Part I: I’m not a fan
I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Kirschenbaum’s article and the vast majority of them have to do with the fact that he comes off as a self-congratulatory shithead with an abhorrent writing style. His article comes off as wordy and pretentious and if it weren’t for twitter’s word limit I’m sure his twitter would rival the article’s wordcount multiple times over. However, much as I hate to admit it, he’s not necessarily wrong. I think humanities students should engage with programming. It teaches us how something important in the world works and helps us understand the things we interact with on a day-to-day basis. One of my CS friends also pointed out while I was screaming about this article that programming is important because it teaches you a different way to think and I highly value critical thinking skills so I put a lot of stock in that. But Kirschenbaum values programming too highly. He puts it on such a high pedestal that he disrupts the balance between the digital and the humanities, effectively devaluing the humanities in favor of the digital. It reads like saying ebooks will fully replace print books. Ridiculous.
What Kirschenbaum neglects is that the humanities bring value to the digital just as much as the digital brings value to the humanities. This quote from the conclusion to the article really shows that:
“I believe that, increasingly, an appreciation of how complex ideas can be imagined and expressed as a set of formal procedures — rules, models, algorithms — in the virtual space of a computer will be an essential element of a humanities education. Our students will need to become more at ease reading (and writing) back and forth across the boundaries between natural and artificial languages. Such an education is essential if we are to cultivate critically informed citizens — not just because computers offer new worlds to explore, but because they offer endless vistas in which to see our own world reflected.”
Yes, coding can help give us a new way to think, but that doesn’t mean we need to rely on it to create. I think that a STEM student learning art can bring an appreciation to how complex ideas can be imagined and expressed as a set of formal applications–line, color, shape–in the two and three-dimensional space of the studio will be an essential element of STEM education. Yes, I’m parroting KIrschenbaum, but the point here is that overvaluing one or the other side of the digital humanities puts both at a disadvantage. I can create worlds vast as anything without a keyboard and a programmer can create webpage upon webpage to explore and get lost in, but together we can create universes. You cannot fully take in the endless vistas with one eye closed, nor can you have the digital humanities without equal inclusion of both parts.
Part 2: Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one
Coding experience? That’s easy: I have none. Unless you count learning to use scratch to make bad games in 6th grade and I don’t.
I’m going to be honest. I think I managed html and css pretty well. They make sense, they’re relatively easy, but once I got to the JavaScript tutorial I was totally lost. It was like trying to understand a calculus lecture before learning trigonometry. Like trying to draw on plastic with a crayon. I think I should try again and I will, but I also don’t think I need to be fluent in programming. I think learning the basics will help immensely in understanding the digital side of digital humanities and doing more than that would be greater, but I don’t think I have any interest in learning to code beyond the basics. I also think it’s important to have a little knowledge in multiple skills because
<pre>
jack of all trades,
master of none,
is oftentimes better than master of one
</pre>
I don’t know if I did that right though.
3 replies on “Do Digital Humanities Students Code Electric Sheep?”
On the money. Even though I’m biased toward coding (potential CS major wooohooo), I completely agree in how Kirschenbaum over exaggerated the importance of CS and you worded it perfectly. Very enjoyable read too!
I really agreed with what you said about the basics of computer science being really useful to learn, but an in depth knowledge not being necessary! I also like what you said about the importance of acknowledging the worlds and how while both parts can build worlds, together you can build universes. I thought that captured the ways in which combining both fields can make them more powerful really well.
It’s really interesting how once a certain aspect of something is pointed out, it is really hard to not notice it later. After reading your blog, I went back to read Kirschenbaum’s article and can pick up on where he really does seem rather pretentious on his stance on why coding serves as the ultimate catalyst for future progression, which does seem altogether conceited.