Quotation Assignment

But, however heterogeneous, the Digital Humanities is unified by its emphasis on making, connecting, interpreting, and collaborating. This concentration on process and method might in fact be the way to develop a work-around for the creation of a core curriculum, a process which bogs down precisely on what appears to its varied partisans to be a zero-sum game.

Burdick et al. “One: From Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 24.

• Why did this particular passage grab your attention?

This passage talks about a core curriculum in which the addition of something takes away from another, claiming that the inclusion of an Afro-Carribean female novelist to the syllabus means leaving out an English male metaphysical poet. While this may be true if we believe our curriculum and those enrolled in it had limited resources, I feel as if it leads to a shallower understanding of each aspect of the curriculum, and I think it is the idea of a core that should be done away with instead.

• What elements of your past experiences, current interests, or future plans did it kindle?

Being enrolled in an international school meant that I had to study a British curriculum instead of a Malaysian one, and the comparison was always made that the IGCSE was shallow and wide while the Malaysian education system was narrower and deeper. I think that instead of such comparisons, a better approach would be to think of starting curriculums instead of cores. However, the idea that Digital humanities could bridge different fields is quite exciting and practical, and perhaps would eventually create jobs that are more multidisciplinary as well.

• Under the large umbrella of Digital (Arts &) Humanities, which areas of inquiry, methods or techniques are you most eager to pursue this term and why?

I am unsure about the techniques and methods used in Digital Arts and Humanities yet, but from Sketchup I’ve already seen a powerful educational tool, so I am excited to learn more.