0.21 Negotiating the cultural turn as universities adopt a corporate

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I would like to begin by thanking Jerry McGann for inviting me to engage in this vital discussion. As someone who works with Native American communities, which are rarely represented in forums like this one, it means a great deal to have these indigenous voices recognized and authorized. I would also like to thank Ken Price for his very thoughtful essay. This response seeks to pursue in greater depth an issue raised by Ken’s comparison between the Walt Whitman Archive , a “single author-based” project begun in 1995, and Civil War Washington , a “theme-based” archive currently in development. More specifically, this brief analysis will take up the challenge that Ken puts forward—how can digital humanities transition from earlier, editorial projects, which tended to focus on “canonical” authors or historical moments (e.g., Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Rome or the Civil War), to engage more fully with the emphasis in the humanities-at-large on cultural studies. In other words, how can we negotiate the “cultural turn” without the divisiveness that fractured the humanities in the late twentieth century? In doing so, the paper will lay out a new model for a digital humanities center focused on Native American culture that reaches beyond the academy’s walls to build digital infrastructure in Native American communities.

I want to stress from the outset that my greatest hope is that we can work together to accomplish this new phase without the destructive, ideological ruptures associated with the “cultural turn” of the late twentieth century. One of digital humanities’ greatest assets is its intellectual generosity. It is imperative, at this early phase of our field’s history, that this work be carried out in the spirit of collaboration, not contestation. While I remain steadfastly optimistic that this can be achieved, the goals of this conference may best be served by being honest, self-reflective and perhaps even provocative about the institutional barriers that persist for scholars and communities working outside the select number of digital humanities centers now in existence. More specifically, my concern is that it will require a new kind of creativity, an expansion of the digital imaginary, to implement archives based on cultures that do not descend from the Euro-American tradition of print culture.

The problem of sustainability has shifted dramatically in the last decade as institutions of higher education, from universities to community colleges, move towards a more corporate model, which assesses value in terms of profitability and student preparedness for a new economy. The exact origins of this paradigm shift—the bursting of the dot com bubble, the soul-shaking tragedy of September 11, the near-collapse of the stock market, and a national deficit that stretches over the horizon—remain beyond the scope of this brief essay, but little doubt remains that institutions of higher education seem likely to remain economically cautious for years to come.

Hard questions lurk that necessitate all of the brainpower and collaborative spirit assembled at this conference: Do digital humanities scholars need to reorient their work towards public history and away from the very narrowly focused monographs that are driving down sales and causing economic problems for university presses? Should the interdisciplinary model be expanded more broadly to create multi-authored projects designed in partnership with the private sector, like those developed by scholars working in the sciences? Can we maintain our commitment to an open-source ethic while assuming the heavy burden of having to prove that our projects can be sustained beyond the duration of the grant by generating revenue? Will this burden compel digital humanities scholars to adopt business models, like JStor, that aggregate digital archives and charge institutional or individual subscription fees for access? Or are we entering an era in which it will only be possible to do digital humanities work at a select number of wealthy universities; a vision of the future from which tribal and community colleges are effectively excluded because of a lack of digital infrastructure and the inability to guarantee that the digital projects they develop will be sustained until the end of time?