HW #2: "Storm Clouds" Response

[cmccraw]

Read "Storm Clouds on the Horizon," by Caughie, Datskou and Parker (on Sakai).

For your response, post 2 discussion questions about the reading as a comment on this GitHub Issue.

In place of writing a second discussion question, students are permitted to respond in 3-4 sentences to another student's question. If you opt out of writing a second discussion question, you must mention the person whose question you are responding to (using the @ symbol followed by their GitHub handle - e.g. @cmccraw) and reiterate their question in your response.

[msimmons5]

How would we go about creating a gender ontology for encoding, what would that look like? (I don't know anything about coding or how that works)

This article really made me think of a living LGBTQ+ dictionary of sorts, a huge subject like that would take a huge amount of time but I wonder if having that intersection of history, psychology, sociology, and individual experience would make it easier for those outside the community to understand?

[m-nesbitt]

The reading discussed that the emergence of feminist digital humanities began with preserving and presenting the work of women. Once a number of digital archives where created to present the work of women that had previously been erased from history due to the misogynistic views of what was historically important(Mina Loy: Navagating the Avant-Garde, The Marianne Moore Digital Archive, Woolf Online ect.), scholars were ready to take on the how information was presented. In making decesions regarding historical processes, it is important to consider the perspective from which the decesion was being made. Do you think it is necessary to evaluate the identities of the team that is doing this work?

Is it important to include the modern ideas and terms that are associated with gender when working with a text of the past such as "Man Into Woman" where these progressive ideas did not yet exsist?

[meehanjm]

I was thinking about potential ways to represent ontologies. In Man Into Woman for instance, I considered that one could graph something that could show the frequency of a character trait over time. I drew this as an example, I don't know how the graph would actually look, but I would be curious to know. I was wondering if anyone else had any similar thoughts, or thought of any other ways to represent the data in a work like Man Into Woman?

I also was wondering just how malleable these ontologies can be. What can be lost or gained by evaluating these works from a modern perspective?

[natashaaranda]

[JBrockland]

Throughout the article different terms and labels for different identities are mentioned. How important are labels to our identities? Is something like a switch from transsexual to transgender an important change or is the meaning behind the term more important?

How do we judge a text from a different era or culture with our own modernly biased opinions? If something said in a book would today be considered bad, troublesome, or simply different how should we view that and what needs to be said about it? For instance, today's understanding of what "trans" is is very different than Lili's perspective. How should we take in and discuss Lili's idea of Andreas dying and Lili living when in today's world this isn't part of the trans narrative?

[coconnell22]

Reading this article made me think about how uncomfortable people usually are with the "messiness" of gender, sex, sexuality, etc. Society prefers things that are clean and easy to understand. When trying to represent this "messiness" within encoded text, things grow increasingly complicated. Say one is successful in translating gender ontologies to TEI language, is that going to become a standard for the rest of digital humanities projects dealing with similar narratives? Would this be counterproductive?

Is there a way to provide a disclaimer about the language being used on the site in terms of gender, sex, sexuality, etc? Someone unfamiliar with the site may not be asking the questions presented in the article before they read Man into Woman. I feel like providing them with such questions could lead to a more engaging read of the narrative.

[melezovic]

How does understanding terms that were used in the 19th century to describe/define gender, sex, and sexuality correlate help us understand the terms we now use in the 20th century?

@JBrockland "How do we judge a text from a different era or culture with our own modernly biased opinions? I think the point is not to judge but to track the changes with texts from different eras/cultures with modern day. I feel like when you read a text from a different era/culture you have to do the research on what was considered the "norm" during that time.

[orionelrod]

How can we balance the intentional confusion in gender and sexual terminologies with a user-friendly archive and encoding system?

@meehanjm" I was thinking about potential ways to represent ontologies. In Man Into Woman for instance, I considered that one could graph something that could show the frequency of a character trait over time. I drew this as an example, I don't know how the graph would actually look, but I would be curious to know. I was wondering if anyone else had any similar thoughts, or thought of any other ways to represent the data in a work like Man Into Woman?" This sort data representation is an interesting concept because it would allow users to see Lili becoming more prevalent over time in ways other than her operations. I also feel it is important, as suggested in the reading, to analyze who has characterized the subject as masculine or feminine. Lili's personal letters could have a different significance than Hoyer's written interpretation and editing of events, for example. I am not quite sure how to represent this yet but it is an interesting concept to consider.

[MylinhLam213]

I wanted to pose the question on how we are going to create a timeline of Andreas Sparre and Lili Elbe's life and depict it accurately because one thing that is a struggle is "timeline, they would still not be able to illustrate accurately how temporarily works within any one identity." (Feminist Modernist Studies, 235.) I believe I'm more interested in the depiction of how the timeline carries out. I also wonder if we would be able to include a small category of terms thats are used within the TEI community as well, such as a key box?

[doverebmann]

How is the gender binary that is present within the TEI format a representation of the people's inability to comprehend genders and identities outside of the male and female binary? And does starting the conversation about how to change this reflect the cultural shift in beginning to accept these other genders and identities?

How can we, in the TEI format and in the outside world, begin to make the shift from the strict gender binary to beginning to recognize different identities and genders? What would that mean for how we refer to people who are in the process of transitioning? What would that mean for people who identify as non-binary and trans? Narratively, how can we still refer to the same person throughout the process of a transition?

[d-bahe]

@coconnell22 In response to your question of if a successful trans ontology might be counterproductive, I would argue that yes, it may cause some issues to arise with our ever-expanding knowledge of gender. Especially with a markup language that requires certain formulaic expressions, the issue of trying to create language that is inclusive to all genders (that exist in spoken language currently and beyond) may compromise future concepts of gender. However, I also think that this is the core issue that the three authors are focusing their dialogue on, and their conclusion is much like my own: the "confusion" of gender is part of the experience of gender.

Following the essay's penultimate paragraph, I would like to pose a question regarding the mention of gender ontologies having "Anglocentric baggage." Would it be conducive to research wider scopes of gender within other cultures, such as tribal societies, wherein the concept of a "third gender (sex)" has been normative thought for centuries? (i.e. because the knowledge of gender in an Anglocentric society is so limiting, would it be beneficial to expand the research surrounding trans narratives to non-western realms?)

[Phyhall]

With all of the changing definitions of terms used to describe gender and sexuality, how have those terms changed the way different identities are viewed and understood today? When capturing gender identity digitally, how would simplifying different representations of gender into single letters simplify or confuse current images of identities on a grander scale?

[svanderveer]

How has the language surrounding lgbtq+ folks, specifically trans folks, changed and developed since 19th century? how Does language in general impact ones intersectionality? In the same vein- how do texts from the 19th century translate to more current years?

[lpatriciobellizzi]

1) Translations, culture, historical paradigms, and temporality seemingly converge in digital formats. Can we classify, filter, and ultimately interpret, gendered ontologies?

2) Do we focus on developing algorithms that can decode the original text’s connotations? Coding technologies which can synthesize the aforementioned more objectively? Is it even possible? How would one set out to define and categorize fluid, non-binary constructs (pronouns) within modern constructs while being mindful of any historical paradigms? Is Ontology in the eye of the proverbial beholder? Should theoretical objectivity be universally applied? How would that translate into a discerning technology?