Throughout this course, I have been aiming to synthesize my understanding of digital public humanities with enough tangible experience to confidently move forward in the field. The first class of the program effectively built a foundation with numerous definitions of DPH complemented by introductory practice with electronic tools – in my case, with Voyant. This semester, I have continued to learn how DPH operates throughout both institutions and individuals, as well as the broader public with whom it is meant to engage. One facet of this is the important role that public historians have in not just maintaining interest in History overall but in fostering public communities centered on that shared connection. Sam Wineburg’s description of “historical thinking” in the classroom provides an applicable microcosm of public history as a whole: “The goals of school history are not vocational but to prepare students to tolerate complexity, to adapt to new situations, and to resist the first answer that comes to mind.” Having lived in several hotbeds of ‘alternative’ histories and controversial displays, I can clearly see how necessary this kind of framework is for a society at large. This also brings to mind Ronald Grele’s notes on the transforming role of the historian: one that “promises us a society in which a broad public participates in the construction of its own history,” answering the question of “whose public? whose history? With a democratic declaration of a faith in members of the public at large to become their own historians and to advance their knowledge of themselves.” Setting aside some of the idealism in this perception, the overall idea of building communities by engaging with shared history is an important aspect of the field that appeals to my own experiences.
In addition to more of the possibilities of digital public history, another important takeaway is the issues facing the field that we will be contending with, namely the communication of history, to which artificial intelligence has emerged as a troubling obstacle. Being in the public history field means being in constant contact with a broad variety of audiences that may or may not be interested in history, and the advent of A.I. and LLMs brings a similarly digital competitor to public historians’ efforts by providing more convenient access to largely unreliable and unsubstantiated attempts at information. In some ways it seems like the end result of societal pushes for faster and faster communication regardless of accuracy or context, as Adina Langer puts it: “We’ve already witnessed the ability of the internet to proliferate and perpetuate misinformation, and the challenges this poses to a novice researcher or purely open-minded information consumer,” and her subsequent point about LLMs devouring themselves through their own AI-generated text remains a salient fear when thinking about how far down its userbase could go with it. Hence, public historians occupy additional roles as stewards of history for the greater public, teaching how to think historically and discerningly in addition to the information itself. To think positively, the course also outlined some potential usages of AI models in areas like digital archives or transcription projects; while the full fruits of these attempts remain to be seen, I am more positive on merely rote uses of AI in comparison to the harmful ones. Still, it is clear from the reading how many issues public historians will need to confront in the digital and physical spheres.
Lastly, and most obviously, the biggest takeaway from this course is the practical experience of designing, researching, and operating a digital history project of my own. The numerous examples featured in the classwork, such as the Nashville Tours and Chamizal Memorial projects, offered clear demonstrations of how public history can look and function in a digital setting. Interactable maps, timelines, and images allow for new ways of perceiving history only possible with electronic tools, and even if I did not need to utilize them for my own work, I am aware of how they are shaping the field of public history. I am also aware that projects like these require specialized teams to reach their full potential, so for an individual-scale project, my emphasis was on providing effective historical information to my intended audience. As Sharon Leon explains in the reading, much of public history “is undertaken in the service of putting history to work in the world,” meaning that “no digital public project can be divorced from its audience.” With my limited time and resources, ensuring that my project can connect with an interested public was the most important goal, in conjunction with authenticity and legibility. Regarding other aspects of the project, I have certainly learned which parts of the process I am suited for compared to others, which is itself an important takeaway from trying it on my own. The intricacies of web design and digital interfaces were the hardest and least fulfilling part compared to the actual humanities aspects of reading, researching, and deliberating how to engage non-academics with the same information. All in all, I know what to expect and how to approach with such a project, and I look forward to a future career in this work.
Sources:
https://www.debbiewaggoner.com/uploads/1/2/9/9/12998469/thinking_like_a_historian_article.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3377160?if_data=e30%3D&seq=9
https://ncph.org/history-at-work/generative-ai-and-historical-authority/
https://www.6floors.org/bracket/2018/04/14/reviewing-is-an-act-of-leadership/#more-736