In the readings for our first two overview weeks, I was most interested in the ways in which power and privilege both have structured and are evident in systems of classification and in representation and misrepresentation. For my response, I will consider the discussion of these themes in our readings by Safiya Umoja Noble and Roopika Risam.

In Safiya Umoja Noble’s chapter, “The Future of Knowledge in the Public,” Noble discusses how the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) have reflected and reinforced the history of characterizing certain individuals as “problem people” based on aspects of their identity or their position within a group (2). In addition to reflecting the attitudes of those involved in developing such systems of classification, information systems such as the LCSH and the Internet continue to shape how certain individuals and groups are characterized and perceived in the present by authoritatively identifying them and locating related material under subject headings and search results that participate in “‘legitimizing the ideology of dominant groups’ to the detriment of people of color” (2). Noble’s discussion of the movement led by students at Dartmouth College and supported by campus librarians and the American Libraries Association to have the Library of Congress replace the term “illegal aliens” with terms preferred by undocumented immigrants and their advocates provides an example of the importance of self-representation and the adoption of preferred terms in consultation with the individuals and groups to whom those terms and classifications refer, particularly in systems that have been structured by power and privilege. Near the end of the chapter, Noble notes a commitment to “ensure that traditionally underrepresented ideas and perspectives are included in the shaping of the field—to surface counternarratives,” which Roopika Risam emphasizes as being central to the development of a postcolonial digital humanities (14)

In Roopika Risam’s essay, “Decolonizing the Digital Humanities in Theory and Practice,” Risam characterizes a postcolonial digital humanities as one that centers intersectional engagement with various “axes of identity” that shape the production of knowledge, in contrast to colonial and neo-colonial information institutions and systems that situate the colonizer at the center and privilege certain Western perspectives and forms of knowledge (78). Risam describes postcolonial approaches to digital humanities as those that center and affirm local and indigenous forms of knowledge and knowledge production while questioning and seeking to dismantle the imposition of colonial and neo-colonial perspectives. For me, Risam’s essay recalls Safiya Umoja Noble’s discussion of the LCSH and the student-led and librarian-supported movement to involve, if not center, those to whom the subject headings refer in replacing existing terminology with preferred terms.

The readings for our first two overview weeks, represented here by Noble’s chapter and Risam’s essay, encouraged me to think critically about the ways in which information institutions and systems construct and present information and the accumulation of that information as knowledge. I am thinking here of two of my courses from last semester, Cultural Identities in Medieval Europe and History and Ethics of Collecting and Collections, in which we discussed how individual, social, and cultural biases have informed Western scholarly narratives of the history of art, including representations and misrepresentations of the individuals, societies, and cultures involved in the production of works of art and other cultural objects.