When I first read the course syllabus, I was a bit concerned as to how a digital humanities project would come to fruition and was unclear as to what exactly it entails. The only thing I was able to imagine was the use of digital texts, on devices such as E-readers and tablets, and online research tools, through the library databases and online journals. However, once I began to examine my own social media sites, I began to notice the authors on Twitter that I was following and how memes are being used to explain theoretical topics using digital and popular media. “Is this digital humanities though?” I asked myself.

Most notably on my daily Twitter newsfeed, I see new blog posts, photos with fans and book tour publications from authors such as Chuck Palahniuk, known mostly for Fight Club. However, even though Palahniuk is one of my personal favorites, he is more widely recognized as a “fan’s author,” which often negates his “literary and academic potential.” In contrast to using social media to connect more personally with his readers, I also see authors such as Iván Thays, a Peruvian author whose 2008 novel Un lugar llamado Oreja de Perro portrays the aftermath of the Sendero Luminoso terrorist movement, not only connects with his readers but also uses Twitter to engage in more critical conversations with other authors. In comparing these two authors, even Thays’ twitter handle “@moleskinlit” shows the more pretentious, literary angle due to the popularity of the MoleSkin journals among writers.

Chuck Palahniuk – Twitter

Ivan Thays – Twitter

Apart from social media, blogs and digital memes are also being created by students, professors, and activists, among others, to explain difficult, theoretical or political issues via photos and comedy. While not always accurate, these online texts are reaching large audiences via “retweets, likes and shares” that often closed conversations are being made more accessible to those whose professional lives may reside outside academia but still feel a passion or interest in engaging in a critical discussion.

Post-Structuralism Explained with Hipster Beards

Confused Cats against Feminism

But still, I ask myself, “Is this digital humanities?” Can these blogs gain enough merit to compete with scholars, and if this is the case, why should we continue studying within a formal setting? With online course and degree programs, will the digital humanities take place of the university classroom?

However, Dr. Baer’s in-class presentation highlights the benefits of producing knowledge through a digitized source because it allows scholars to collaborate without having to leave their home institution. Using filmed lectures and online discussion boards via Twitter handles, the scholars and students alike are able to engage in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic debates that will open the field to individuals who may not have access to traveling to conferences or attending presentations at other institutions. Through this presentation, I was beginning to answer the question of “What is digital humanities?” because it became clear that it is a combination of traditional scholarship with new technology, including Twitter, YouTube videos and video conferencing, among others. While I can see the benefits of incorporating digital media into a conference or classroom setting, I can’t help but think of the negative effects that will accompany such a change. Will conferences become a thing of the past? Will they all move to filming presentations and a subsequent, delayed Q&A session? Is it a utopic ideal to think that the humanities can function successfully via digital sources by removing the human element?

Now that the semester is coming to an end, I have a better understanding of what digital humanities consists, and following the group project, I have begun wondering if I will incorporate it into my own research. While I see the value of following online lectures, discussions and using multiple media outlets to engage and follow critical conversations, I’m not sure that I will fully commit myself to the digital humanities approach. On the one hand, it has taken about an hour to post this blog, trying to embed links and images, so maybe it’s just my unfamiliarity and lack of knowledge of new technology that is causing my apprehension. But, on the other, I find the human element to be an invaluable resource in the academic world. Having attended several conferences thus far, involving both graduate students and professors, I feel that meeting and engaging in intimate atmospheres and conversations has opened my mind to new avenues that I wouldn’t have considered previously within my own research. This semester, I attended the Midwest Popular Culture Association Conference in Indianapolis. My panel consisted of an advanced PhD candidate from Australia, who focused on the historical connection between Australia League Football and the gold rush, and a professor from Moorehead State University, whose specialty is in indigenous revolutions and contemporary hip-hop music in Africa, while I presented on the indigenous in Peruvian literature. Had our presentations been recorded and watched at different times, I don’t think it would have had as great of an impact as actually meeting these two individuals, discussing our different fields – Australia, Peru and Africa – while simultaneously identifying commonalities and offering suggestions.

So, am I sold on the digital humanities as the future of our field? Not necessarily. I do, however, see the value of incorporating it into our studies and am becoming more aware that I need to beef up my own personal technological skills if I want to stay relevant in the future.

