“What’s a star doing big as a baseball?” (Photo (c) Robert Goldwitz, 2013)
Below is the abstract for a panel paper I will give at the American Literature Association Conference in Boston, May 2013. The Robert Frost Society hosts the panel.
More than just a poem about two men debating the merits of scientific achievement, Robert Frost’s “The Literate Farmer and the Planet Venus: A Dated Popular-Science Medley on a Mysterious Light Recently Observed in the Western Sky at Evening” is a direct challenge to the reader’s sense of security about his own beliefs. In the poem, a stranger appears at a farmer’s doorstep one night. The stranger asks about the bright light in the sky, which he assumes is the planet Venus. The farmer, however, believes it is an “incandescent lamp” installed by Thomas Edison to lengthen the workday, much to the stranger’s astonishment. Critics suggest the farmer’s references to technology, evolution, and religion indicates he is well read and that he only pretends to believe light is a lamp. He takes this position to mock “the values symbolized by Edison,” including technological advancement, unquestioned faith in science, and an emphasis on thrift. The reader’s own incredulousness over the farmer’s notion that an incandescent lamp is the source of sky’s bright light makes it easy to believe he’s playing the devil’s advocate during the debate.
My alternative reading challenges that analysis by accepting the farmer’s belief that the light is, in fact, an incandescent lamp. The farmer is literate, but he represents a man well read in popular science, as the poem’s subtitle suggests. To support this reading, I contextualize the poem within popular print sources from the 1920s that encouraged faith in science and technology, causing readers to value beliefs and ideas backed up by scientific authority and reject any that were not—effectively closing off other avenues of thought.
In shaping his poetic response to this trend, Frost may have been influenced by William James’s “On a Certain Belief,” where James concludes that when beliefs masquerade as immutable facts, our understanding of the world becomes limited. In the essay, James describes his encounter with North Carolinian farmers who live on deforested land. He believes the scene ugly and depressing, but learns the farmers consider the denuded landscape a symbol of progress. James’s insight is that although his belief contradicts the farmers’, both beliefs are valid. Frost’s poem demonstrates that conclusion by leaving the men’s debate unresolved. Such a debate cannot be decided because what we consider a fact is, at bottom, a belief. Facts—scientific or otherwise—are only true and secure if we believe in them. As such Frost cautions the reader against dismissing another’s beliefs if they do not agree with his own, no matter how ludicrous they might seem. A better position remains open to questions and contradictions that perpetually challenge beliefs, including the ones posited by science.
On July 9, I delivered “Why Faulkner and the Digital Humanities Need Each Other: A Short Introduction” to the 2012 Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha Conference: Fifty Years After Faulkner. The conference is composed of an international array of new and seasoned scholars who come to read and listen to papers. The audience also consists of secondary-school teachers, college and grad students, as well as many with no academic affiliation at all. They attend because they have interest in (and love of) the work of William Faulkner. All kinds of people show up: Scientists, lawyers, economists, retirees, artists, librarians, and ad execs. Past years have seen at least one beautician and a Waffle House waitress (actually, she was a college student from Ukraine working in Florida for the summer). Some in the audience live in Oxford, MS, where the conference is held, and a few (many have died in recent years) knew Faulkner and his family. Thus, speakers are advised to keep academic jargon and pretension to a minimum and enjoy the sizable audience (50-100 people) that usually is very friendly as long as words such as Yoknapatawpha, Beauchamp, and Lafayette are pronounced correctly (or gentle correction will ensue). Given these circumstances, it seemed appropriate to introduce the panel I organized, “Virtualizing Native Soil: Faulkner and the Digital Humanities in the 21st Century,” with a brief and basic explanation of what it means to say “digital humanities.” Aside from this panel, all the papers were traditional in their scope and presentation.
A Prezi illustrates my talk. The presentation sweeps to the next circle every time CLICK appears in the text below.
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As many of you have heard, the latest rage in academia is the digital humanities. In fact, the digital humanities is not a passing fad. It is here to stay.
What are, or is, the “digital humanities?”
The precise definition of “digital humanities” is still taking shape, and there are many definitions. Here’s a few I’ve culled from about three hundred different definitions offered this year by people with some connection to the digital humanities:1 CLICK [italicized definitions are paraphrased in the talk]
“A diverse and still emerging field that includes the practice of humanities research in and through information technology. It also includes the development of digital educational / research / teaching / archival / publishing resources for the specific use and study of the humanities and interconnected disciplines. The digital humanities is also concerned with an exploration of how humanities may evolve through their engagement with technology. —Ernesto Priego
Ernesto Priego says the digital humanities is emerging; it uses information technology for research, education, archival preservation, and publishing. It is an exploration and an evolution of the humanities through and with its engagement with technology. CLICK
An interdisciplinary field with porous borders that is generally concerned with the impact of digital technology on traditional academic practices of teaching, research, and service. —Matthew K. Gold
Matthew Gold claims the digital humanities is interdisciplinary. It is what happens when technology intersects with the traditional practices of teaching, research, and service. CLICK
It’s beyond interdisciplinary–it’s a new ecosystem that includes scholars, librarians, archivists, computer scientists, graphic designers, administrators, students, teachers, granting agencies (public and private), and anyone else interested in promoting humanistic ways of experiencing digital media (or digital ways of experiencing the humanities). —Edward Whitley
It’s beyond interdisciplinary, argues Edward Whitley, because it extends beyond individual academic departments to all areas related to academia: from librarians to computer scientists to deans to granting agencies. CLICK
And finally, according to Roger Whitson, the digital humanities is “Making stuff, and using it to collaborate and connect with the public.” CLICK
I analyzed these four definitions using Wordle. CLICK [See image, above.]
