good enough way to say it) association with the humanites. The trick then, I think, is the balancing of elitist-associated academic methods and training with the less-elitist and more general-interest public’s engagement. Stated differently, the problem, perhaps, is less about balancing the current methods of the humanities and the sciences and more about altering how we view these two cultures.

The Gibbs and Owens article raised a couple of interesting points to consider. First is the use of data to help determine historical inquiries. This is an obvious benefit of data, even quick glimpses at tables or Ngrams, as Gibbs and Owens state, can help a historian to ask questions that will eventually lead to the doing of history.

However, as the preponderance of data becomes more and more significant and as that data continues to change, it is important to note the importance of “methodological transparency”. Historical work must include the process by which conclusions were reached based on the evidence, the data. This is important going forward; technology will be ever-evolving and so “we must continue to teach each other how we are using and making sense of data.” I think this will also become relevant more and more for past work. As history is published outside the traditional monographic form, that work will remain as is. A website will function as it was meant to at the time it was created, but over time, websites will come to function differently. The methods and forms must remain transparent, so that our future historians will fully appreciate today’s work about the past. Otherwise, today’s work may come to be judged different hegemonic lenses which could confuse a work’s conclusions.

This is closely related to the second point, which is indicative of a recurring theme discussed in the semester’s readings: that of the need for understanding historical context. Gibbs and Owens discuss the term ‘user’ and it’s usage over time. When eliminating certain associated words, it was clear that the word ‘user’ came up much more than in the context of technological advances. Someone without the professional historical training might have fallen into a trap. Thus, once again, it is important to maintain the standards and training that guide a professional historian through research.

The readings this week were thought-provoking. What happens to the humanities now that they are digital, and what if we could have a richer querying system that let us search across different kinds of sources and databases to make more connections to the past?

Porsdam

There are a lot of things going on in Digital Humanities.  Quantitative vs qualitative concerns, computational humanities, humanistic technology, losing humanistic core competencies, the cross-over with public interests, perhaps a utopian “digital enfranchisement of the public.”  It’s all a bit much for a digital historian newly under development, to take in. However, I have always been concerned about the divide between history (humanities) and science.  I believe the state of our education system derives from this divide. I have read C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959), and found that my concerns lived a long life before I came to know them.

I agree that we “should work toward developing a humanistic understanding of technology.” It isn’t up to historians alone, it’s also up to scientists.  I fully believe we need each other, because we are all having the human experience.  So, I am all for using digital tools to “bridge the gap…between the quantitative orientation of the natural sciences and critical cultural discourses in the humanities.”  Bridging that gap may be part of the whole digital age paradigm shift, but I am not sure we will know it has worked until it has passed. That’s history.

Ciravegna et al.

The Semantic Web.  This is different than the plethora of “application-specific interfaces” that humanities database designers have created along the way.  The semantic web would be an attempt to go beyond internet keyword searching, to mine information in web pages, not just perform data retrieval (66).  It would be able to draw data from a variety of differently structured sources and render it intelligible, with a single, unified matrix which defines the relations of the parts to one another and to the whole (69).  The issue of how historians deal with primary and secondary sources came up.  There’s the evidence, and then there’s the historiography.  Which should be included?  At stake is an oncology of history, but the ambiguity and complexity of history makes it difficult to to model history this way.  Anyway, there are strides being made in the techniques of Semantic Web technology, if not the thing being made, itself.  I am excited about this technology.

The readings this week discuss the issues surrounding historical writing and data usage, and how to represent data from sources.  The second reading seems more technical and advanced, because I haven’t learned any of the coding language(s) yet.

Reading Highlights

Gibbs/Owens

This article points out that even though historians are using digitized and born-digital sources in their research, they are still writing in traditional forms.  They call for a “new level of methodological transparency in history writing” and say it may be time to de-emphasize “narrative in favor of illustrating the rich complexities between an argument and the data that supports it.”  I think the sentiment behind the last statement is controversial.  I am not sure I would be comfortable explaining my use of digital methods, as part of my historical writing.

At present, I wouldn’t write about my experience in the archive, or my failures at finding sources, or how I came up with an insight – in a scholarly article about a historical topic.   I am not sure what that kind of transparency has to do with a scholarly argument or why they should be woven together, necessarily.  I do believe it is essential to combine digital methodologies with traditional history writing methodologies to get a more complex and rich understanding of our sources. Yes, the argument is affected by this mixture of richness and complexity.  The historical argument isn’t about mechanics, it’s more about contextualization.  Anyway, this idea is a source of professional tension that I can relate to.

Now, if this point is more about teaching other historians by example, then I understand it. Blogging, workshops, conferences, classes like this one are definitely about digital methodology and are by nature transparent.   These are part of the individual historian’s experience and should be shared, as we are doing in this blog.

Spaeth

In the Lab readings we have been learning about the differences between source-oriented and data-oriented approaches to database design.  Spaeth seems to be advocating a source-oriented database approach that is more flexible because it addresses all the various kinds of information a textual source, such as an inventory list, contains.  In this discussion Spaeth tries to provide a solution to the ordered hierarchy of content overlaps that occur when you have “fragmented texts, implied and ambiguous data, and cross-references” that violate hierarchical assumptions. I have to admit that all of this is difficult for me to understand.  I realize he decides to ‘encode multiple hierarchies’ to  try to represent how items and rooms relate to each other,  in the inventory list.  I know XML is involved because it is more flexible and allows for consistent analysis (61).  Exactly how XML technically does that is what I still have to learn.

The readings for week 3 I think contribute to our previous discussion about who has the authority to do history.

While reading I paid particular attention to a quote from the Erickson reading, saying that among the challenges of research and writing over a period of years is keeping information in context of originating sources and distinguishing between the information of different sources. In keeping with our previous discussion over the role of professional historians, I think this is one aspect of the training that helps keep the practice of history safe from the dangers we previously discussed.