While reading this week’s texts and attempting to formulate my own understanding of transnational cinema, I found myself returning to the discussions we had at the beginning of the semester, specifically the hyphenated terminology. Even though “transnationalism” isn’t technically hyphenated, I feel that one can imagine of what the hyphenated space would be comprised. Thinking back to the first brainstorming session and the subsequent classes where we tried to define “transnationalism” as a concept, we questioned the hyphenated terms in relation to Appadurai and Bhabha’s texts. With Appadurai, we concluded that the “— scapes” showed how these different “landscapes” were changing, whereas Bhabha related to “the beyond,” or more appropriately, “the in-between,” which highlighted the unification or point of department of two seemingly distinct entities. Given this week’s readings and film, I would like to speculate on the hyphen that creates trans-national cinema. Is it comprised of thematic content which distinguishes national films from the transnational or rather the “behind the scenes” material which guides the filming process?

This semester, the Spanish Film Club has presented its 3^rd annual film festival sponsored by Pragda showcasing highly acclaimed or up-and-coming talents from Spain and Latin America. Apart from the documentary, ¿Qué culpa tiene el tomate?, which is a cross-cultural comparison of the respective countries’ produce markets, the other films portray a nationally or culturally specific narrative. Therefore, I can’t help but wonder how one defines transnational cinema. Is it transnational if the cinematic content crosses borders, as in the aforementioned documentary? Or, does an ethnically/culturally/linguistically diverse cast and crew lend itself to a transnational category? Finally, how does the viewer impact transnational cinema? I find myself questioning how festivals promoting independent films, or those being produced on a smaller budget, have impacted national or international reception; therefore, I think the audience plays just as much a role in establishing a transnational cinema due to the ability to access films at the click of a button, whether on our tablets, smartphones, or laptops. Within our own academic setting, we can show films via Netflix or YouTube to our students, which is a vital component in opening the classroom to authentic texts; or rather, we expand the borders of our classrooms as we travel alongside Julio and Tenoch in Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también or becoming four Mexican teenagers’ accomplice in robbing a movie theater, as in Iria Gómez Concheiro’s Asalto al cine.

As the prompt suggests, cinema is a collaborative effort not only in terms of the aesthetic and artistic qualities but also in terms of financing and producing capital. Even though the majority of their text is focused on Mexico, Baer and Long point out that “the international co-productions in the 1990s and 2000s are emblematic products of globalization: financed by global capital, featuring international casts, shot in several countries and often several languages, and foregrounding the hybrid status of their production contexts in both their formal construction and narrative content” (150). Following this line of thought, it would seem that transnational cinema is equally impacted by the interaction of on- and off-screen international influences. In their critical text, Ezra and Rowden suggest that “cinema has from its inception been transnational, circulating more or less freely across borders and utilizing international personnel” (2). However, keeping this in mind and returning to my original question of the hyphenated space, they argue that “because transnational cinema is most ‘at-home’ in the in-between spaces of culture, in other words, between the local and the global, it decisively problematizes the investment in cultural purity or separatism” (4). They acknowledge that the in-between is what constitutes the transnational.

This “in-between” is often materialized, as they discuss, when films are no longer shot on-location, which complicates the transnational classification. For example, in Peter Berg’s 2013 Lone Survivor “Marcus Luttrell and his team set out on a mission to capture or kill notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, in late June 2005. Marcus and his team are left to fight for their lives in one of the most valiant efforts of modern warfare” (IMDB) in Afghanistan. However, it was shot entirely in New Mexico; therefore, is Lone Survivor a transnational film? To what extent does the filming location occupy the hyphenated space?

Another complication emerges when literary texts are translated into feature films. For example, in Love the Hard Way (2001), director Peter Sehr moves the narrative to New York City, where the movie is filmed in its entirety, even though it is based on Chinese author Wang Shuo’s novel Yi Ban Shi Huo Yan, Yi Ban Shi Hai Shui. In this case, one should question the artistic licensing available to re-write or re-interpret a text to such a degree that the setting is relocated. Additionally, Love the Hard Way is classified as an “Eastern European – Foreign Film” on Netflix, even though it is filmed in English in New York based on a Chinese novel.

