Cultural Criticism
One of the most prominent digital humanities scholars, Alan Liu of the University of California, Santa Barbara, also makes some of the most pointed critiques of the field. He draws attention to the neglect in the digital humanities of cultural criticism – investigations into how culture influences how texts are written, read, and interpreted. This lack of emphasis is particularly evident when compared to the aims and practices of the traditional humanities, and even more so in comparison to New Media Studies, in which net critics and “hacktivists” actively participate. Although digital humanists have developed, adapted, and adopted computational tools, and have raised critical questions as to whether these tools assist in truth-finding, according to Liu, “…rarely do they extend their critique to the full register of society, economics, politics, or culture” (Liu, 2012).
Liu also thinks that the digital humanities also need to advocate more for the humanities in general. With the rapid advance of communication and networking technologies, the digital humanities can play a role in connecting the humanities to the wider community, as traditional means of dissemination, such as monographs, are not well suited to this task. He states that the digital humanities still have great potential to contribute to cultural criticism, and to rethink the concept of instrumentality, or agency. Thinking about digital technologies, including metadata, should be done in a way that “scales into thinking critically about the power, finance, and other governance protocols of the world” (Liu, 2012). In the words of Liu, “…the goal is to rethink instrumentality so that it includes both humanistic and STEM fields in a culturally broad, and not just narrowly purposive, ideal of service” (Liu, 2012). In conclusion, Liu makes two recommendations. The first is that the digital humanities should have a more expansive dialog with new media studies and media archaeology to refocus thinking about instrumental technologies towards cultural and historical concerns. In this dialog, digital humanities retains its focus on computational techniques, including text encoding and analysis, pattern recognition, and the creation of digital resources and archives. The second suggestion is that digital humanities expand its understanding of instrumentality by entering into dialog with science and technology studies, thereby gaining insight into how scientific research, technologists, technical processes and instruments, and communications media combine, and become part of society and culture. Digital humanities would therefore better understand the instrumentalism of its own methods. These two recommendations would allow the digital humanities to better come to terms with cultural issues through the development of an intellectual infrastructure that enhances its ability to engage with global cultural issues (Liu, 2012).
