When asked if his undeniably useful and creative work is really science, Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Professor Luis von Ahn answers, “Who cares?” Something for digital humanists to remember next time they’re asked, “But is it scholarship?”
by Tom Scheinfeldt
When asked if his undeniably useful and creative work is really science, Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Professor Luis von Ahn answers, “Who cares?” Something for digital humanists to remember next time they’re asked, “But is it scholarship?”
Great point. But I think digital humanists will have to own up to the scientific nature of their work if they move into text mining.
I’m all for it, but faculty are asked to compartmentalize all of what we do into a few reductionist categories.
“Who cares?” — Sadly, deans, faculty colleagues, and tenure and promotion committees…..
@jmcclurken No doubt deans, promotion committees, etc. care. And of course we need to pay attention to that fact. Just not too much attention…
Actually, answering the “who cares” question is what makes digital humanities more interesting than, say, science. (Ohhh! Burn! I’m taking the scientists *down*!)
Though I’m just dipping my toe into the DH waters, it seems that contextualizing — that is in this case, answering the question of value — is the ‘humanities’ part of DH. Otherwise, it’s just information technology, applied to one area of knowledge. Doing digital humanities means you *get to* answer the “why” while doing fun tech stuff.