Feminist in a Software Lab

Download or read book Feminist in a Software Lab written by Tara McPherson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a dozen years, the Vectors Lab has experimented with digital scholarship through its online publication, Vectors, and through Scalar, a multimedia authoring platform. The history of this software lab intersects a much longer tale about computation in the humanities, as well as tensions about the role of theory in related projects. Tara McPherson considers debates around the role of cultural theory within the digital humanities and addresses Gary HallÕs claim that the goals of critical theory and of quantitative or computational analysis may be irreconcilable (or at the very least require Òfar more time and careÓ). She then asks what it might mean to designÑfrom conceptionÑdigital tools and applications that emerge from contextual concerns of cultural theory and, in particular, from a feminist concern for difference. This path leads back to the Vectors Lab and its ongoing efforts at the intersection of theory and praxis.