Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Navigating The Global Digital Humanities: Insights From Black Feminism, Roopika Risam

Roopika Risam

As the field of digital humanities has grown in size and scope, the question of how to navigate a scholarly community that is diverse in geography, language, and participant demographics has become pressing. An increasing number of initiatives have sought to address these concerns, both in scholarship—as in work on postcolonial digital humanities or #transformDH—and through new organizational structures like the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organization’s (ADHO) Multi-Lingualism and Multi-Culturalism Committee and Global Outlook::Digital Humanities (GO::DH), a special interest group of ADHO. From the work of GO::DH in particular, an important perspective has emerged: digital humanities, as a field, can …

Toxic Femininity 4.0, Roopika Risam

Roopika Risam

This paper examines constructions of toxic femininity within fourth-wave feminism. Taking hashtag feminism as its focus, this article contends that charges of toxicity lobbed online reproduce divisive dynamics that have shaped earlier trends within feminist movements in the United States. It further suggests that Twitter, as a platform, amplifies deep discomfort with theories of intersectional feminism while shaping how normative gender is reproduced online.

Rethinking Peer Review In The Age Of Digital Humanities, Roopika Risam

Roopika Risam

For academics, double-blind peer review processes remain the gold standard for validating scholarly work. The value accrued by scholarship has traditionally flowed mono-directionally from peer review. In the hierarchies that govern academic hiring and tenure and promotion practices, the single-authored monograph from the distinguished scholarly press sent out for review upon completion occupies a position of prominence. Among shorter forms, the prestigious academic journal provides readily legible markers of academic quality. Yet, for scholars working in digital formats or within digital humanities, conventions governing the gatekeeping of “scholarly” work feel increasingly mismatched to the digital milieu. Therefore, digital scholarship requires …

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 …

Building An Ethical Digital Humanities Community: Librarian, Faculty, And Student Collaboration, Roopika Risam, Justin Snow, Susan Edwards

Roopika Risam

This article examines work building a digital humanities community at Salem State’s Berry Library. The initiatives are comprised of a three-pronged approach: laying groundwork to build a DH center, building the DH project Digital Salem as a place-based locus for digital scholarship and launching an undergraduate internship program to explore ethical ways of creating innovative research experiences for undergraduate students. Together, these initiatives constitute an important move toward putting libraries at the center of creating DH opportunities for underserved student populations and a model for building DH at regional comprehensive universities.

Transforming The Landscape Of Labor At Universities Through Digital Humanities, Roopika Risam, Susan Edwards

Roopika Risam

No abstract provided.