(Read Melissa Dinsman's interview with me in the Los Angeles Review of Books.)
Q: Do you think full engagement with the digital humanities requires programming skills, and, if so, should programming become a requirement for humanities students?
A: Would you trust a book on the French Revolution written by a scholar who didn’t read French? It’s a legitimate question. I’m sure there are brilliant lunar geologists who have never been to the moon. But I maintain that one must learn one’s materials — including computation and coding — in order to be competent in DH [Digital Humanities]. Computer languages might not have the deep history that natural languages have, and they might not have the same kind of cultural depth that natural languages have. But in terms of relevance in contemporary life, in terms of a rich analytical and critical context, machine languages are just as fascinating as natural languages.