Hitchcock’s article discusses the potential devaluing of a professional historian’s authority as archives become more accessible digitally. He raises some valid points, such as questioning the opinions and views of those who established archives in the past, but ultimately discusses the changes in the practice of researching and writing history.

Hitchcock sees new digital modes of access to information as potential challenges to authority presently enjoyed by professional historians; Erickson presents new digital methods of organizing research as an incredible potential benefit to the historian in researching and presenting authoritative work. Of course, these are both true; there is always a chance that paradigms will change and new methods can increase accuracy and efficiency. However, new doesn’t mean flawless. Amateur historians need to be careful to remember the importance of context and professional historians could do well to remember that amateur historians could provide many useful contexts to consider as well.

This week’s readings made me think about the historians relationship with the structure of knowledge and sources.  Our relationship is changing.  We can now digitally reformulate the structure of knowledge to find different kinds of information from our sources.  This is a little bit disconcerting, because I am also learning how to deal with traditional structures of knowledge, like archives.  In my case, I am actually learning how to digitally structure knowledge first, before I’ve had first-hand experience working in physical archives. Interesting.

Reading Highlights

Erickson

This was a good example of a historian who decided to use a relational database for information management.  Erickson learned that “how we organize and interact with information from sources can affect what we discover in them.”  Once she had her ‘digital note cards’ she was able to sort and sift, and get ‘granular’ with the information she had collected.  Full-text searchability was a key factor here, which allowed her to organize what she had noted, but also to recognize new patterns.   The database was relational because Erickson was able to see how some information related to other information in ways she had not previously recognized.  I was encouraged by this example.

Hitchcock

I appreciated this article because it helped me see how historical authority has been based on archival work.  Archival work can be emotional and visceral, because of a sense of direct connection to the past.  Digitization changes the historians access to sources, takes them out of context of the archival structure.  Furthermore, Hitchcock pinpoints keyword searching as a factor in melting the archival structure.  I am not sure I agree with the statement that a changing relationship with archives “undermines … our claim to social authority and authenticity as interpreters of the past” (89).  Then again, I haven’t yet found something in an archive and had the pleasure of authoritatively interpreting it.  The point is taken that if all sources are digital, and therefore, reproducible, the historians special understanding of a source (found in an archive) could become less authoritative.

It seems like the readings this week caused some discomfort in our group.  We read about the divide between professional and amateur historians, the academy and the public, memory and history.  The instigator of this discomfort appears to be the internet.  That is to say, digital tools, spaces, and practices in relation to history as they are used by professional historians and amateur historians are illuminating a divide.

While I am keen to earn professional credentials, I believe public interest in history should be cultivated.  We are all amateurs at something, we all have unique memories.  I believe the internet/digital age is and will continue to make history accessible, perhaps someday, transparent. Professional historians can now learn to participate in the process.

Reading Highlights

Madsen-Brooks 

The discussion about historical credibility, politicization, and professional intervention is necessary because of the nature of a polarized society.  I am not surprised by this.  I agree that professional historians are presented “with new opportunities and modes for expanding historical literacy” online.  I do not think wish to police public memory, fight conspiracy theories, etc.  I do like the role of educating others on how to be more critical of primary sources, and find ways for ‘citizen history’ projects to intersect with professional research.

Wolff

This discussion seemed to be about historians’ comfort level with open-access sources and processes of knowledge dissemination.  Of course historians benefit from databases and digitized sources and we use these more and more.  We may get access through professional subscriptions or our association with educational institutions.  However, the general public also has access to “vast swaths of historical information and analysis…on the open web.”  This is where we “share a space” with the public.  My intellectual heart skipped a beat when I read “the normative form of access to the past will be electronic.”  I agree and am excited about the possibilities.

Unsworth

I heard the old “publish or perish” mantra in my undergraduate history courses.  It’s a scary proposition to think I have to publish research to earn my credentials, but really, who is going to read it? Unsworth basically says we should find the audience, which is perhaps not entirely academic, or utterly specialized.   The problem is how to be effective or profitable as electronic publishers learn how to charge for their services appropriately.   Readership and communication between professionals about their field is still important, and digital publishing is another avenue to maintain these vital paths in our field.

Cubitt, Geoffrey. History and Memory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed February 2, 2015).

I was extremely intrigued by Unsworth’s differentiation between memory and history, which is in essence the differentiation between professional and public history.  This divide has been placed on a public platform because of the digital age.  Cubitt has some interesting things to say about the nature of the relationship between history and memory.  His argument is more plainly stated than Wolff’s.

The title of chapter 1 for instance is “History and Memory:  An Imagined Relationship”.  He discusses the ways in which people have tried to relate memory and history and suggests that they can be reconciled only by understanding that they are different beings and have separate roles to play in the social and academic experiences.  Cubitt’s discussion of the profession is extremely powerful and I think contributes to our debate on what makes a historian, and perhaps refutes Madsen-Brooks’ argument that everyone is a historian (“I too, am a historian”).

For instance Cubitt cites Collingwood’s argument about the separation between memory and history which can also be seen in the case study about African American Confederates in the Madson-Brooks article.

“This imagination, Collingwood implies, is
concerned with conceptual issues (ones of causation, for example or of social structure, or of long-term continuity and change) that derive from the realm of historical thought rather than from remembered experience. The essential achievement of historical reasoning is to rescue us from a slavish dependence on memory’s limited and subjective form of consciousness.”

This book lends new insight onto the historical process and why it is so important to preserve the academic rigor that marks our profession. It also helps the reader to have a greater understanding of the relationship between history and memory which is part of this ongoing debate about the digital humanities.