Tessera

Alan Liu

@alanyliu.bsky.social

I'm a professor in digital humanities & English at UC Santa Barbara. For public humanities, I founded http://4Humanities.org & co-founded https://center-humanities-communication.org/. My website: https://liu.english.ucsb.edu/

449 Posts2941 Follower 392 Folgt

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 3w ago

#1) All parts of @adjb.co’s six-part series introducing the digital humanities are now up on his blog: www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/ I’m impressed by the quality and usefulness of this series, particularly by … (go to #2 in thread)

Screenshot of a webpage section titled "In This Series #" listing the titles of six blog posts at https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/.

Transcription of the post titles:

Digital Humanities Part 1: What Are the Digital Humanities?

Digital Humanities Part 2: Digital Humanities Tools for Dissertations

Digital Humanities Part 3: Digital Humanities for Theology and Religious Studies

Digital Humanities Part 4: Why We Need the Digital Humanities

Digital Humanities Part 5: Preserving Digital Humanities Projects

Digital Humanities Part 6: Preservation through Minimal Computing and GO::DH

Alan Liu@alanyliu.bsky.social · 3w ago

Just out: part 1 of @adjb.co’s six-part blog series introducing & explaining the digital humanities, www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/dh-part.... Part 1 is quite good. I would assign it in an Intro to DH course.

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 3w ago

Just published open-access: @sarahciston.com et al., *Inventing ELIZA: How the First Chatbot Shaped the Future of AI* direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon.... @berrydm.bsky.social

Inventing ELIZA: How the First Chatbot Shaped the Future of AI

How the original ELIZA chatbot transformed ideas about AI and society’s response to them.As we reach the 60th anniversary of ELIZA’s public debut, Inventin

direct.mit.edu

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 3w ago

Just out: part 1 of @adjb.co’s six-part blog series introducing & explaining the digital humanities, www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/dh-part.... Part 1 is quite good. I would assign it in an Intro to DH course.

Digital Humanities Part 1: What Are the Digital Humanities?

What the digital humanities are, where they came from, and why the definition debates still matter, from Father Busa's punched cards to Zotero and beyond.

adamdjbrett.com

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 4w ago

I posted on arXiv.org the preprint of my “AI Virtue: What Is ‘Good’ Knowledge in the Age of Artificial Intelligence?” arxiv.org/abs/2607.01776, which is forthcoming in a double special issue of “MFS Modern Fiction Studies on “Cultural AI” in 2027.

Screenshot of preprint abstract:

"In the age of AI, what will be good knowledge? This article, which is accepted and forthcoming in a special issue of Modern Fiction Studies on "Cultural AI" in 2027, applies digital humanities methods to map epistemic virtues (like "true," "accurate," "creative") used in a corpus of 553 journal articles on AI published in 2024. "Creativity" comes in for special attention as an example. Exploring this discourse of value, the article considers how a framework might be developed for evaluating the knowledge-worth of AI -- one less locked into values formed around pre-AI "knowledge work" agents or structures, and more open to the future values of "generativity." The essay is supported by an online digital kit for exploring data models of the corpus of articles on AI it studies."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · last mo.

Web page I made collecting copies of all Bluesky threads I recently posted describing our Critical Infrastructures and Digital Humanities book (Debates in DH series): alanyliu.org/wp-content/u... @uminnpress.bsky.social

Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities — Bluesky threads

alanyliu.org

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Paul Spence @politonaiz.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Delighted to see my chapter, "Understanding Multilingualism in Digital Humanities Infrastructures," (eds. Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, James Smithies) published in Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities! OA 📖 dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... #DigitalHumanities #MultilingualDH

dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu

Alan Liu@alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Announcing the release of the online, open-access edition of _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ (in Debates in DH series): dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/cri.... Editors: Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, James Smihties @jamessmithies.bsky.social). Print ed. appeared January 2026

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My own “infrastructural manifest” for the Debates in DH book on Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities: dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... (The “Download” button opens HTML version of a spreadsheet)

Screenshot of text describing Alan Liu's "infrastructure manifest" for his work on the Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities book. The description on the Manifold platform for the online, open-access version of the book includes on the same page a link to "download" and display a HTML version of the spreadsheet containing the actual manifest, which has qualitative categories like infrastructrure "kind," "materials," and "energy," with some categories also scored quantitatively on a 1 to 10 Likert scale.

