What Digital Humanities Means to Me: Daniel Fandino
I am a PhD. candidate with the Department of History at MSU, studying the postwar relationship between the United States and Japan. As a graduate student, Digital Humanities has meant new avenues for intellectual exploration, opportunities to develop as an instructor, and a sense of community that connected me to people across the university. It has brought to my studies and teaching new ways of working with sources and new ways to visualize the complexities of the past. It’s also been a lot of fun, as DH activities with friends and colleagues have been some of my best times at MSU. History is most often a solo profession, so the ability to collaborate and call upon others for assistance and input has been one of the most appealing things about DH.
As a graduate student I had the opportunity to participate in different projects and initiatives. With this participation came valuable mentorship. In my first year I took part in the Cultural Heritage Informatics fellowship, led by Ethan Watrall. The CHI Fellowship included students from diverse disciplines and this early exposure to DH ideas outside of my own department helped me think about my own work, and provided the funding and means to develop my first digital project. It also led to professional connections and lasting friendships. Taking a DH course as a component of the DH certificate and my minor field in Digital History put me in contact with even more graduate students, as did the many DH events at MSU including THATcamp and Global Digital Humanities Symposium. I’ve seen inspiring and fascinating work that have inspired me to continue to develop my own projects—truly motivation of the best kind. I eventually served terms as the graduate representative for the MSU Library Digital Scholarship Lab and the Digital Humanities Curriculum Committee, which gave me insight into student needs both inside and outside the classroom in a DH setting.
My interest in digital history led to a long term placement as a graduate assistant at the Lab for the Education in and Advancement of Digital Research (LEADR), a joint history/anthropology initiative, working with Alice Lynn McMichael. The appointment to LEADR allowed me to develop my own methods for teaching digital history and build skills in lab management. At LEADR I learned about agile work environments as everything from teaching an Omeka workshop to building new computers could be on the daily agenda. There was never a dull moment in the lab. In addition, the staff at LEADR is comprised of graduate students from both history and anthropology. We worked together on courses and operated the lab together, which cemented camaraderie and fostered interdisciplinary approaches to our teaching. Work in the CHI fellowship and LEADR also allowed me to pursue experimental interests, including photogrammetry, virtual reality, and 3D printing. This eventually led to being offered courses on the history of the digital age and global digital cultures, cornerstones of my teaching portfolio.
While I have used DH in my work and projects, DH has also just been fun. Playing with new tools like the MSU DSL 360 visualization room, working with others to figure out problems, and seeing what could be done with new technologies has been a collaborative exploration of ideas and processes. As I approach the completion of my degree, I see friends and colleagues across the globe doing amazing work. It is an ever expanding network that is one of the most valuable things I will take from my time at MSU.
The following piece was originally created for the DH@MSU Newsletter and was featured in the March 28, 2023 issue. Subscribe to the Newsletter here.
