The readings I focused on this week were about feminism, marginalization, and discrimination in online spaces. Bailey’s All the Digital Humanists Are White, All the Nerds Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave introduces the argument that digital humanities conversations focus on white males. Typical topics of digital humanities are inevitably white, masculine, and able-bodied, leaving people of color, women, and disabled people on the margins. Bailey explores works that address minorities within digital humanities, looking for those that are inclusive and accessible. There is both the issue of marginalized people being left out of the digital humanities as well as the exclusion of digital society from typical humanities studies. Bailey describes the solution as “add and stir”. As academic groups diversify, they must be dispersed evenly, but there are structural issues which prevent minorities from entering certain institutions.

• How might we accommodate the inclusion of women, people of color, and disabled people in the digital humanities conversation?
• Given that our society is becoming increasingly technological, how do we convert traditional humanities studies to address digital humanities without losing marginalized groups?

In Hashtag Feminism, #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, and the Other #FemFuture Loza recounts how mainstream and digital feminism has largely benefited white women and excluded minorities. There are many movements and hashtags orchestrated by women of color to have their voices heard among the needs of white feminists. Additionally, shocking tags like #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen are used to broadcast to white feminists that not everyone’s voices are being heard. Loza also addresses that many white women feel threatened by such bold statements and here is backlash that pits women against each other. Furthermore, women outside of the black-white binary may struggle even more to be included over the clash between these two sides, as they cannot place themselves on either side.

• In what ways can we make sure our attempts to be inclusive are not simultaneously marginalizing women, people of color, disabled people, and etc?
• How do you practice feminism or equality in your own classrooms? Is marginalization something you ever encounter as an instructor or student?

                Fillapacchi notices a startling categorization in Wikipedia’s Sexism Toward Female Novelists. There is an “American Novelists” section and an “American Women Novelists” section, but no section called “American Male Novelists”. This article was written in 2013, and I checked, there is indeed now an “American Male Novelists” category, so the argument does not currently apply. However, Fillapacchi uses her connections to spread the word. Wikipedia users quickly began adding female authors to the “American Novelists” page so it was no longer just presumed to be male. Wikipedia is certainly not the only institution to give a “female” qualifier for women while allowing men to hold the standard/general title.

• I invite anyone to discuss issues they may have relating to sexism or racism here at CUNY (or elsewhere) if they have any topics they want to bring up.
• I also think it would be okay for this to be a place to voice general concerns we have in these stressful times that we might want to discuss during class, considering sexism and racism may not be on the top of anyone’s mind right now.

             This week’s readings addressed effective pedagogy and practical teaching/learning methods. In A Hippocratic Oath for Ed Tech, Audrey Watters compares medical professions to educational ones. Although the Hippocratic Oath is not a legal document, it is a widely known set of ethics that medical professionals are expected to abide by. The main tenet of the oath is to “do no harm”. When we approach education, there are also many ethical questions we must address. Watters writes about the political and economic power sewn into the educational-technology sphere, however those who wish to teach should generally agree with the idea of “doing no harm”. Teaching is a selfless and labor intensive profession, and regardless of the amount of money available in ed-tech, I wonder how many incentives are actually obtainable by the majority of CUNY faculty. In medicine, many doctors have the opportunity to profit from the bribes and coercion of tech companies, and we hear stories of doctors straying from the Hippocratic Oath all the time.

• If we were to adopt a sort of oath for educators, would you see this as being effective and respected by the faculty at CUNY? I don’t know what the statistics are here on instructors sponsored by Pearson, Google Certified Educators, and the like that Watters mentioned.
• What are some messages in the Hippocratic Oath that are important in your own education or pedagogy? For me I feel it is essential to be able to admit when I do not know something, rely on and respect the knowledge of colleagues, use warmth, sympathy, and understanding, respect the privacy of students and treat them as people rather than statistics or numbers on a “chart”, and fulfill my obligation to all students regardless of their abilities.
• What would an educational oath need to include, especially here at CUNY?

             We also read Bill Pelz’s three principles of effective online pedagogy. These were to let the students do (most of) the work, use interactivity, and strive for presence. Educators are encouraged to provide tasks for students to take the lead, interact with others, and establish presence through discussion. The presence could be social, cognitive, or teaching. Mainly Pelz seems concerned with facilitating the class through discussions either between students, with the instructor, or online. There are many examples laid out in the article of activities that fit the model.

• This was written in 2004. I was wondering if anyone thought these techniques would be useful in their own courses. Do you already use or participate in some of these activities?

             Ryan Cordell recounts an early teaching experience with the hindsight that his proposal was rightfully turned down. He writes “How not to Teach Digital Humanities” using his own experiences. The article is mainly concerned with how to present the idea of digital humanities to undergrads who aren’t concerned with the meta-arguments and semantics of academia. He argues that we should find a new term for Digital Humanities, as these two words no longer accurately describe the study. In addition, both the title and the content often turn students away. Cordell suggests starting slowly, with small increments, scaffolding to ease students in, and thinking locally to make the matter relatable.

• The other day I read a sign at City College calling for a student action meeting to discuss the inadequacies of everything from curriculum to MTA schedules. Do you find that CUNY students aren’t interested in the politics of academia? As Cordell says, they may find the topics of digital humanities interesting if they were introduced to it in small doses.

             I enjoyed the One Feminist Online Media Mantrafesto from Feminist Online Spaces. The “mantra” and “manifesto” essentially emphasizes the need for access to facilitate a long chain of other desires. These include, but are not limited to democracy, safe spaces, and visibility. The list starts and ends with access.

• Is accessibility the proper starting point to create progress? This assessment seems to be fair. We need to start somewhere so why not here. Also, how can we facilitate more accessibility here at CUNY?

Finally, I just wanted to provide a space to talk about the Digital Sustainability lab we had on Monday because I feel like we rarely have an outlet to discuss it, since this is as good a place as any. While I did not find a lot of what we reviewed to be very relevant to my current project, I was wondering if anyone else had concrete plans concerning the preservation of their digital project? What are your experiences using archive.org (if any)? Also, if you are coding HTML/CSS, python, and etc, which of the tools that Stephen showed did you find most and least helpful (archive, bagit, webaim, emulation, WARC, etc)? I’ve barely gotten started learning how I might develop code, so a lot of those resources were too advanced for me, but I am interested to learn what works for others.