Abridged transcription of description:

<quote>
Infrastructure manifest completed by Alan Liu for the Introduction.
Resource added June, 2025

Infrastructure manifest completed by Alan Liu for the Introduction, "'Object of Study': Digital Humanities and Critical Infrastructure Studies"

This is a web page representing in HTML format an infrastructure manifest filled out by Alan Liu for the introduc-tion, “‘Object of Study’: Digital Humanities and Critical Infrastructure Studies.” The manifest’s 18-row by 10-column spreadsheet is based on a template that was pre-structured with suggestions to authors about what kinds of infrastructure to declare. There are rows for infrastructures under the following labels: “land,” “materials,” “energy,” “transportation,” “architectural,” “civic, community, national, or regional,” “institutional,” “labor,” “research content,” “tools,” “networked platforms,” and “high-performance computing”. But the spreadsheet also al-lows authors to add other categories and to use free-form text in naming and describing infrastructure.”
</quote>

Alan Liu@alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A first-of-its-kind feature of _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ is the inclusion of authors' "infrastructure manifests": dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica...

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Another of my early experiments in the creative/critical use of hypertext: my Lytotard Auto-Differend, liu.english.ucsb.edu/lyotard-auto...

AI-GENERATED ALT-TXT:

Screenshot of a webpage titled "Lyotard Auto-Differend Page," presenting an experiment on freedom and tyranny of hypertext. The page features a purple background with a blue and red banner, six labeled clickable phrase regimes in a grid, and footer text crediting Alan Liu from University of California, Santa Barbara, with creation and last update dates.

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Feeling elegiac tonight. Reread my “Hacking the Voice of Shuttle” essay on life & death of my VoS website. Like mourning a dear, intimate pet that I spent hours each day caring for. Open-access manuscript: escholarship.org/uc/item/3345...

EDITED AI-GENERATED ALT-TXT:

Screenshot of a humanities research web page titled "Voice of the Shuttle" featuring a colorful banner with text and a quote from Aristotle. The page includes navigation links for credits, contributors, visitor statistics, awards, and a categorized list of academic resources in blue and red hyperlinks on a background resembling ancient parchment.

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From Kyle Booten’s Chap 19, “Subjective Functions: How Should Humanistic Research Be Quantified?” in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ (p. 335 in print ed.) dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @uminnpress.bsky.social

From Kyle Booten’s Chap 19, “Subjective Functions
How Should Humanistic Research Be Quantified?” in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ (p. 335 in print ed.). Transcription of screenshot of text passage:

"As a way of thinking beyond the conceptual blandness of standard bibliometrics (as well as most “alt” ones), I offer in this discussion four sketches of ways that humanistic research might be quantified—ways that are more in keeping with the complexity and diversity of humanistic habits and dispositions. These _subjective functions_ differ from most bibliometric objective functions in two ways: (1) they aspire to subjectivity rather than objectivity, encoding obviously opinionated, controversial, nonuniversal notions of what virtues scholars should manifest; and (2) they attend not to impact but to the gesture, not to the ends but to the means.3 While my sketches of these subjective functions are merely speculative, I endeavor to place them on firm technical foundations, although I acknowledge that others would no doubt have different ideas about how best to engineer them."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Sylvia K. Miller in Ch18, “Imagining a Future of Multimedia E-books,” in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ draws up an infrastructural roadmap for publishing digital scholarly books that integrate multimodal materials dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @uminnpress.bsky.social

Screenshot of text passage from Sylvia K. Miller's Ch 18, “Imagining a Future of Multimedia E-books,” in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ (p. 323 in print ed.). Tramscription:

