Digital Humanities Questions & Answers

1. 

   parezcoydigo
   Member

   We're finally starting up a small digital humanities initiative at UT, Knoxville. One of the three elements I'm proposing to the Office of Research and to the College is, of course, a speaker/workshop series. Outside of my twitter community and watching announcements from centers on their speakers series, it would be cool to have a central place to identify people willing to talk or run a workshop on their area of expertise/passion. Does anything like this exist? Would it be an appropriate thing for DHAnswers?

   -Chad

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   Posted 5 years ago Permalink
2. 

   Stéfan Sinclair
   Admin

   A registry of people and expertise sounds like it would be very useful indeed.

   There are so many directions we could take DHAnswers, but I think we want to be careful about growing into an over-extended and amorphous resource. But we'll certainly discuss this further

   In the meantime, one possibility would be to post questions asking for specific suggestions: who might we approach about running a workshop on X or about giving a keynote on Y.

   Posted 5 years ago Permalink
3. 

   Bethany Nowviskie
   Admin

   I like Stéfan's suggestion, not only because I agree about over-extending the DHanswers framework (though it's fantastic that the site is becoming the community focal point we thought it could be!), but also because I'd worry that a blanket "I'm generally available to speak on X" wiki would be hard to maintain, and that the best speakers and workshop leaders might actually be reluctant to advertise themselves in this way!

   It does seem much better to me to use DHanswers to ask specific questions ("Who is known as an authority on X? Who gives great presentations on Y?") that will, I'm sure, get an immediate, crowdsourced response!

   Posted 5 years ago Permalink
4. 

   Julie Meloni
   Admin

   I agree w/ Stéfan & Bethany here but just want to note that a speaker wiki is something that at least Back in the Day was used widely in the valley to increase opportunities for women to speak on tech-related issues (and management, and wellness, and marketing, and a whole host of other things) and there weren't a lot of problems with people adding or updating their information. I understand where you're coming from, Bethany, about people being reluctant, but to my mind, if someone is out there as an available speaker, and likes that, and has the bandwidth to spare it, they would have the motivation to maintain their listing.

   All that is to say that if a speaker wiki pops up, I'd most certainly put my name on it, and maintain my listing as appropriate, because I'm just wired to that way. I can't be the only one!

   Posted 5 years ago Permalink
5. 

   Bethany Nowviskie
   Admin

   Replying to @Julie Meloni's post:

   More power to you, Julie! If a speaker wiki pops up, I will take my overbooked self as far as possible in the other direction! ;) But that's clearly just how I'm feeling this week, viz. Eternal September.

   Point well taken about such a listing having a potentially salutary effect on the gender balance (not to shabby in DH already!) of the speaker circuit.

   Posted 5 years ago Permalink
6. 

   Julie Meloni
   Admin

   Replying to @Bethany Nowviskie's post:

   Well, you know, that's the beauty of a wiki versus a printed publication: people can add and remove themselves when they're overcommitted, and also just indicate things like "and I'm booked for 2011 but keep me in mind for 2012" and so on. And that you (to use you as an example, but I could just as easily use Ray Siemens, or Matt Kirschenbaum, or Julia Flanders, or any other generous soul) wouldn't be listed as currently available would potentially reduce you having to feel pressured to decline politely—perhaps people wouldn't even ask.

   Posted 5 years ago Permalink
7. 

   Bethany Nowviskie
   Admin

   I guess the main thing that seems to me more attractive about using subject-specific Q&A threads in DHanswers for this is that it calls on the community to identify the people they've seen give brilliant presentations or offer helpful training sessions in certain areas -- or to identify people who don't usually get invited to do these things, but who should. It wouldn't preclude someone from raising their hand to offer their own services, but it also strikes me as a little more open-ended and likely to produce surprising and interesting results.

   Anyway, I've offered my two cents x 3 (which, puzzlingly, does not constitute a sixth centh), so will shut up now!

   Posted 5 years ago Permalink
8. 

   Vika Zafrin
   Member

   To Bethany's point about widening the potential speaker pool I'll add a small point: some of the folks best suited to speaking on certain subjects don't come here, and don't hang out on Twitter. They might not even read the Humanist list! OK, so that last one is a bit of a stretch, but my point is, putting oneself on a list of potential speakers implies the presence of an internet-cultural mindset that most likely doesn't encompass everyone, even among the digital humanists.

   Posted 5 years ago Permalink
9. 

   Julie Meloni
   Admin

   Replying to @Bethany Nowviskie's post:

   All true; my concern would be that people get volunteered without actually being available and thus have to expend more energy declining things, or they wouldn't feel right specifically volunteering themselves. I know this is crazy talk, but DHAnswers threads with cross-references to a speaker wiki? winner!

   Posted 5 years ago Permalink
10. 

    parezcoydigo
    Member

    Hi everybody-- thanks for your thoughtful discussion. I had in mind a voluntary wiki, where one could only put on and edit themselves or something. But, I do certainly see how fraught that is with problems.

    Posted 5 years ago Permalink
11. 

    speakerwiki
    Member

    Look no further... http://www.speakerwiki.org

    http://speakerwiki.org/United_States/Tennessee/Knoxville

    Posted 5 years ago Permalink

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