Digital Commons Network^™

Revising History And Re-Authouring The Left In The Postcolonial Digital Archive, Roopika Risam

Roopika Risam

In November 2013, the National Archives of Britain revealed a secret stash of declassified colonial documents that had been hidden illegally by the Foreign Office for decades past their allotted 30-year suppression period. The archive includes:

[M]onthly intelligence reports on the ‘elimination’ of the colonial authority’s enemies in 1950s Malaya; records showing ministers in London were aware of the torture and murder of Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya, including a case of a man said to have been ‘roasted alive’; and papers detailing the lengths to which the UK went to forcibly remove islanders from Diego Garcia in the Indian …

Beyond The Margins: Intersectionality And The Digital Humanities, Roopika Risam

Roopika Risam

This article examines the relationship between intersectionality and the digital humanities. Intersectionality offers a critical approach to debates between theory and method in the field, transcending simplistic hack vs. yack binaries. This article situates debates over difference in the digital humanities within the context of the culture wars within the U.S. academy during the 1980s and 1990s, locating the stakes for diversity in the digital humanities. It surveys digital humanities projects, outlining the need for alternate histories of the digital humanities told through intersectional lenses. Finally, the article proposes ways of looking forward towards the deeper intersectional analysis needed to …