Canonicalism and the computational turn

Caroline Bassett

pp. 105-126

in: David M. Berry (ed), Understanding digital humanities, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

This chapter considers the computational turn in relation to some of the diverse frameworks through which digital artifacts and practices, taken separately or explored in various configurations, are being defined, categorised, and claimed for various disciplines, sub-disciplines, anti-disciplines, or academic fields; for this tradition or that. In this process of course not only the artifacts and practices,but also the frameworks themselves, are being reconstituted. If the latter are rendered computational in various ways, the former are hacked into shape,rendered fit, or made amenable and suitable for certain modes of analysis. This kind of work might thus redefine conventional takes on computation and its (cultural, social, economic, aesthetic, material) significance, replace the traditional object of enquiry within a particular field with its computationally transformed upgrade, and relocate the field itself so that it extends across new terrain – or operates in new dimensions.