Heather Buzbee
When reflecting on what is lost or gained in these articles, I was drawn to the ideas of production, self-awareness, and tendentiousness, particularly in terms of how we consume things as a culture.
When I first began to read about archives and databases, I did not think of them as Ann Stoler claims in Matt Cohen’s piece: “that we should regard archives as places where knowledge is produced, not just stored or displayed…shaping the imagination of those who use an archive” (231). I viewed databases and archives as another resource for research. But something that shapes how I think or research? Not so much. I felt that I was working the database, not the other way around.
I think in these digital archives and databases, scholars and students gain a large amount of materials that are (somewhat) accessible, depending on the resource, to help with particular projects. And, these digital spaces even sometimes enhance the texts in ways that can only be digital, like the Mapping the Republic of Letters Project or even as a place to experiment like in McGann’s example of playing and deforming images of Rossetti’s famous painting The Blessed Damozel.
And, while I do think that this is a gain and that there are huge potentials in these archives and databases to stretch what we think of as scholarship and knowledge, I mainly saw these spaces as a consumer, ie what can I get out of these and what can they do for me? But, I think what these pieces touch on, that maybe most people don’t think about, is how these spaces are affecting us as Cohen states first quoting Hayles, “’the prostheses joining humans and machines’—profoundly shape our identities, not just our representations,…The challenge then becomes to shape editorial policy with a kind of self-consciousness particular to digital storage and delivery.” I think what Cohen touches on here and what McPherson also emphasizes in her piece is a loss of self-consciousness. In McPherson’s piece, there is also a fear of “normalization” and of losing things in the categories. By putting everything in neat boxes, we may forget to question what the boxes are made of, who made them, and why they are there.
And, I think this is a real fear, especially as research in digital archives and databases becomes a “normal” practice. As I said before, I never stopped to question the databases and archives as long as they served their function and I could consume what I needed. And while efficiency is gained, something human, imperfect, illogical, and curious seems lost. Perhaps this is why I’m drawn to McGann’s experimentation and optimistic ending: “So it’s extremely important that traditional scholars and critics experiment with the study of digital images, and–perhaps even more useful–set their students to play and experiment with these materials. If there ever was a situation calling us to imagine what we don’t know, this is one.” But I think McGann’s statement and Ann Stoler’s idea of archives as a place where knowledge is produced should apply to everything we do in humanities, especially digital humanities in order to challenge our tendentiousness and our every day practices as well as constantly produce rather than consume. In doing so, we can gain a new way of looking at things and not to lose our self-awareness of how and why we look at things in these ways.