"This proposal is based on my experience in scholarly publishing, including more than twenty-five years in the publishing of e-books, digital encyclopedias, and grant-funded digital editions and e-publishing experiments. (See the glossary at the end of this chapter for definitions of the key terms discussed here.) For updates on the current state of publishing technology, I consulted a number of publishing professionals, some of whom are quoted herein and all of whom are acknowledged in the list of interviews accompanying this chapter. These conversations were carried out in a journalistic spirit, and they revealed information that was new to me and might indeed be new to others, leading to the exciting conclusion that normalization of multimedia e-book publishing might be closer to reality than I had expected when I started this project. I also mention enhanced e-books published under the Mellon-funded Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement project (2008–2012), which I directed at the University of North Carolina Press (UNCP)."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Beginning of @tinkeringhuman.bsky.social & @miriamposner.com’s Ch 17, “Digital Humanities from Below: Speculating on Solidarity Infrastructure” in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 315 in print ed.) dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @uminnpress.bsky.social

Beginning of Matthew N. Hannah & Miriam Posner’s Ch 17, “Digital Humanities from Below: Speculating on Solidarity Infrastructure” in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 308 in print ed.). Transcription of screenshot of text passage:

"In the 1966 issue of the Times Literary Supplement, Marxist historian E. P. Thompson advocated an analysis of history “from below.” Rather than emphasize the “great men” model of history—from above—Thompson posited that historical research should focus on the commoner, the everyday, the masses. Such an emphasis on “below” proffers a Marxist critique of history, elevating the laboring masses as subjects of history over the powerful, rich, and important. But his model of history was also infrastructural. It required a conceptual restructuring of societal models, attending to base over superstructure, emphasizing below over above. In this chapter, we adapt Thompson’s theory of history to advance “digital humanities from below,” critiquing current infrastructural topologies of the field, which still rely on marquee projects, elite institutions, and academic stars as prime drivers of new research. Instead, we advocate for a “solidarity infrastructure,” offering a speculative infrastructural space that addresses the needs of information workers as a laboring class, redistributes resources from top to bottom, and employs an implicit commitment to openness."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From Puthiya Purayil Sneha & Saumyaa Naidu’s Ch. 16, “Online Feminist Publishing and Content Creation as Feminist Infrastructure in India,” in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 306 in print ed.) dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @uminnpress.bsky.social

From Puthiya Purayil Sneha & Saumyaa Naidu’s Ch. 16 (“Online Feminist Publishing and Content Creation as Feminist Infrastructure in India”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 306 in print ed.).

The screenshot shows a text passage (transcription below), with a thumbnail image of a complex infographic. A shortened URL -- bit.ly/CSIDH_fig_6_1 -- is included for the full-size infographic online, along with a detailed alt-text description and transcription of its content.

Transcription of text passage:
"The downloadable and zoomable “Bridging Intersectional Gaps in Digital Infrastructures in India” infographic visualization that we have developed as a large PDF file, hereafter referred to as “visualization” (Figure 16.1), is an effort to explore some of these challenges at the intersections of feminist work, DH, and critical infrastructure studies. The visualization represents key observations from an ongoing study that we undertook of digital feminist infrastructures in India through a review of literature, and interviews with creators, editors, and other participants of online feminist publishing and content-creation spaces to understand how these digital spaces engage with and inform the contemporary discourse on feminism, gender, and sexuality."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From Lucie Kolb’s Chap. 15, “Making Infrastructure Writable,” in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 297 in print ed.) dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica.... @uminnpress.bsky.social

Screenshot of text passage from Lucie Kolb’s Chap. 15 (“Making Infrastructure Writable”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 297 in print ed.). Transcription:

"I want to raise the question of how we negotiate such a “thinking infrastructure” in a way that lets us see and access it. This would be a way that helps us be mindful of how our actions and reflections are being shaped by it and creates the possibility for change—for writability.