Wordle, if you don’t already know, is a very simple text analysis tool that highlights words in a text according to frequency of appearance. It’s helpful for revealing keywords in a text, but also for revealing what’s not being explicitly stated, but implied (Try putting some Faulkner text into a Wordle and you’ll get some interesting results). Aside from digital and humanities, the words that pop out as being most used in these definitions are experiencing, teaching, research, interdisciplinary, includes, and technology. CLICK
What strikes me about this combination is that aside from “technology” all these words come from the realm of the traditional humanities. “All” we’re adding is technology: But technology changes things in a potentially dramatic way—whether it’s a positive or negative way depends on how the technology is used, of course. Nevertheless, technology can potentially change how we experience or process knowledge; it can change the way we teach and research; it can change the way we publish and disseminate knowledge. Technology forces us to be interdisciplinary: For example, some research projects may require historians, literary scholars, graphic artists, and computer programmers.
Technology also redefines for the humanities what it means to say “include”: For example, we can use technology to make contact with people and sources of information, such as in archives and databases, in multiple locations, simultaneously, any time of day or night. CLICK
Neil Fraistat suggests that instead of asking “What is the digital humanities,”2 we might ask, “What do you want from the digital humanities?” Or, to rephrase that, what does Faulkner Studies want from the digital humanities? CLICK
I think this is why I like the last of those four definitions, which can be rephrased as “We want to make stuff and use it to collaborate with others to connect with the public.” CLICK
Steve Railton’s several projects at the University of Virginia involving Faulkner are wonderful examples of that definition and what we as Faulkner scholars might want from the digital humanities. These projects include online sound recordings of Faulkner speaking, as well as mapping, timelines, and visualizing data. John Padgett’s William Faulkner on the Web is also an incredible resource for Faulkner scholars. Much of this material and its implications for Faulkner Studies will be discussed by the panelists today. CLICK
The integration of computer technologies with traditional humanities research, publishing, and teaching can “can help us imagine academic practices in new ways” (Sayers).3 This panel will give you at least a glimpse of what the digital humanities has and will offer to Faulkner scholarship. I hope it will inspire you to start your own project or contribute to a current one.
William Faulkner, 1962, Martin J. Dain, Courtesy Martin J. Dain Collection, Southern Media Archive, Special Collections, University of Mississippi Libraries
The following abstracts are for the panel entitled “Virtualizing Native Soil: Faulkner and the Digital Humanities in the Twenty-First Century,” which will be presented to the 2012 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. An earlier post contained the panel proposal.
The proposed panel papers:
“Why Faulkner and the Digital Humanities Need Each Other: A Short Introduction,” Elizabeth Cornell
“Hypertext, the World Wide Web, and the Fiction of William Faulkner: A Backwards-Forward Look at America’s Greatest Postmodern Modernist,” John Padgett
“Digitizing Yoknapatawpha: Progress Report on a Work in Progress,” Stephen Railton
“Journey to the Center of Yoknapatawpha: An Experience of Digitizing Faulkner’s Fiction,” Taylor Hagood
“Why Faulkner and the Digital Humanities Need Each Other: A Short Introduction,” Elizabeth Cornell
“Hypertext, the World Wide Web, and the Fiction of William Faulkner: A Backwards-Forward Look at America’s Greatest Postmodern Modernist,” John Padgett
“Digitizing Yoknapatawpha: Progress Report on a Work in Progress,” Stephen Railton
“Journey to the Center of Yoknapatawpha: An Experience of Digitizing Faulkner’s Fiction,” Taylor Hagood
This past year, the Fordham Graduate School of Arts and Sciences awarded me a research support grant to help fund my self-directed foray into the digital humanities. As a recipient of this award, I must participate in Fordham’s 2012 Annual Research Poster / Video Competition, to be held at the end of March. My abstract follows, and later I’ll post the transcript for the video I plan to make, which will be posted on YouTube.
Recently the digital humanities has been called “the Next Big Thing,” as though it is a passing academic fad. In fact it is a big thing that is here to stay. “Stay,” however, is a funny word because the digital humanities is a dynamic field, drawing researchers and students from every traditional humanities discipline, including English, history, and philosophy, who are creating digital projects even as they strive to define what it means to be a digital humanist. Often working collaboratively and across multiple disciplines, digital humanists use traditional critical methodologies alongside digital tools and publishing venues to research, collect, and analyze digitized and born-digital materials. The digital humanities is moving fast and deep, and it can seem threatening to some humanists who feel its force but haven’t joined in. As I make my way through its plentiful resources, methodologies, and ethos, I share what I learn with interested teachers, students, and researchers who want to learn more about the digital humanities and suggest constructive ways they might contribute to the field.
This video presentation gives a brief summary of the tools used by humanists working in the digital realm to conduct research (such as mining online archives and perform electronic text analysis), harvest and store information (such as using Zotero, which collects resources that can be kept private or shared), develop their ideas (such as by posting work on a blog for comment or collaborating with others working on similar projects and sharing data), and share that knowledge in a public way (such as through blogs, online Open Access journals, or more traditional publishing routes).
February 2012 update: This project has been tabled for the moment. GSAS excused me from my obligation because I had other time-consuming, more pressing commitments, including my dissertation; planning for THATCamp NY 2012; and an upcoming workshop at Fordham for graduate students on building a professional website.
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