While trying to address how transnational cinema should be analyzed, I am unable to identify a single, definitive response. As Andrew Higson notes, in regards to transnational cinema, “The experience of border crossing takes place at two broad levels. First there is the level of production and the activities of the film-makers. […] The second way [is] in terms of the distribution and reception of films” (19). Ultimately, I think the imagined hyphenation or “in-between” in the trans-national consists of spontaneous and organic interactions between the following components: the specificity of the production team, including the actors, directors, crew, etc., the financial backing, the filming location, the thematic/cinematic content, viewing location (theater, festival, university classroom, or internet), use of subtitles and reliability of translations, among others.

Borrowing my title from Mark Kurlansky’s critically acclaimed historical text, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World (2004), underscores the global impact that this year has had. He introduces his text stating that “there has never been a year like 1968, and it is unlikely that there will ever be one again. At a time when nations and cultures were still separate and very different – and in 1968 Poland, France, the United States, and Mexico were far more different from one another than they are today – there occurred a spontaneous combustion of rebellious spirits around the world” (xvii). Addressing the question of examining the benefits and limitations to focusing on one year in regard to transnationalism, Kurlansky points out the similarities and differences between the various rebellions: “What was unique about 1968 was that people were rebelling over disparate issues and had in common only that desire to rebel, ideas about how do it, a sense of alienation from the established order, and a profound distaste for authoritarianism in any form” (xvii). Following this line of thought, 1968, in a way, provides a unified global front in that the societies were experiencing similar struggles, contesting their specific cultural or political concerns. In connecting the critical texts we read this week, I would like to turn my attention to the notion of social memory and how it addresses the simultaneous, yet geographically distant, revolutions.

While I believe it is highly beneficial to focus on one year like 1968 in order to create a cohesive global vision, it’s important to keep in mind how we are limited by our current environment. Elaborating the notion of a “social framework of memory” established by Maurice Halbwachs, Sarah Waters emphasizes the relationship between the present moment and a social or historical memory: “The memories we have and the form they take are strongly influenced by the present and by the social context that we inhabit. Memory is constructed in time and space but always by social groups. It is the social group to which an individual belongs that determines what is memorable and what our memory brings to mind in the present” (6). In considering the impact on transnational studies, we must keep in mind the context in which we belong and how that affects our perspective. Therefore, in order to provide more than a cursory or surface level historical account, I think courses studying a global movement like 1968 should include texts and resources that provide a comprehensive account, specifically by incorporating texts from the country or culture being studied.

In addition to establishing a transnational social memory, Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth problematize the notion of building a comparative, transnational approach based on a nationalist paradigm. They uncover its inherent contradictions:

It aims at presenting information on the history of the various national protest movements to facilitate comparative studies, on the multifaceted transnational aspects of the protest movements to gain a deeper understanding of the similarities between the various national movements, and on the common narratives and cultures of memory to further the discussion on the consequences and relevance of domestic protest in the various countries as well as Europe as a whole. (2)

Reading between the lines, I think they are successful in bringing to light that even though there are cross-cultural similarities, the specific domestic circumstances represent an always present limitation that must be addressed. However, the emergence of a global popular culture provided an avenue in establishing a toolbox for surpassing or deconstructing these limitations: “A global popular culture, inspired by new aesthetics emerging in art, music, film, architecture, graphic design, and fashion, joined with hippie ideologies and lifestyles and melted into a set of symbolic forms, which became an infinite resource of mobilization in both the East and the West” (Klimke and Scharloth 6). Returning to the title of Kurlansky’s text, 1968 was the year that literally “rocked the world” as evident with the pop culture impact. Even thinking about more recent social or political protests, we will find music and artistic symbols being used transnationally from 1968.

The aforementioned texts, along with the others that we read for this week’s class, effectively portray that basing a transnational study on a single year will encounter many limitations. However, I think they are successful in showing that countries around the globe were not only experiencing similar political and social discontent but also responding in comparable ways, which is extremely beneficial in establishing transnational connections.

Kurlansky, Mark. 1968: The Year that Rocked the World. New York: Random House, Inc., 2005. Print.

