The Next Big Thing

Hello, Los Angeles! This is the first post for the University of Washington's MLA 2011 blogging contingent. We would like to thank the Simpson Center for the Humanities for sponsoring our trip allowing us to publish this blog reporting on the convention.

I will let my colleagues introduce themselves in subsequent posts, but for now I wanted to say a little about myself and my specific interests in this week's events.

My name is Tim Welsh. I am a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Washington and HASTAC Scholar for 2011. My research is on 20th-century fiction and new media, specifically console video games. I have been asked to report on the presence of the digital humanities at this years convention. While there is certainly interest in DH generally, the place DH takes at this year's conference is particularly interesting following last year's surge of attention. As William Pannapacker wrote in summary of MLA 2010, "Among all the contending subfields, the digital humanities seem like the first "next big thing" in a long time, because the implications of digital technology affect every field." So, of course, the question I will be in some small part trying to answer is whether or not digital humanities continues to look like "the next big thing."

This year, Mark Sample reports that there are 40+ panels on digital humanities topics. I will be attending and tweeting(@twel) at one or more sessions per day, following up with a summary post. In addition to sessions, I am interested in how digital humanities are being practiced at the convention. So, I hope to have a post here and there about how digital technologies are augmenting or participating in this week's events.

That's all for now. I will have another post soon introducing the session I am attending this afternoon. Thanks for finding us. You can track our conversations by following us on twitter @uwmla2011.