I want to tackle these questions by discussing two interventions in the search interface in the library that help users understand the context of their search query: “Feminist Search Tools” and “Infrastructural Manoeuvres.” I will discuss how their interventions, modifications, or supplementation strategies work toward the possibility of a “writable library infrastructure”—a discursive and performative space exposing the ways that our actions and reflections are shaped by infrastructure and creating the possibility for a more emancipatory practice."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 8mo ago

U Minnesota Press's Spring 26 catalog, listing our new Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities (in Debates in DH series), eds. Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, @jamessmithies.bsky.social): z.umn.edu/spring26. Table of contents: www.upress.umn.edu/978151791608... @uminnpress.bsky.social

Screenshot of page 52 University of Minnesota Press Spring 2026 catalog, showing the book cover, description, and contributor names of the new book in the Debates in DH series (ed. Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, and James Smithies) titled _Critical Infrastructrure Studies and Digital Humanities_. The text of the description reads as follows:

How digital humanities can shape and be shaped by the infrastructures that sustain our world.

_Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ reimagines the digital humanities (DH) through the expanding field of critical infrastructure studies. Featuring voices from around the globe, this volume explores how DH builds on and extends theories and technologies of infrastructure that affect society, culture, and knowledge in different national and regional contexts. Examining DH’s own infrastructural genealogy, the contributors offer readers critical reflections and bold visions for the future as they address issues of environmentalism, decolonization, Indigenous sovereignty, multilingualism, labor justice, feminism, national development, and beyond from a variety of disciplinary perspectives embedded in concrete digital systems. Including innovative “infrastructure manifests,” the essays in this book illuminate how DH can both study and shape the systems that sustain culture, scholarship, and connection....

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I had fun writing alt-text for this image of the cover of the new _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities book (in Debates in DH series) I co-edited. See alt-text of the image. (Book description & contents here: www.upress.umn.edu/978151791608...) @uminnpress.bsky.social.

Cover of new book in the U. Minnesota Press Debates in DH series: _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_, eds. Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, and James Smithies. The book cover shows the title of the book in large, upper-case-only, sans-serif block letters (colored yellow for "Critical Infrastructure Studies" and red for "Digital Humanities") against a diagonally tiled, grey background with a drawn, shaded texture suggesting concrete. The overall visual effect is of text stenciled on a concrete wall in an urban infrastructural environment whose brutalist modern style has been given nuance in two ways. First, the architect has qualified the heavy-handed systematicity of modernism through the decor of slightly irregular tesselation (the tiles are of several shapes in an overall geometry whose system is unclear and unpredictable). Then it is as if some street artist or street theater group has come along and stencil spray-painted a poster for their improv event over the building wall.

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From Ch. 14, “Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces” by @kshpatel@mastodon.social, Ashley Caranto Morford, & Arun Jacob dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica..., in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ @UMinnPress@mastodon.social

Text excerpts from Ch. 14, “Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces” by Kush Patel, Ashley Caranto Morford, and Arun Jacob (Pedagogy of the Digitally Oppressed Collective), in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ (pp. 277, 278 in print ed.):

"We have crafted a fictional creative writing piece—a Twine narrative (discussed later in this chapter)—based on our own lived experiences but set within fictional institutions and using fictional technological platforms…. Our Twine narrative is set at the beginning of the global Covid pandemic and consists of a series of email chains. Readers follow the experiences of faculty, staff, students, and precarious workers at postsecondary institutions in India, the United States, and Canada as they navigate changes to educational processes and organize their activities through online infrastructures…."

"In the accompanying reflection that follows the Twine story, we provide a rationale and analysis of the creative piece involving three concepts: responsibilization, crisortunity a crisis situation presenting the opportunity for someone to gain something], and digital infrastructural otherwises. With each of these concepts, grounded in specific sociotechnical realities, we reflect on the possibility of reimgining infrastructure to enable more care-filled and just teaching, learning, and organizing…."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From Ch. 14, “Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces” by @kshpatel@mastodon.social, Ashley Caranto Morford, & Arun Jacob dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica..., in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ @UMinnPress@mastodon.social

Text excerpts from Ch. 14, “Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces” by Kush Patel, Ashley Caranto Morford, and Arun Jacob (Pedagogy of the Digitally Oppressed Collective), in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ (pp. 277, 278 in print ed.):

"We have crafted a fictional creative writing piece—a Twine narrative (discussed later in this chapter)—based on our own lived experiences but set within fictional institutions and using fictional technological platforms…. Our Twine narrative is set at the beginning of the global Covid pandemic and consists of a series of email chains. Readers follow the experiences of faculty, staff, students, and precarious workers at postsecondary institutions in India, the United States, and Canada as they navigate changes to educational processes and organize their activities through online infrastructures…."

