CSDH/SCHN 2013
From CIRCA
VTracker |
---|
Content stucture deleted. (4 Occurances) |
Content structure inserted. (5 Occurances) |
On Tuesday June 4, 2013 the History and Archives group will be presenting the paper "Digital Activism and the Digital Humanities" at Congress in Victoria, Canada
Contents |
Abstract
At the close of every year TIME magazine awards a person or
group of persons the honourific ???Person of the Year???. In 2011
this title was awarded to The Protestor. From the Arab Spring to
the Occupy Movement activists worked to gather support, to connect
to each other, and to bring about change. In addition to massive
mobilizations The Protestor had an arsenal of digital technologies
at their disposal and terms such as Twitter Revolution, Revolution
2.0 and #__________ became ubiquitous.
Shortly before the unrest of 2011 a collective of digital
humanities scholars and practitioners in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and
Australia came together to found 4Humanities. In response to
alarming funding cuts to many universities and education programs
these advocates believe it is their responsibility to act in
defense of the humanities; ???The humanities are in trouble today,
and digital methods have an important role to play in effectively
showing the public why the humanities need to be part of any vision
of a future society.???[1]
This paper will discuss the potential for digital activism in
humanities advocacy from within the walls of academia:
??? First we will define the term digital activism discuss its
history and some tactics.
??? Next we will describe the international 4Humanities Initiative, its goals and activities.
??? Finally we will outline one activity undertaken at the University of Alberta to assist in this grassroots endeavour - the creation of an Advocacy Guide for digital humanists.
The Advocacy Guide is composed of five sections:
1. What???s at Stake - describes the funding and support issues prevalent in the Humanities.
2. Brief History of the Humanities - describes the historical ???splitting??? of the Arts of Sciences.
3. Arguments FOR and AGAINST - covers the arguments both in support of the Humanities as well as those with a negative view.
4. Preparing for Advocacy - describes the important factors to consider when developing an advocacy campaign for the Humanities.
5. Tactics - discusses appropriate digital advocacy tactics drawn from the literature on digital activism.
Alan Liu writes that:
"Truly to contribute, I believe, the digital humanities will
need to show that it can also take a leadership role. The obvious
leadership role at present is service for the cause of the
humanities. Now that the humanities are being systematically or
catastrophically defunded by nations, states, and universities, the
digital humanities can best serve the humanities by helping it
communicate in the new arena of networked and social public
knowledge, helping it showcase its unique value, and helping it
partner across disciplines with the STEM sciences in ???grand
challenge??? projects deemed valuable by the public and its
leaders." [2]
The digital humanities have an advantage and even a responsibility to make use of the improved analytical and communicative methods afforded to us today. This paper will show some of the ways we can.
Paper
Introduction to Digital Activism
- What is digital activism