Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 15, No. 65.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 06:32:56 +0100
From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
Subject: obstacles, fun and confessions
Willard,
A little confession-style question with the intention to dissipate some
free-floating guilt that lingers 'round lists of disiderata: how many
subscribers who do or have done work in activities touching upon
computing in the humanities can lay claim to possessing the basic skill
set outlined in any or all of the lists that have been proposed recently
for the trouseau of accomplishments to be possessed by a graduate of a
degree program in humanities computing? I, for one, do not. Nor am I in a
position to acquire them soon.
I am in a position to point out that any approach to the social
reproduction of a discipline or field that does not take into account the
changing nature of the workplace will miss opportunities to tap into the
dynamics of life-long learning. I used the "trouseau" metaphor above. I
urge people designing (and implementing) educational programs not to
consider their lists as items for the wedding chest for some
cryto-marriage, i.e. not to gear a program for preparing its graduates for
a life "out there". Or to switch metaphors (barely), graduate school is
_not_ a boot camp.
Is it possible to imagine Humanities Computing operating across centres,
institutions, programs, that are flexible and are designed to link
students and allow them the possibilities of maintaining links? I recall
that CETH mounted intensive summer sessions that operated with both
plenaries and parallel tracks. It is a model that might serve planners
well in terms of thinking not of individual students but of cohorts. If
the expert on digital images is at institution A and the expert on
hypermedia is at institution B, what arrangements are there so that
students and experts at institutions A & B can benefit? Note that the
expert may not be a member of faculty but a student and that such an
expert-student may find much to be learnt from being mentored while
teaching.
In short, there are other gate-keeping models that need not reflect a bias
for family formation narratives (parent institution bonds with student
child to prepare child-student for marriage-like couplings). They begin
with thinking of modes of alliance which consider what the student brings
to a program, what the student has to offer, what the student gives, and
what synergies are possible with a whole set of student-donors. It becomes
easier to think in such terms if the activities of a program take not
only the form of a two or one year time table but also including
intensive seminars, workshops and meetings of shorter duration either
online or in the flesh.
Being true to the spread of pleasure may mean considering a life of
alternating intensities.
--
Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance
20th : Machine Age :: 21st : Era of Reparation
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