Ruva -Doing History in the digital age

 In what ways does history benefit from digital media and how does the 1884 project serve as an example of these benefits and of the sociotemporal modes of organization and of digital histories — past and (relatively) in the present? Pg. 44-45 or location pages 69-77. (Ruva)

    The digital turn presents another shift in the historical analysis where historians realize that the normalized chronological analysis is inadequate. It parallels a historical analysis shift that occurred at the end of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century, where historians began to separate past and present using time chronology. In the late eighteenth century onwards, the purpose of history as a discipline changed from presenting how things happened to serve a laboratory where scholars were deriving lessons from the past to serve for the future. With the digital age, scholars have begun to re-evaluate the normalized practice and value of history to society, and Tanaka’s 1884 project is one great example. It points to the reader that besides the common analysis in the chronological progression of time, other sociotemporal modes of analysis are possible (40). It presents narratives and stories of the past and how they continue to operate in our present not as lessons but as sociotemporal events. Through the project, one can see how the digital allows historians to rethink our conception of change.  

        Existing historical analysis often insists on singling out the correct account and interpretation of an event but the digital opens doors to a more practical approach that incorporates “heterogeneity of interpretations, the diversity of practices, the contestations and the process and negotiations”  (43). Academics spend a lot of time training to master and be experts in specific fields. The digital approach allows scholars to adopt the idea that historical events are a common reference point to many narratives told about it. There are many stories told about an event, at that time, later and even later by historians (42). Such a concept gives the historians the opportunity to become " skilled and reliable organizer of myriad data that helps us understand human experience" (44). 

   The digital enables scholars to present variable narratives which permit scholars to move away from the single viewpoint. The art of writing history involves a lot of work including background research and transforming multitudes of data and social forms into a clear thesis with a unitary narrative. Scholars are compelled to "omit contradictions and make decisions on conflicting views" (44). Bringing out variability in the digital permits scholars to present the stories embedded in primary data, the negotiation, and decisions that led to the structures, ideas, and social forms of their narratives (43). Such an approach brings together stories and events as they are with the narratives of historical thinking.

Question

        Since the digital revolutionize historical analysis into presenting events as they are together with narratives and thesis.  How does the history discipline adjust to such a new approach?