The Emergence of the Digital Humanities
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University of South Florida Scholar Commons English Faculty Publications English 8-28-2013 The Emergence of the Digital Humanities Steven E. Jones University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/eng_facpub Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Scholar Commons Citation Jones, Steven E., "The Emergence of the Digital Humanities" (2013). English Faculty Publications. 178. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/eng_facpub/178 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE EMERGENCE OF THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES This page intentionally left blank THE EMERGENCE OF THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES Steven E. Jones Routledge New York and London First published 2014 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Taylor & Francis The right of Steven E. Jones to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Jones, Steven E. (Steven Edward) The emergence of the digital humanities / Steven E. Jones. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Humanities—Electronic information resources. 2. Humanities—Computer network resources. 3. Education, Higher—Effect of technological innovations on. 4. Digital communications. I. Title. AZ195.J66 2014 001.30285—dc23 2013011696 ISBN: 978–0–415–63551–6 (hbk) ISBN: 978–0–415–63552–3 (pbk) ISBN: 978–0–203–09308–5 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo and Stone Sans by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon CONTENTS List of figures vi Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1 Eversion 18 2 Dimensions 39 3 People 73 4 Places 98 5 Things 124 6 Publications 147 7 Practices 178 Selected bibliography 199 Index 207 FIGURES I.1 3D printed prototypes, IIT Idea Shop 2 1.1 Twitter conversation, Gibson 19 2.1 QR code for this book’s Tumblr 41 2.2 QR code with instructions 42 2.3 QR code with glyph 45 2.4 Pixel Pour by Kelly Goeller, http://kellotron.com 48 3.1 reCaptcha 76 4.1 Skyrim map mashup 110 4.2 Skyrim Map iOS App 111 4.3 Virtual Harlem in Second Life 115 4.4 Digital Harlem 116 5.1 Ian Bogost, A Slow Year 130 5.2 Skylanders figurine 141 5.3 Skylanders in-game characters 142 6.1 Bookman’s Alley sign, Evanston, IL 150 6.2 Twitter conversation, Kirschenbaum 160 6.3 Twitter conversation, Sloan 161 7.1 Caitlin Fisher, Circle 183 7.2 Borsuk and Bouse, Between Page and Screen 185 7.3 Between Page and Screen being read 186 7.4 Between Page and Screen being read 187 7.5 Abstract 3D print, Nowviskie 192 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book really began as the subject of a spring 2012 graduate seminar, English 415 (“Media and Culture: The Network Is Everting”), where we all read texts and played games and thought through historical developments, technologies, and representations in ways that shaped the arguments that follow. So I’m grateful to the group of English and digital humanities graduate students who made up that seminar: Vicki Bolf, Trevor Borg, Alex Christie, Katie Dyson, Will Farina, Paul Gonter, Erik Hanson, Nathan Jung, Saira Khan, David Macey, Colin McGowan, Sean O’Brien, Maureen Smith, Cameron Phillips, Karissa Taylor, and Andrew Welch. Two of these helped with the book more directly when they served as my research assistants: Nate Jung and Will Farina. Erik Hanson provided access to an early screening of Indie Game: The Movie at Chicago’s Music Box Theater, as well as sharing his knowledge of video games—at a level far above any I’ll ever attain. Other students in the MA in Digital Humanities program were also helpful early responders, including Amy Cavender, Helen Davies, Katie Dunn, Amanda Forson, Mandy Gagel, Niamh McGuigan, Caitlin Pollok, and Adam Tenhouse. Colleagues at the Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities (CTSDH) reacted to early versions of floated ideas with appropriate skepticism—Nick Hayward, Kyle Roberts, Peter Shillingsburg, and George Thiruvathukal—as did friends and colleagues who visited the Center as guest speakers, including Steve Ramsay, Ted Underwood, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Kari Kraus, and Matt Kirschenbaum. The DH community on Twitter and the blogs was a source of everyday inspiration, ideas, and impressive hive-mindedness. Sometimes a crazy bee stood out, of course, none more so than Mark Sample, whose buzz-worthy performances online and in person always tested and provoked, and Ian Bogost, who will not want to be included under the DH umbrella (like someone standing viii Acknowledgments on the train platform who’d prefer to get rained on), but who has done more than many others to make DH worth debating and understanding. Both generously checked portions of the manuscript draft as it was in progress, as did Matt Kirschenbaum and Bethany Nowviskie, but all errors and shortcomings are of course mine, not theirs. Bethany Nowviskie also gave a moving talk at MLA 2013 that helped to inspire Chapter 7 and then kindly responded at length to my emailed questions. Artist Kelly Goeller took the time to discuss her work in email exchanges and granted permission to reproduce her photo of her own iconic Pixel Pour in Chapter 2. To Matthew Gold I’m grateful for the opportunity to present a version of the argument as part of his open-access Debates in the Digital Humanities, where comments from peer-to-peer reviewers, especially Jentery Sayers, Tanner Higgin, Claire Warwick, and Dave Parry, were very helpful. Similarly, anonymous reviewers for the DH 2013 conference at the University of Nebraska offered useful evaluations of a proposal based on the introduction. I’m grateful too for the feedback provided in person at conferences and talks over the past year, including at University of Illinois Chicago—at the invitation of (the other) Steve Jones, who also answered a number of questions specific to the arguments—and Marie Hicks and Carly Kocurek at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), who also kindly took me on a quick, impromptu tour of the Idea Shop at IIT’s University Technology Park, as I recount in the Introduction. The usual thanks to my family have to include, in this case, more specific forms of recognition, as this book benefitted a good deal from the touchstone of Heidi’s computer-science expertise (and general worldliness), and from Hannah and Emi’s insights into education and the arts and chicken farming (as they contribute to Appalachian Maker culture). I remain inspired by the amazing Henry’s ever-resurgent creativity in multiple media, and I’m grateful for the time we worked downstairs together in adjacent rooms. I thank them all for listening to me read aloud the new bits, about which I was least uncertain, but especially for leaving me alone in the mornings to write, then joining me later at the beach for beer and grouper sandwiches. A note on sources: On a topic so embedded in the present digital network, it has been necessary to cite a good number of online sources, including potentially ephemeral ones, individual blogs and Twitter among them, but also project Wikis and experimental publications on CommentPress and similar platforms. References to online sources by URL or DOI were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor the press is responsible for URLs that may have changed or expired since the manuscript was completed. I also make use of e-books in many cases, so I declare the format (usually Kindle) and cite by location or page (where available) in my copies, but, of course, as is often the case these days, text search may be a more efficient way to locate cited passages. Because of their practical ephemerality, wherever possible I cite Twitter exchanges in the body of the text using screen captures. INTRODUCTION On a cold March day in Chicago, I crossed the heavily designed campus of IIT. I had just given a talk (on this very book, then in progress) and had enjoyed coffee in the dramatic campus center designed by architect Rem Koolhaas (with the Green Line train running through it). But my hosts from the Humanities department had also arranged for me to drop in to see the fabrication and rapid- prototyping lab, the Idea Shop at the University Technology Park.1 In one empty room we looked into, with schematic drawings on the walls, a large tabletop machine jumped to life and began whirring, as an arm with a router moved into position. A minute later, a student emerged from an adjacent room and adjusted something on the keyboard and monitor attached by an extension arm to the frame for the router, then examined an intricately milled block of wood on the table. Next door, someone was demonstrating finely machined parts in various materials, but mostly plastic, wheels within bearings, for example, hot off the 3D printer. At the table where he stood, a box full of colorful 3D-printed prototypes or experimental objects (it was hard to tell the difference just by looking) was laid out, like interesting toys.