Many years after the idea of a digital humanities galvanized different genealogies of humanistic practice around the world, most institutions in North America have by now each attracted various forms of related talent to their libraries, departments and centers to help build capacity at the institutional level. What happens when that talent begins to collaborate across institutions at a massive scale? Or intra-institutionally guided by their own collaborative light outside established and unflinching reward mechanisms? In this presentation, Dr. Alex Gil will argue for a form of rapid organizing for change in non-hierarchical formats that can effectively draw from our collective talent pool in the digital humanities and adjacent formations. Using several specific case studies, including the most recent Torn Apart/Separados effort, the idea of a nimble tent, a mobilized humanities, will emerge as a possible bridge between the long-game of scholarship, and the short-game of political action in the now.

Alex Gil is the Digital Scholarship Librarian at Columbia University Libraries and Affiliate Faculty of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. This event is co-sponsored by the UVA Library, DH@UVA, and the Scholars’ Lab.