Hey, everyone.  Chip here.  A quick introduction to me: I’m a first-year PhD student in English here at the University of Maryland.  I just finished an M.A. in English at GWU last year, so I’ve been in DC for a little while now.  For the last couple of years I was really interested in looking at the intersections of postcolonial theory and queer theory, as a way to understand how sexual behavior becomes increasingly politicized in times of political change.  Of late, I’ve started contemplating a future-leaning look at how science fiction projects the next wave of colonial expansion.

As far as my DH background goes, it’s not too extensive.  I took a course last semester with Kari Kraus, and we examined the history and future of the book, and more general of humans’ interactions with text.  I got a pretty decent look at some of the DH debates around the physical media that carry text, and I’m excited to have an opportunity to learn more in this course.

In the readings for today, I was most interested in a theme raised by a couple of the quick definitions in the DDH article “Day of DH: Defining the Digital Humanities.”  Mark Marino and Ed Finn both point to what they see as the impending obsolescence of the very idea of Digital Humanities.  They suggest that very soon there will be no sense of Digital Humanities as something separate from simply…humanities, as everything will become somewhat digitally-inclined as our society as a whole (including the academy) becomes more digitally integrated.  I found this to be a particularly interesting take, because it simultaneously foregrounds the importance of Digital Humanities (since everything is about to become digital) while acknowledging that DH as its own entity is doomed (and in fairly short order).  So I wonder if I’ve already missed the boat, in a sense, as far as DH goes?  By the time I get comfortable enough with DH to call myself a DH’er, will doing so seem a little bit like putting “Proficient with Word-processing Software” on a resume?