American Studies at the Digital Crossroads

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Submitted by dkimmey on October 12, 2008 - 3:47pm.
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This week I'll be participating in a panel at the American Studies Association annual convention that will address digital scholarship, pedagogy, and publication -- particularly as they relate to the (inter)disciplines within American Studies.


The HASTAC scholar community comes from a much broader set of fields and disciplines, but I'd still love to solicit feedback that I can incorporate into our panel discussion at the ASA --- and then report back to the HASTAC community via this blog. For this panel discussion, I've been working with a number of incredibly insightful faculty from different institutions, and our panel will no doubt help to diagnose and respond to some of the institutional and ideological difficulties facing digital forms of scholarship, pedagogy, and publication.

For more background on our panel--"American Studies at the Digital Crossroads"--check out our blog, hosted through the Keywords for American Cultural Studies website. You can also read my post which has a brief narrative of how I came to work on managing a wiki that supports classrooms and working groups across different universities.

Two threads are particularly germaine to HASTAC scholars, and graduate students more specifically:

  1. the training we do (or do not) receive in digital technologies from our programs, and
  2. the lack of institutional reward or recognition for incorporating digital technologies into our scholarship and teaching.

Because my role on the panel is to speak to grad student perspectives, I need your feedback!

I've put together a quick, ten-question, single-page survey that will take less than 5 minutes to complete. You can access it here.


Additionally, you can respond here in my blog or on the Keywords blog with your own input about institutional challenges for professionalizing in our respective fields while still incorporating new media and digital technologies within our classes and our own research.

Some questions of mine that may provoke comments:

  • How does your department recognize your work in digital technologies?
  • Does your department consider your training in digital technologies to be an essential part for professionalization in the digital age? Or is it merely considered an added perk to your portfolio?
  • Does working in new media and digital technologies come at the cost of advancing toward your degree? Or, to put it another way, does your work in digital technologies become a "second shift" for your grad school workload?
  • What limits do you face for implementing innovation in teaching through new media and digital technology, given the current structure of your institution?

Look back for updates on what I plan to present, as well as a report for how the panel ultimately addressed these concerns.

 

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Posted on: October 12, 2008 - 9:55pm #1
responding to your questions

It is so great that conferences are starting to address these questions. I relate to this topic in a somewhat weird way, being a a humanities student at MIT, a technical institute. Because of (at least in part) the culture of MIT, there's a significant lab component for most students in my program (15 hours a week), which usually requires some minimal technical skills; for instance, I work in a digital humanities lab, HyperStudio, which requires that I know something about databases, etc.. (One of the labs here, Project New Media Literacies, focuses a lot on these same questions as they relate to K-12 education.) In addition to lab work, students are required to take a year-long workshop, which gives a very basic and broad introduction to media production (you have to create a music video, a website, a book, some form of computational art, etc.etc.). This class has been problematic, since students with advanced skills get bored, while students with no skills are intimidated. Everyone is encouraged and given the support needed to use their technical skills in the thesis (someone is doing her thesis as a documentary film, for instance). 

So, because of the nature of my program, working in digital technologies doesn't become a "second shift" for my workload at all; but a new problem is starting to come up. Comparative Media Studies only grants an M.S., so I'm starting to look at PhD programs, mostly in English or comp lit. I'm being warned against overemphasizing my digital/media work, since it might be seen as either a "distraction" or a "threat" both to faculty members who don't understand it, and to the traditions of the discipline or department. I can understand this if it's true (I don't know that it is -- I've just been warned), but of course I'm also worried that my work will be judged based on a set of assumptions about what it means to engage with new technologies, rather than on its merits alone. I imagine these are the kinds of assumptions and biases that are going to be discussed in your panel.

Posted on: October 13, 2008 - 7:54am #2
Will other HASTAC Scholars be at ASA?
How many other HASTAC Scholars will be at ASA? I ask because I have another commitment for lunchtime on Friday, when this session is scheduled, but I'd love to meet some of you. I'll be hanging around, wearing my badge. I'll try to get to the session as soon as my lunch is over and, if anyone is there, I'd love to meet you and maybe go for coffee. If other HASTAC Scholars are interested, I know I could be free at 2. Drinks or coffee----I'm buying! And you can recap what sounds like a fantastic session. I'm bummed I'll miss it, but would love to meet you and other HASTAC Scholars if that works out. Let me know, here or at my email: cathy dot davidson at duke dot edu (for the bots).
Posted on: October 13, 2008 - 1:40pm #3
Looking forward to hearing more

Hi Deborah,

Thanks so much for posting. I hope that you will either liveblog the ASA panel here or write an entry summing it up later, as we're all curious to see how the panel goes.

Best,

Jonathan E. Tarr, HASTAC Project Manager

Posted on: October 15, 2008 - 4:51pm #4
Recap

Whitney --- I'm envious that you have such rigorous on-the-program training in so many media. When I worked in the business world, I was always struck by how new media consultants were some of the most innovative, creative thinkers I've known. ... And I'm glad that my interactions with the academic digital technologies circle is proving to be just the same.

You highlighted something that's come across in my survey so far: the growing disparity beween students who have a lot of experience with new media and digital technologies and students who are relatively unfamiliar with productively and creatively using these media. The majority of people who have responded so far have indicated that they've received their literacies through work experience or self-learning. I wonder about the broader implications on this gap ... on the job market ... and on knowledge production in our respective fields.

Other items to report: so far I have about 40 responses --- not bad for a day's work! People are coming from a number of institutions: Brown, Fordham, Case Western, UT Austin, Duke, George Mason, MIT (that was you!), and UW -- my home base. 

Other questions people have raised:

  • Should we be treating our students as novice scholars and pushing them to use research technologies or should we focus more on increasing their technological literacy by helping them become more critical users of the digital technologies with which they are already familiar?
  • How can we make our work matter within academia?
  • As funded graduate students we are already under a lot of pressure to turn around a dissertation as quickly as possible and oftentimes there is no room for the kind of digital literacy workshops many of us need. Also, the professionalization process rewards more traditional kinds of production (published articles, papers at conferences) as opposed to websites, digital stories, etc. Given our tight schedules it is sometimes difficult to adopt new media and digital technologies into an already heavy workload, and there is no room for the kind of training that would help us integrate them seamlessly
  • In my experience, digital humanities seems more strongly directed at research, not the classroom experience. I'm wondering if a. it's there and enthusiastically embraced, but I haven't seen it b. it's there, but it's low priority c. it's not there, and nobody is much interested in it.

Just thought I'd report back (following Jonathan's suggestions :)

Feel free to keep posting your thoughts!

 

Posted on: October 15, 2008 - 4:57pm #5
Thanks, everyone!
Things are (finally!) all set for Friday's panel. Thanks to everyone for the feedback on my impromptu survey. I plan to incorporate many of your comments and questions into our discussion at the ASA --- and then report back on the response from the other panel participants and from the audience. I'm bringing a voice recorder so we can post the panel on the Keywords website, though I won't be able to post it until after I return from Albuquerque. I'll keep you posted nonetheless!