Guest

Quinn Dombrowski, Stanford Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, Founder of the Data-Sitters Club, and Director of Stanford’s Textile Makerspace

Discussion Topic

As Bethany Nowviskie notes, the phrase “more hack, less yack” began as “a silly…comment on the dominant structure of academic conferences” and then “went viral at a moment when the last thing the digital humanities needed was an anti-intellectual-sounding slogan.” As that early debate signals, DH has long ruminated on the intellectual value of applied work. Recently, these conversations have turned increasingly—and perhaps paradoxically—material and analog. This week we explore the “maker turn” in light of the field’s development we have traced throughout the semester. Why are Dhers sewing and weaving and book binding and cooking and printing, and how do those practices complement or extend the work of the field?

Discussion Prep and Collaborative Notes Document

Core

  • Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, read the “Introduction” and then browse (at least) 8-10 weeks of the experiments in Dear Data (2016), library link. Please note our library’s license only allows one simultaneous user for this book, but does allow you to download up to 100 pages, so consider downloading a chunk and then leaving the site so your colleagues can access!
  • Julia Flanders, “Building Otherwise” in Bodies of Information (2018), external link
  • Claudia Berger, John Russell, Pamella Lach, and Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, “Making Research Tactile: Critical Making and Data Physicalization in Digital Humanities” (2024), external link. Also browse the project featured in this special issue of dh + lib. Note: The dh+lib website is currently undergoing maintenance. If these links don’t work, try the Wayback Machine.
  • Amanda Visconti, Quinn Dombrowski, and Claudia Berger, “#DHmakes: Baking Craft into DH Discourse” (2024), external link

Penumbra

  • Charity Hancock, Clifford Hichar, Carlea Holl-Jensen, Kari Kraus, Cameron Mozafari, and Kathryn Skutlin, “Bibliocircuitry and the Design of the Alien Everyday” (2013), external link
  • Bethany Nowviskie, “On the Origin of ‘Hack’ and ‘Yack’” in Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016, external link
  • Jentery Sayers, “I Don’t Know All the Circuitry” in Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (2017), [external link] (https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/untitled-aa1769f2-6c55-485a-81af-ea82cce86966/section/7d8fca82-c6ca-480f-bf17-1df4a2cdb577#intro)
  • Kim Brillante Knight, “Material Data Visualization as Feminist Praxis,” in Bodies of Information (2018), external link
  • Lori Emerson, “Excavating, Archiving, Making Media Inscriptions: In and Beyond the Media Archaeology Lab” (2019), external link
  • Matt Ratto, “Not Just Guns but Bullets, Too: ‘Deconstructive’ and ‘Constructive’ Making within the Digital Humanities” in Debates in the Digital Humanities 2019, external link

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