Absolutely agree. It’s important both to maintain a cross-disciplinary approach that fosters real discussion among us all, and to support the exciting DH work that’s going on not just elsewhere but also at CUNY.
I do think that a small tweak to the name of DMSG so that it reflects the larger remit would be very helpful (people – not just me! – are definitely thinking that it’s for “media studies” in the narrower sense).
My thoughts, fwiw, on the options Matt proposes:
For the purposes of getting something to the CforH by June 1, perhaps the best approach would be to go with the first option for now. We could then let the DH Initiative grow organically over the next year, and see if it turned out to need its own headspace and funding.
But – though maybe this is a silly/ill-informed idea – perhaps a longer-term solution would be to grow the D(M)SG as a whole into something bigger (a Center for Digital Studies, say) that would have its own funding and could support work coming out of the New Media Lab, ITP, D(M)SG, DHI, and other digital initiatives in a unified way??? Then there’d be plenty of room for everyone…
Finally, just as a practical matter the DHI would probably need its own space on the Commons, to facilitate conversations around the specific DH work that we’d want to do, and provide a place to hold that work. The home page could indicate that it was an initiative of the D(M)SG, and that conversations of general interest should go on over there. That way, the members who don’t identify as DH-ers wouldn’t have to get bogged down in DH stuff.
Other initiatives might want to work the same way – say, for example, some people wanted to set up a working group to focus on privacy issues online (see Sarah’s post re Facebook).
Anyway, thanks for reading this far, hope you’re all having a great weekend…
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