I took a class last fall which involved some fairly intense reading for someone with no theory background. One of the questions the professor asked throughout the semester was essentially "How do we get these ideas out to a general public?" She, like me, is someone interested in making significant social change to better the lives of other people. My honest answer was, "Make them more accessible to the Average Joe."
It's not like the Average Joe couldn't buy the titles we were reading on Amazon like I did; anyone certainly could. It was just that the arguments in some of the books were articulated in such a complicated way, the average non-academic would struggle getting past the second page, which would even make it hard to give the books away for free. It also didn't help that the books were mainly written for a close-knit group of scholars, who exchanged ideas with each other rather regularly. People need to be able to have relatively easy access to understandable information if they're, at least, going to read it. I believe digitization offers several options to do that. If I can post or publish one thing that will challenge a person's perceptions of native issues in this country, I'll feel like my career won't be wasted.
I saw the digital methods class as a way to learn how to do it or at least how other scholars are doing it. It seems that in a lot of humanities fields, especially history, tradition and progress seem to be at odds sometimes. Julia Flanders and Chuck Tryon argued in their pieces that scholars in the humanities aren't strangers to using technology to get their ideas out in the open. However, the need to put future scholars through a "hazing" ritual of the same trials and measurements that their advisors and mentors did seems to stand in the way of incorporating the digital with creating new Ph.Ds or tenured faculty.
William Cronon and Mark Sample seem to have pretty progressive views about how the digital can add to scholarship. In an article titled "Getting Ready to Do History," Cronon proposed that doctoral candidates post their research and findings to websites as supposed to writing 500 pages of a dissertation that very few people will read. Larry Cebula was able to use his successful blog to get tenure. I know everybody doesn't agree that getting a doctoral degree or getting tenure should "appear" to be so simple. I can understand why.
If digitization will work for historians and others in the humanities, it needs to match the standards of the work we produce. While Chuck Tryon acknowledges how helpful blogging can be to scholars, he also says that the ability to publish material immediately leads to "the production of unreflective, spontaneous material that doesn't reflect thought or analysis." As long and tedious as the peer or blind review process is and may be, it helps to ensure that high standards of scholarship are followed in publishing. This is merely one example of the hurdles that humanities will have to overcome if it is to adapt to an increasingly digital world, and adapt it must.
Whereas some scholars wouldn't value the input of non-academics regarding their work, having such input would be valuable to mine. What better way is there to judge if your research or analysis is relevant to the people you mean to reach? But then, I want to reach the ordinary citizen; other scholars are only interested in writing for other scholars.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Thought I'd blow the dust off this thing.
The last time I wrote any blogs for this thing, I was a graduate student at Georgia Southern. Now I'm a fourth-year grad student at the University of New Mexico. It's amazing to think of how much has happened in my life since I last posted. I've lost both of my parents, my sister, and a aister-in-law. I have a master's degree and all the joys and pains that come with writing a thesis. I have a real social life for the first time that has challenged me, and still is, in balancing work and life.
Living in Albuquerque has posed its own set of unique experiences for me, too. It's amazing how much more nuanced the world can feel when your social environment isn't literally black and white. In New Mexico, I'm truly a minority, seeing very few other black people in my daily life. I'm also not part of the most disadvantaged racial minority in the region either. No amount of reading could help me understand the discrimination that native peoples have to go through. It's also been interesting to hear about the racial struggles of Mexicans and Chicanos who live here and come from elsewhere. So many similarities, so many differences. I'm a six hour drive from either of the nearest large cities. I've been to Denver three times and have yet to have fun and hang out there. I've not been to Phoenix, but I have seen the Grand Canyon with my own eyes. There really are no words to describe such beauty.
On the national stage, I'm writing this in the middle of the turmoil going down in Ferguson, MO. Darren Wilson, a police officer in Ferguson, shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black kid, who was unarmed and had his hands up to surrender. Brown's death is the latest in a series of nationally-publicized murders of black people either at the hands of the police or of white vigilantes. This also coincides with rampant police violence here in Albuquerque that's gone international. It doesn't surprise, but it still amazes me how much the right wing media is still allowed to fabricate events of Brown's death and promote racism through defaming his character. What is even sadder is how many people I thought were not racist are so willing to go along with these narratives and not challenge them. To be fair, there have been so many lies told on both sides of the story that it's hard to know what is true and what isn't. What I do know is that there is no evidence that Brown did anything to deserve being killed. It doesn't feel like society or the justice system will seriously attempt to make sure this doesn't happen again.
