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<div>Dear Tom,</div>
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<div>As someone employed as a Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities and with an interest in the history of technology and computing, I enjoyed your article immensely. I’ve just signed a contract to produce a book that dovetails very nicely with your argument,
as it happens, so will be exploring the area in more depth over the coming year or so. ‘The Digital’ is as evocative of our current era as flares and sideburns were to the 1970s, no doubt about that, but if we can get enough critical distance it becomes a
fascinating object of study. DH is wrapped up with it (some would say implicated in it), to be sure, in the same way (perhaps) Dada was to modernism or pop art to postmodernism. Most ‘DHers’ I know just want to use technology to enhance the broader tradition,
though; the administrative / marketing / disciplinary / etc vehicles we use to do that are or should be secondary. In many ways the current moment has just gotten away on a bunch of humanists who happen to also be interested in tech. If we can be of service
to the broader tradition and (this is crucial) develop a mature intellectual relationship to our era and our practices, I see no harm.</div>
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<div>My only gripe with your article – apologies if I misinterpreted this - is that I do think that some humanists should be developing tech skills. We can’t leave that up to computer scientists and software vendors (who have other priorities), we need to learn
to collaborate with computer scientists and engineers (so we can help them build the products we use), and it’s a good way to better understand our latest digital bubble. Aside from a bunch of other things, tech skills are useful for teaching, research, and
publishing. And that attitude is at the core of the digital humanities in my opinion: the circumstances of scholarship and the corporate university mean we need to articulate ‘product lines’ and ‘new directions’ and ‘relevance’ but I’d like to think all most
of us care about is getting on and contributing to the scholarly tradition with the best tools available. If DH can help us do that – for now and into the future as well – all the better. </div>
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<div>I did my doctorate during the 1990s, back when humanities computing as well as the history of computing (and history of technology generally) were peripheral to humanities scholarship, and viewed as second-rate in some circles. It’s good to see the vision
of the early adopters in both fields maturing, regardless of the static to noise ratio that has resulted from this absurd digital moment we’re experiencing. The Humanities Computing + DH + SIGCIS combo is a grand one – may the conversations begin. </div>
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<div>I was delighted to see there will be a THATCamp SHOT after the Dearborn SHOT meeting: <a href="http://shot2014.thatcamp.org">http://shot2014.thatcamp.org</a>/. It seems a logical venue for some of us to continue this discussion.</div>
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<div>Best regards,</div>
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<div>James Smithies</div>
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<div>Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities | University of Canterbury</div>
<div>dh.canterbury.ac.nz | +64 3 364 38966</div>
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span>Thomas Haigh <<a href="mailto:thaigh@computer.org">thaigh@computer.org</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Reply-To: </span>Thomas Haigh <<a href="mailto:thaigh@computer.org">thaigh@computer.org</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span>Friday, 26 September 2014 5:03 am<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span>"<a href="mailto:members@sigcis.org">members@sigcis.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:members@sigcis.org">members@sigcis.org</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span>[SIGCIS-Members] My CACM column "We Have Never Been Digital"<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Hello everyone,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I just wanted to let everyone know that my column “We Have Never Been Digital” was published in the September issue of Communications of the ACM. This builds on some comments I made in commenting on a SIGCIS session at the 2013 SHOT meeting,
basically that as historians of computing we understand what “digital” actually means and have something useful to say on the subject to other humanists. It also makes the case for “the digital” as something that has its own history, and that reflects the
kind of utopian rupture talk that humanists have good reason to be wary of rather than build their own identities around. I know that many within the digital humanities community share these concerns, but in the space available could not really delve into
that. Perhaps something SIGICS could organize an event to explore the relationship of the history of computing to the digital humanities in the future?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It can be read without an ACM subscription from<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/CACM-WeHaveNeverBeenDigital.pdf">http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/CACM-WeHaveNeverBeenDigital.pdf</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Or, if you do have ACM access, from <a href="http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/9/177930-we-have-never-been-digital/fulltext">
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/9/177930-we-have-never-been-digital/fulltext</a> (it’s not working right now, but will presumably be fixed).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the intended features of this list is the announcement of new relevant publications by members, so please don’t assume that this is a perk available only to SIG officers. If you published something related to the history of IT in
the last few months then do go ahead and let the community know. Many of your potential readers are right here on this list and may otherwise never come across your work.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Best wishes,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
Tom<o:p></o:p></p>
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