Abstract: Remix culture is a popular phenomenon rooted in fandom, crafting new texts from existing cultural artifacts. Academic remixing employs a similar ethic to produce somewhat different kinds of texts that nevertheless, I argue, retain a bit of the joy and sometimes the informality of popular practices. Data visualization techniques like Wordles, open licensing schemes that permit data mining or other repurposing, and the reframing of academic research for media like podcasts or web videos are instances of academic remix strategies. Remix culture also creates new communities beside, around, and through existing institutions. And so, DH practitioners within and without the big tent often behave in fannish ways: creative and impassioned, they move in from the sidelines of official culture in unauthorized, and anarchic ways, across disciplinary and status boundaries, across contested terrain with real stakes. Remix culture in digital humanities and beyond builds on the modular content models of web 2.0, the emerging ethical movement toward open scholarship, and an increasing imperative to actively engage a greater variety and range of audiences, to create new modes of research creation, community engagement, and knowledge dissemination. Remix culture also remakes the very enterprise of DH itself.
Bio: Aimée Morrison is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo, where she teaches new media theory and practice. Her SSHRC-funded research project, Deciphering Digital Life Writing, examines personal authorship and community practices in social multimedia. 2014 marks her 10th time as a DHSI instructor, and the first time she won’t miss anyone’s birthday in the process. Twitter: @digiwonk.