(Un) Doing the Digital Humanities

Thursday, February 2, 2023

10:00 am - 11:00 am

About the Event

In The Digital Humanities Coursebook, scholar Joanna Drucker defines Digital Humanities (DH) as work done “at the intersection of computational methods and humanities materials.” While some DH projects do operate at this intersection especially when processing materiality and methods of presentation are in an alignment or in logical progression, most DH projects do not. In this talk, Linda Garcia Merchant, Ph.D., will explore what it means to “do” digital humanities through the process of undoing that intersection, looking at a variety of examples of DH, collaborations with a focus on process and finally, how the silent partner in the collaboration–the research question–maintains agency and advocacy in the successful deliverable. Ultimately, how does this “undoing” help to build a standard for collaborative relationships across disciplines and as a community of practice within the DH Core Facility at UH.

About the Speaker

Linda García Merchant is the Public Humanities Data Librarian at the MD Anderson Library, University of Houston. García Merchant holds a PhD in Chicana/Latina Literary and Cultural Studies and Digital Humanities from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. García Merchant is also the co-founder (with Maria Cotera) of the Chicana por mi Raza Digital Memory Collective at the University of Texas. García Merchant is a Digital Humanities Consultant on the Afro-Chicanx Digital Humanities Project: Memories, Narratives, and Oppositional Consciousness of Black Diasporas, a cross-institutional and cross-regional comparative research project funded through Crossing Latinidades, an Andrew C. Mellon Foundation initiative. An award-winning documentary filmmaker García Merchant has directed and produced eleven films including Las Mujeres de la Caucus Chicana, Palabras Dulces, Palabras Amargas, Thresholds, Corridos at his Bedside, Yo Soy Eva, and the autobiographical short, No Es Facil, 2020.

REGISTER