(Am I allowed to propose more than once?)
Two ideas I had real quick while mainlining THATCampery prior to leaving:
1) One of the things I’ve really begun to value about digital humanities is how I see its potential and overlap in and across contemporary culture. How about a DH CultureJam session – thinking about, sharing and nerding out over cool ways that DH is happening outside of the academy, in the popular culture, journalism, music, art? We don’t have to get all Matrixy here (leave that for THATCamp Theory), but it’d be fun to think outside the echo chamber and indulge and engage our interests as socio-cultural participants.
A few places to start:
SXSW, Gizmodo, BrainPickings, Bjork, Rhizome, Tumblr/Pinterest, #dhmusic
2) Don’t know if this has even been done either; what if we picked up on a conversation that happened at a previous THATCamp and continued it in a session here? Or, what if we traced a theme through multiple Camps, harvested (copy/paste) their GDocs, and began to create a THATCamp historiography/bibliography? Could we DO something in a session that would be of value to the larger community?
I’m really interested in the historiography question which links to broader challenges of institutional and disciplinary memory in DH. How does THATCamp let itself proliferate without splintering? How might it carry its collaborative spirit across different camps and over time? Would we want to imagine THATCamp as a “jam” for people to pick up and elaborate existing work according to a more broadly defined THATCamp agenda? What value might there be in documenting THATCamp as its own phenomenon: mapping its contributors, analyzing backgrounds and suggested topics, linking its topics, charting its evolution in time?
One word: THATapedia.
I think Paul’s comment from yesterday afternoon is still relevant, especially given our struggles to come up with a plan for the Bibliography/Historiography for THATCamp. It would be worthwhile taking the time post-THATCampSE to brainstorm about what sort of sustained work could come out of THATCamp repeat attendees, or even from people who initiate connections within THATCamp that simply continue whether they go to another one ever again or not.