"In the accompanying reflection that follows the Twine story, we provide a rationale and analysis of the creative piece involving three concepts: responsibilization, crisortunity a crisis situation presenting the opportunity for someone to gain something], and digital infrastructural otherwises. With each of these concepts, grounded in specific sociotechnical realities, we reflect on the possibility of reimgining infrastructure to enable more care-filled and just teaching, learning, and organizing…."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

For the last section of Critical Infrastructure Studies & DH on “Reenvisioning DH Infrastructure” (beginning with Ch 14) we sought briefer pieces that are speculative, creative, or playful, including through visual & interactive means. dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @uminnpress.bsky.social

Screenshot of text from p. 21 of our editors' introduction chapter in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_, where we introduce the third and final section of the book. Transcription:

"REENVISIONING DIGITAL HUMANITIES INFRASTRUCTURE
To complement the primarily analytical, theoretical, and critical work of the chapters in the book’s first two sections, a final section includes briefer chapters that conclude the volume more speculatively, creatively, or playfully (thus segueing from the playful zest of Wershler making a virtue of scrounging). These final chapters include position statements, what-if scenarios or plans, and multimodal arguments (visualizations, infographics, other forms of graphics, and a Twine narrative). They argue for, and in some cases enact, critical infrastructure studies by imagining con brio how DH infrastructures could be different and better."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From Darren Wershler’s Chap. 13 (“Scrounging”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... (p. 260 in print ed.) @uminnpress.bsky.social

From Darren Wershler’s Chap. 13 (“Scrounging”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ (p. 260 in print ed.):

"Scrounging is a powerful but overlooked cultural technique that not only helps to ensure the ongoing operation of many labs in many disparate fields, but also can be a way of bringing an entire lab or research space into being. It is distinct both from the formal processes of application and certification that universities and other institutions use and from other informal techniques like gleaning and poaching, which describe forms of subsistence on someone’s or something else’s resources. The productivity and utility of gleaning and poaching are not in question (de Certeau, 165–76), but the kind of scrounging that I am thinking about operates differently because it shifts material resources from one infrastructural location to another to integrate them into a different research apparatus."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

@bestqualitycrab.bsky.social @mikejonesphd.bsky.social Toby Burrows & Ann Borda: see this article cited in ‪@timelfen.bsky.social's reply, whose argument of "generativity" vs "reliability or reproducibility" is tangent to yours in "Reproducibility &Contestation in Humanities Digital Infrastructure"

Tim Elfenbein@timelfen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

cc @inter-apero-bility.bsky.social @marcellaflamme.bsky.social

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Very impressed by @edinburghup.bsky.social’s “AI Policy” for authors: edinburghuniversitypress.com/publish-with.... Best I’ve run into so far, though I’ve not searched systematically. (Given changefulness of AI, though, the page could usefully be dated and versioned.)

AI policy - Writing your book - For authors

edinburghuniversitypress.com

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Excerpts from Verhoeven et al., Ch 12 (“Reproducibility & Contestation in Humanities Digital Infrastructure”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @bestqualitycrab.bsky.social @mikejonesphd.bsky.social @uminnpress.bsky.social

Three excerpts from Deb Verhoeven, Mike Jones, Toby Burrows, and Ann Borda’s Chap. 12 (“Reproducibility and Contestation in Humanities Digital Infrastructure”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (pp. 243, 244-45, 245 in print ed.):

Contestability and contestation are among the underlying precepts of humanities research that help distinguish it from other disciplines that find evidence in processes of consensus….

In the first part of this chapter, we address the way in which contestability has been minimized in favor of infrastructure focused on reproducibility and consensus…. We argue that rather than focusing on efficiency and replication, humanities digital infrastructure should include support for additive and annotative contestation as a foundational concept….

