In our inboxes, meetings and twitter feeds, we weekly, if not daily encounter the Digital Humanities (DH); it appears that the DH are now a necessary inclusion into nearly all discussions of the Humanities. Our project examines the dominant discourses surrounding the DH; specifically, we critique the discursive framing of the DH as a promise of rescue and renewal for the Humanities. We highlight how the DH is presumed to include the teaching of marketable skills, to provide new avenues for research funding and to offer a way of (finally) legitimizing Humanities research methods. We observe, at our institution the establishment of a new centre on digital scholarship and a tempered hopefulness of what the DH could do for a Faculty struggling with decreased enrollments and funding shortages. We use our critical discourse analysis of texts (which narrate the recent history and current state of the DH) to serve as a departure point for discussion with DH instructor-practitioners about their pedagogy, their practice and their politics in the DH. We pay particular attention to what is often unasked in broader DH discourse: Who is doing work in DH? Whose work is privileged or taken seriously? How do relations of difference (race, gender, dis/ability, class) and power relations figure into DH pedagogies and play out in DH classrooms? The focus of our ‘in progress’ project is the relationship between specific discourses (e.g. DH as rescue for an ailing Humanities) and the practice of DH teaching.
