Until fairly recently I was not aware of the subject of Digital Humanities, and now it seems the only concrete aspect of it I can grasp is that it is a subject in constant flux, controversy, and debate. But just as I know the best books or films were controversial and considered filth or drech, I can tell that this controversy is what gives DH some life. The fact that people are saying terrible things about digital humanities (according to Matthew Kirschenbaum) is a sign that it is a subject worth pursuing (or at least paying attention to).  You can pick your cliche du jour for DH’s situation (“the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about” or “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” perhaps?), but the controversy and mystique of the subject might be part of what allows it to thrive.

When I told people I was taking digital humanities, they usually followed up my response with “what is digital humanities?” I can see in blog posts that some of my classmates were in a similar predicament. Having enrolled in the class but not yet taken it, I was slightly flummoxed as to what to tell them, but I ultimately settled on “the ethics of algorithms.” Little did I realize that this quandary of uncertainty is part of what makes DH the subject that it is.If we look at the news nowadays we can see algorithms being used for less than ethical ends.

The Theories and Virtues of Digital Humanities by Natalia Cecire spoke of “getting your hands dirty” as one of the (possible) central tenants of DH. This version of getting your hands dirty has to do with coding, learning practical applications of programming and it’s possibilities. But we see many people getting their hands dirty in coding for less than humanistic ends. Privacy destroyed, Twitter being used as a battleground rather than a forum for discussion, decapitations on Youtube. It’s a reminder of how the unfortunately all too human sides of humanity can worm their way into our idealized digital utopia. But is this the realm of Digital Humanities to judge or fix? Or is it to study and dissect how humanity has changed in this new era? Or is DH meant to divorce technology from this uglier side of programing and using technology?

Is it the business of DH to truly get its hands dirty? Does DH distinguish between the voice of “the people” and that of “the mob?” Just as Twitter was being used to show what was happening on the streets of #ferguson (Sure, Ferguson is a real place, but far more people have come in contact with the hashtag than set foot in the place), it was also being abused by #gamergate under the banner of journalist transparency (while harassing women working in or critiquing the video game industry).DH is meant to have loftier goals than navigating the minutia of sarcasm in 140 characters. After all, DH supposedly started as an attempt to translate the divine into punch cards. Today there are schools in Japan cataloguing the works of Edo-period woodblock artists, and attempts to study and preserve the works of pre-Islamic Persian scholars. Tara McPherson’s essay Why Are Digital Humanities So White? intrigues me because it leans towards the belief that while we must get our hands dirty with programming and writing digital languages, which much also be mindful of humanity’s own ugliness. If the digital is divine, than it is human to error.

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