From the opening lines of Gloria Anzaldúa’s chapter titled “The Homeland, Aztlán: El otro México”, the reader encounters various literary discourses: a title written in both English and Spanish, a stanza from a Spanish poem, an ethnographic citation and a longer poem that transverses the discursive borders. This longer poem, which is written mostly in English, with Spanish lines used strategically throughout, offers a historical, yet not entirely nor universally accessible, account while the affective properties open the borders, at times, allowing the reader to pass through unscathed.

Before analyzing the literary and aesthetic importance of this juxtaposition, it’s important to understand how Anzaldúa defines borders: “Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants” (3). In Global Matters, Paul Jay concludes that Anzaldúa’s “borderland” is “an improvisational space in which languages and identities hybridize and evolve” (77). Even though Anzaldúa’s definition is most explicitly referring to the geographical and physical boundaries between cultures, I want to focus specifically on her notion of “the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” and its relationship with these opening pages.

This longer poem opens with an affective description that activates not only the reader’s imagination but also produces a corporal reaction:

Wind tugging at my sleeve

feet sinking into the sand

I stand at the edge where the earth touches ocean

Where the two overlap

a gentle coming together

at other times and places a violent clash. (1)

Not only can I imagine myself standing along the water’s edge, feeling the ocean breeze, I am forewarned that this imagined translocation could end in a violent clash, which I believe occurs at the end of this poem. Over the nearly two full pages of text, Anzaldúa takes us on a historical journey that begins textually in English and at an unidentified oceanic location. One can imagine the beaches of Maryland, Florida, Mexico, Italy, among others, with which s/he has a personal connection. Immediately in the second stanza, Anzaldúa introduces the geographical domain by stating that “across the border in Mexico” (1) there are “houses gutted by waves/cliffs crumbling into the sea/silver waves marbled with spume/gashing a hole under the border fence” (1). This image, while continuing the maritime motif offers a more violent relationship between the sea and the border, which is symbolized through the materialization of the border fence. Anzaldúa references the barbwire fence multiple times throughout, with each reference becoming more personal, while interchanging between English and Spanish to narrate her personal journey.

In a way that the ocean water has eroded the border fence, Anzaldúa emphasizes its long-term effects on her culture:

1,950 mile-long open wound

dividing a pueblo, a culture,

running down the length of my body,

staking fence rods in my flesh,

splits me     splits me

me raja    me raja

This is my home

this thin edge of

barbwire.

Not only does she underscore the nearly two thousand mile physical and geographical boundary, she problematizes the notion that the fence only divides land by emphasizing how it has divided a pueblo and a culture. On a textual and aesthetic level, she literally splits the words with more spaces, which breaks the reader’s focus and internal pace. Ultimately, for non-Spanish speaking readers, the use of Spanish represents a fence that, without the aid of a dictionary or metaphorical ladder, can’t be crossed.

Recognizing that she lives along “this thin edge of barbwire,” Anzaldúa concludes this poem with a stanza entirely in Spanish:

Yo soy un puente tendido

del mundo gabacho al del mojado,

lo pasado me estirá pa’ ‘tras

y lo presente pa’ ‘delante.

Que la Virgen de Guadalupe me cuide

Ay ay ay, soy mexicana de este lado.

Analyzing the linguistic nature of the stanza, we find that she has expressed her artistic license by using abbreviations and regionalisms in order to fully express her authorial role, bridging the past and present from either side of the fence, which she explicitly reaffirms in the last line. She is a Mexican woman from this side. Returning to the opening imagery, this concluding stanza, in my opinion, represents a violent clash between the text and a non-Spanish speaking reader. In literary terms, beginning and ending a text in different languages represents Anzaldúa’s notion of an “emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” because the reader confronts a conclusion that clashes with his/her preconceived expectations; or rather, the unwritten contract that the text will deliver a solution or answer addressing the reader’s relationship with it. For me, the importance of Anzaldúa’s text resides in the fact that she writes in a way that invites the reader inside her borders while unexpectedly rejecting them through her language usage, which symbolizes the process of migrating and confronting the choice between assimilating into the host culture or maintaining one’s identity to their home culture.