The remainder of this chapter looks at two examples of humanities driven digital infrastructure that foster this approach to contestation in different ways. The Humanities Networked Infrastructure (HuNI) platform emphasizes the potential of digital infrastructure to encapsulate collaborative, relational meaning-making; and the digital heritage access platform Mukurtu provides a framework supporting different, sometimes contradictory knowledge systems (especially Indigenous community knowledge).

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From Lik Hang Tsui & Jing Chen’s Ch. 11 (“Connecting Digital Systems by Whom and for Whom? Taking Stock of the Digital Humanities Infrastructures in China”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 223 in print ed) dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @uminnpress.bsky.social

From Lik Hang Tsui & Jing Chen’s Chap. 11 (“Connecting Digital Systems by Whom and for Whom? - Taking Stock of the Digital Humanities Infrastructures in China”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 223 in print ed.):

"Participating in globalizing and diversifying DH, this chapter offers a critical analysis of efforts to create a DH infrastructure in mainland China, where since the end of the decade of the 2000s, the need for such infrastructure has increasingly been recognized and more efforts have been made to build it.1 The focus has been on creating research infrastructures in particular—especially ones that can link various resources and systems not just for digital scholarship generally, but for the study of China specifically."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

First paragraph of Maya Dodd & Sharika Parmar’s Chap. 10 (“What’s Missing: Studying Digital Humanities and Critical Infrastructure in India”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 210 in print ed.), dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @uminnpress.bsky.social

First paragraph of Maya Dodd & Sharika Parmar’s Chap. 10 (“What’s Missing: Studying Digital Humanities and Critical Infrastructure in India”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 210 in print ed.):

"In imagining the infrastructural futures for digital humanities (DH) in India, we must first understand whom we are building for. Most importantly, conceptualizing infrastructural futures for DH in India requires us to move beyond traditional academic boundaries. As with many countries in the Global South, DH in India is not simply a product of academic innovations or robustly funded ecosystems but a response to public need and demand. The profusion of actors engaged in the interplay of digital and human activities goes beyond institutionally sanctioned spaces, producing a vibrant and conceptually demanding space (Dodd and Kalra 2021). This practical and epistemic diversity is, of course, characteristic of many countries in the Global South (Gobbo and Russo 2020). If we are to imagine a future for DH infrastructures in India, we must first assume a broader conception of DH, which implies a parallel assumption that infrastructures for DH in India need to be infrastructures for public humanities in India. Hence the infrastructures required presuppose a different trajectory than countries in the Global North, charting a course that embraces multimodal ways of designing, thinking, and building."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Three excerpts from Paul Spence’s Chap. 9 (“Understanding Multilingualism in Digital Humanities Infrastructures”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (pp. 196, 197, 205 in print ed.) dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica.... @politonaiz.bsky.social @uminnpress.bsky.social

Three excerpts from Paul Spence’s Chap. 9 (“Understanding Multilingualism in Digital Humanities Infrastructures”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (pp. 196, 197, 205 in print ed.). Transcription:

This chapter assesses how multilingualism is understood and practiced in global-leaning DH, in particular through DH sociotechnical infrastructure, and how this in turn shapes the way that the DH field contributes to global knowledge production. Drawing on DH literature and project case studies, I examine how those building or advocating for DH infrastructures understand multilingualism, as well as how this is framed within wider efforts to improve geocultural and linguistic diversity within the field….

What different models exist for approaching multilingual challenges in DH research infrastructures, and what do they tell us about how the field views multilingualism? The next sections explore multilingual DH from four perspectives: (1) as access to language resources, (2) as literacy and ideation, (3) as translation, and (4) as tactical response….

Linguistic diversity in digital knowledge production is a useful proxy for knowledge creation, broadly speaking, and DH research infrastructures are thus representative of the ongoing conflict in knowledge infrastructures more generally between geolinguistic diversity and the dynamics of dominant language consolidation. Critical multilingual infrastructural studies play an important role in reorienting digital practice toward greater epistemic diversity and cultivating richer intralingual and geocultural dynamics in digital scholarship.

