Hello everyone! I’m an incoming History PhD student, returning to school after a career in international development and gender justice work. My research at GMU will focus on U.S. history and histories of women and gender, social movements, and foreign relations. I’m approaching Clio Wired with trepidation. I actively try to remove tech from my life – I’m not on social media, don’t keep my phone on me, and read hard copies of books whenever possible. But I also understand tech’s potential for liberation, connection, and social justice work, including through democratizing and expanding access to knowledge. These interests and my background are the lens through which I am engaging in this class.
Our first week, readings opened the digital history black box, asking what exactly could be considered digital history and who exactly could call themselves a digital historian or humanist. Adam Crymble’s Technology and the Historian brought some order to the chaos, as did Dr. Otis in class. Most helpful in Crymble’s historicization of the field is his differentiation between the tools of digital historians, the ways in which they have been used differently by different subsets of historians over time (teaching, research, archiving, public history), and the ever evolving and global ecosystem in which digital historians operate, that is driven in part by a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration and inquiry.1
I took to heart Crymble’s exhortation to use very specific vocabulary for the type of digital history we are doing and the tools we are doing it with. Crymble quotes historian Finn Arne Jørgensen: “digital humanities tools and methods are not magical tricks that can translate (vague) data into results and insights. Be very specific and realistic about what is to be done.”2 Browsing through the digital history examples provided in Douglas Seefeldt and William G. Thomas’ article “What is Digital History” and recipients of the Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Creativity in Digital History, I got a sense of what it might mean to be specific and why it would be important. Do I want to use GIS to show spatial relationships as in Envisioning Seneca Village, or bring a historical period alive through auditory recordings of popular music, or broaden access to a 17th century text through a digital platform? It’s important that the digital tool and tech match the purpose and aim of the historian – I’m making a mental note as we start thinking about our group projects for the semester.
I also was struck by how quickly older digital history projects could appear obsolete, like those Seefeldt and Thomas identified in 2009. Although the research and analysis in them is important, like that of the Texas Slavery Project by historian Andrew Torget that contributes a significant analysis on the development of slavery in Texas before it became a U.S. state, I wonder if the very tech that made it possible might also more quickly make it inaccessible to younger generations unfamiliar with it. If a digital historian cares about democratizing access, what does this mean for the tech and tools we choose for our work? Should we be creating traditional manuscripts available in book form alongside any contemporary digital format? Is there a baseline of accessible tech and practices we should be using and how often does it need to be updated?
In class, we created WordPress sites and our first test blog posts on Reclaim Hosting. My one reflection on the experience (which wasn’t terribly difficult if you use canned templates and plug-ins) was the feeling of terror that comes with not understanding the tech you are using. I don’t understand how plug-ins work, or how host sites like Reclaim Hosting protect your information. And I’m afraid that because I don’t understand the tech, I’m opening myself and my computer up to hacking and potentially to the hacking of my friends and colleagues through me. Do I just trust that others out there have this knowledge and are paying attention? Or do I put in the time and effort to learn it myself and spend time and attention monitoring it? This class is as good an excuse as any to start learning.
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