When I reflect on what I have learned in ENGL 340: Literary Studies in the Digital Age this semester, I think the most easily identifiable “hard skill” that I have acquired so far is how to use applications like GitBash and visual studio code. Though I am far from being able to innovatively use GitBash and VS code, I feel like I have a good grasp on how basically to use them. I think that the experience with VS code will help me personally with understanding my own computer and organizing my files. I feel like it could also matter in whatever career I choose to pursue whether I have experience with hard skills associated with digital humanities because it feels like most (especially most non-teaching jobs) prioritize hard tech skills.
More than that, though, I feel like my understanding of digital humanities and the possibilities of digital literary studies has grown significantly. Before this class, I had had a little bit of experience with digital studies in history, but I didn’t really have an understanding of what digital humanities looks like, especially for literature. Our reading and engagement with Walden has been really interesting conceptually. I had not had the chance to read any of Thoreau before but had heard about him a bit in my history classes. His anti-materialism is really striking and compelling to me, and I have mulled over a lot of thoughts–whether the personal decision to let go of materialism is for me (ideally it would be; it is just really hard in practice to do that), and whether it is realistic for anyone in the context of the present United States to do what he did. The Walden Fluid text version, our learning of TEI, our learning of different markup languages, etc. has clarified a lot for me, but I am still really curious to learn how, for example, html turns into, like physically turns into, text on a screen that reflects exaclty what you told it to reflect. I do not think I have to understand that specifically to understand how to use html, but it is a curiosity I have.
I was really glad to have learned, so far, about applications to what we might call “real life”–so here, I am thinking about our discussions of generative AI, our work with the African American Perspectives in Print collection, and our readings of Broadband. I didn’t use AI to make this post, but I was interested in class to learn how people and professions are adapting to include AI in regular practice. I have hesitance towards that, and I am also curious how these practices will leave people who aren’t part of white collar work spaces or academia. Additionally, I really enjoyed our class’s work on Douglass Day and will continue to look to the LOC’s website and other online transcription campaigns when I have downtime and want to do something meaningful. Moreover, our discussions about Broadband have been really helpful because I didn’t know much about the history of computers or the internet beyond Alan Turing. To probably no one’s surprise, we owe a lot to women before us who built the internet who aren’t usually properly credited with it. Overall, this class has unlocked a part of literary studies and introduced me to a lot of soft and hard skills that I think I would not have otherwise had experience with, and I am really grateful for that.