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From Wermer-Colan, Wythoff, Gomez, & Washington’s Ch 8 (“Alternative Infrastructures for Digital Equity: Community-Based Internet Access”) in Critical Infrastructure Studies & DH, dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @phillywireless.bsky.social @princetoncdh.bsky.social @uminnpress.bsky.social

From Alex Wermer-Colan, Grant Wythoff, Allan Gomez, & Devren Washington’s Chap. 8 (“Alternative Infrastructures for Digital Equity: Community-Based Internet Access”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 177 in print edition).

"Born of the pandemic and the need that it exacerbated for broadband access and digital equity, PCW has sought to adapt alternative models for bridging the digital divide, specifically community Wi-Fi initiatives in regional cities similar to Philadelphia, the poorest big city in the United States (Jones and Duchneskie).2 The authors of this chapter—with backgrounds in community technology and digital humanities (DH)—are cofounders, staff, and Board members of PCW. In this chapter, we step back from our on-the-ground experiences over the last five years to explore in a broader context the potential of community-controlled broadband networks and the underlying wireless mesh network technology. In doing so, we offer a framework for critical praxis in DH, academic scholarship, and social justice work."

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From Javier Cha and Ian M. Miller’s Chap. 7 (“Digital Humanities and the Energetics of Big Data”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 167 in print edition), dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica.... @javiercha.bsky.social, @uminnpress.bsky.social

From Javier Cha and Ian M. Miller’s Chap. 7 (“Digital Humanities and the Energetics of Big Data”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ (p. 167 in print edition).

"The path forward for DH requires an in-depth understanding of the energy dynamics in digital information processing. Advanced cold-storage solutions such as Project Silica, M-Disc, and piqlFilm prompt new inquiries about the ultra-long-term preservation of digital data, spanning thousands to millions of years. Yet, in the immediate term, the transformation of the humanities into a substantial energy consumer is a pressing concern. Minimal computing principles, while valuable, are inadequate for addressing this surge in energy demand. Unexpectedly, the recent shift to AI-optimized servers in data centers has led to a marked increase in electricity and water usage, far exceeding that of conventional Web 2.0 setups (Langley). Renewable energy sources power many of these centers, and district heating systems in Nordic and Baltic regions show how excess heat can be effectively reused (Velkova). Our own experiences with LLM training on high-end NVIDIA guzzlers, however, lead us to question the necessity of such tasks and think about future implications of these trends.

Our hope is that the DH community uses its expertise in digital technologies to bridge the gap between the research of activist groups and corporate green claims and come up with some sound solutions and responses for mitigating big data’s environmental impact."

Center for Digital Humanities @princetoncdh.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Neighbors maintain a free broadband network in Philadelphia — @phillywireless.bsky.social — that now serves 7,600+ users. Read about the six-year project to build community-supported infrastructure in the latest Debates in DH volume from @uminnpress.bsky.social cdh.princeton.edu/blog/2026/06...

New Publication Details Cooperative Broadband and Community-Supported Infrastructure

New Publication Details Cooperative Broadband and Community-Supported Infrastructure

cdh.princeton.edu

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

AI is often future-oriented. But the back time-arrow is also important. The human record needs to be retrofitted for AI. Issues include: can AI respect archival “respect des fonds”? See Colavizza & Jaillant, “AI Ready: How to Prepare Archives for Artificial Intelligence....” doi.org/10.1080/2325...

From the abstract for Giovanni Colavizza and Lise Jaillant, “AI Ready: How to Prepare Archives for Artificial Intelligence, Improve Discoverability, and Enhance Access.” _Archives and Records_, June 2, 2026, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/23257962.2026.2675937.

"This article asks: how can archives prepare their collections for AI in ways that enhance discoverability and access, while remaining grounded in archival principles and ethical commitments? Co-authored by a computer scientist and a digital humanist with experience in cultural heritage, the article offers a cross-disciplinary literature review and practice-oriented guidelines for “AI data preparedness” in archives. Drawing on work in data documentation, data readiness, collections-as-data, and archival theory, we argue that concepts such as provenance, appraisal, authenticity, reliability, and trustworthiness should shape AI applications in records and archives."