Introduction: Theory and the Virtues of Digital Humanities

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I came to theory because I was hurting—
the pain within me was so intense I could not go on living.

—bell hooks, “Theory as Liberatory Practice”¹

The silicon chip is a surface for writing.

—Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto”²

The debates around the role of “theory” in digital humanities are debates about the relationship between saying and doing. It therefore seems appropriately inappropriate to introduce a special section on digital humanities and theory with poetry, a kind of utterance in which language, it is still conceded, may do as well as say. Marianne Moore’s “In the Days of Prismatic Color” begins:

When Digital Humanities Was in Vogue

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

“More hack, less yack,” they say. I understand the impulse, and to some degree admire the rough-and-tumble attitude of those in digital humanities whose first priority is getting things done. Hell, I like getting things done. But I cannot agree with the distinction between theory (little-t) and practice that this sets up, nor the zero-sum logic that it implies—i.e., that in order to do more we must speak less. “More hack, less yack” is, of course, just a slogan, a “spontaneous philosophy,” a stopgap. But stopgaps won’t do now that digital humanities is in vogue.

Ncecire on Journal of Digital Humanities

Introduction: Theory and the Virtues of Digital Humanities

When Digital Humanities Was in Vogue