It's been an interesting year on the sports front, too. Just before the summer, my nephew was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks. He has yet to play for them yet, due to injury, but I will be buying his jersey relatively soon. The World Cup in Brazil was amazingly entertaining, despite all the worries over the justified protests from Brazilian citizens. Instead of studying for comps, I watched or listened to nearly every game that was played. Luis Suarez caused another big stir when he bit Giorgio Chiellini during Uruguay's game with Italy. That made the third time the idiot has bitten another player, despite being suspended for it before. I was shocked by how many Liverpool supporters still wanted to defend and support him after learning he wouldn't be able to suit up for the Reds until well into the season. I'm personally glad that he's gone. The guy put fans like me in an awkward position when he used racist language toward Patrice Evra. How am I supposed to feel when the manager and owner of the club isn't condemning the words, but supporting the player who said them? When he bit Branislav Ivanovic during a game against Chelsea, they supported him then too. I don't want a player like that playing for my team. If we win games, they should be won fairly. Players should have enough integrity and respect for their club not to do stupid things that will get them suspended. Losing to Crystal Palace, thus losing the league, last season hurt more than I can say. Suarez's supporters point to his 30 goals last season and say, "We would've never gotten that close if it weren't for him. Plus, he got us into Champions League." What they don't think about is, "How far could we have gotten if he had been able to play the whole season?" Our defense issues aside, I think it's fair to say that Suarez's countless suspensions cost us a league title, too. Thankfully, he's Barcelona's problem now, but it seems that Liverpool may have signed another potential problem. Here comes Mario Balotelli! Let's see what comes of this.
Living in Albuquerque has posed its own set of unique experiences for me, too. It's amazing how much more nuanced the world can feel when your social environment isn't literally black and white. In New Mexico, I'm truly a minority, seeing very few other black people in my daily life. I'm also not part of the most disadvantaged racial minority in the region either. No amount of reading could help me understand the discrimination that native peoples have to go through. It's also been interesting to hear about the racial struggles of Mexicans and Chicanos who live here and come from elsewhere. So many similarities, so many differences. I'm a six hour drive from either of the nearest large cities. I've been to Denver three times and have yet to have fun and hang out there. I've not been to Phoenix, but I have seen the Grand Canyon with my own eyes. There really are no words to describe such beauty.
On the national stage, I'm writing this in the middle of the turmoil going down in Ferguson, MO. Darren Wilson, a police officer in Ferguson, shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black kid, who was unarmed and had his hands up to surrender. Brown's death is the latest in a series of nationally-publicized murders of black people either at the hands of the police or of white vigilantes. This also coincides with rampant police violence here in Albuquerque that's gone international. It doesn't surprise, but it still amazes me how much the right wing media is still allowed to fabricate events of Brown's death and promote racism through defaming his character. What is even sadder is how many people I thought were not racist are so willing to go along with these narratives and not challenge them. To be fair, there have been so many lies told on both sides of the story that it's hard to know what is true and what isn't. What I do know is that there is no evidence that Brown did anything to deserve being killed. It doesn't feel like society or the justice system will seriously attempt to make sure this doesn't happen again.
It's been an interesting year on the sports front, too. Just before the summer, my nephew was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks. He has yet to play for them yet, due to injury, but I will be buying his jersey relatively soon. The World Cup in Brazil was amazingly entertaining, despite all the worries over the justified protests from Brazilian citizens. Instead of studying for comps, I watched or listened to nearly every game that was played. Luis Suarez caused another big stir when he bit Giorgio Chiellini during Uruguay's game with Italy. That made the third time the idiot has bitten another player, despite being suspended for it before. I was shocked by how many Liverpool supporters still wanted to defend and support him after learning he wouldn't be able to suit up for the Reds until well into the season. I'm personally glad that he's gone. The guy put fans like me in an awkward position when he used racist language toward Patrice Evra. How am I supposed to feel when the manager and owner of the club isn't condemning the words, but supporting the player who said them? When he bit Branislav Ivanovic during a game against Chelsea, they supported him then too. I don't want a player like that playing for my team. If we win games, they should be won fairly. Players should have enough integrity and respect for their club not to do stupid things that will get them suspended. Losing to Crystal Palace, thus losing the league, last season hurt more than I can say. Suarez's supporters point to his 30 goals last season and say, "We would've never gotten that close if it weren't for him. Plus, he got us into Champions League." What they don't think about is, "How far could we have gotten if he had been able to play the whole season?" Our defense issues aside, I think it's fair to say that Suarez's countless suspensions cost us a league title, too. Thankfully, he's Barcelona's problem now, but it seems that Liverpool may have signed another potential problem. Here comes Mario Balotelli! Let's see what comes of this.
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