Coding != Prerequisite for DH

The debate on whether one can practice Digital Humanities without being able to code defines the largest division within the discipline’s academia.
On one side of the grand division are Stephen Ramsey and Mathew Kirschenbaum, who claim that Digital Humanities is about building projects. Ramsay has in fact famously (or is it infamously?) said, “Do you have to know how to code? I’m a tenured professor of Digital Humanities and I say ‘yes.’”

On the other side, there are people like Mark Sample and Evan Donahue. This part of the academia believes that the ability to program is not what Digital Humanity is about.

And if you ask me, I probably lean towards the latter group.

Not to say that I don’t appreciate computer code. As a college senior majoring in Computer Science, I fully understand the usefulness of knowing programming languages. For example, I recently learnt a web development library called AngularJS (you can visit my profile to see my progress as well as information about the library). Having AngularJS in my skill arsenal has enabled me to write efficient solutions for my website, which means that it can send requests to the database and get back the data at a much faster speed.

Mathew Kirschenbaum was right when he said that “computers should not be black boxes, but rather understood as engines for creating powerful and persuasive models of the world around us.”

That beings said, the inability to make programs or write code should not prevent one from pursuing the path of Digital Humanities. Claiming that every Digital Humanist must be able to write computer code is the same as saying that every historian must know Latin. Latin was once a dominant language spoken in Roman Empire and now is the official language of the Catholic Church.  While it might be useful for a historian who wishes to study ancient Rome to be able to read old latin manuscripts, not knowing the language does not make him any less of a historian.

Evan Donahue wrote that humanities and computer sciences “usefully benefit from one another”, and that the two in many ways try to solve the same problems. He uses Natural Language Processing as an example of a field that is legible to both students of humanities and students of Computer Science.

In that aspect, Digital Humanities are the same.

Quang Tran

6 Comments

  1. I enjoy reading your argument and points of views. I appreciate your perspective and I fully understanding your insight and I do feel that I am persuaded by what you have stated. Even though my statement opposes yours, I believe that I can definitely side with you and espouse your claim. I do have a trivial suggestion for your blog(it probably won’t bother after all)- perhaps you can take a screenshot next time rather than giving the reader a link.

  2. Quang, I find it very interesting that you are one of the only members of the class to take a stand against coding humanities students, and you are also one of the only declared CS majors…

    I really like your analogy with historians learning Latin, which I, as a medievalist had to do, but which many of my modernist friends did not since it is of no use to them. But it seems to me that this is a more apt analogy for humanities students in general. If you call yourself a Digital Humanist, however, should you not at least be conversant with the bedrock languages of your research methods and/or modes of presentation?

    • Austin, to answer to your question, I would like to go back to my historian example. It is true that knowing latin can be extremely useful in doing research about medieval era. However, I am sure that there are also some medievalists who choose to rely on other scholar’s translations instead of learning the language themselves. The same is with Digital Humanities. I still don’t have a clear opinion on whether DH is about sharing or building. However, I know for sure that you don’t need to know a programming language in order to build a DH project. There are plenty of available softwares out there (like SketchUp), and I doubt anyone would write his/her own version of a SketchUp just to include a 3D model in a DH project.

  3. You make a very interesting point, especially if you define the DH as sharing. Perhaps learning how to use different types of software can be more valuable to humanities students than studying a coding language.

  4. I liked how you presented both sides of the argument before stating your opinion (which was presented clearly and concisely) on the matter. I also liked how you supported your argument by saying that “claiming that every Digital Humanist must be able to write computer code is the same as saying that every historian must know Latin” and added that “while it might be useful for a historian who wishes to study ancient Rome to be able to read old latin manuscripts, not knowing the language does not make him any less of a historian.” This was a helpful comparison that persuaded me, and I’m sure many others.

  5. Yes, good analogy with the historian! I’m convinced that the average humanities student doesn’t need to learn how to code. However, as with your Latin example, I would argue that relying on translations instead of learning the language yourself, if you’re studying Rome for instance, would be a huge detriment to your ability to research and do work. I’ve learned that translations just don’t have the meat of the text sometimes. Similarly, I would say that humanities students looking to use technology–looking to go into digital humanities, that is–should definitely learn to code. Although one could give the coding part of the work to a partner or hired help, or anyone else really, not having a direct say in the code written to bring your project to life would definitely have a negative effect on your ability to create the project or presentation or map or… whatever it is you’re creating. Knowing the basics of coding would be really helpful there.
    I also made the mistake of not reading previous comments before typing this out, but I’ve come too far! Apologies for restating some counterarguments which you’ve already addressed. But really, good-looking and interestingly supported post!

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