Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities

Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, James Smithies

$62.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

University of Minnesota Press
20 January 2026

Media studies; Educational equipment & technology, computer-aided learning (CAL); Impact of science & technology on society

Series: Debates in the Digital Humanities

How digital humanities can shape and be shaped by the infrastructures that sustain our world

Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities reimagines the digital humanities (DH) through the expanding field of critical infrastructure studies. Featuring voices from around the globe, this volume explores how DH builds on and extends theories and technologies of infrastructure that affect society, culture, and knowledge in different national and regional contexts. Examining DH's own infrastructural genealogy, the contributors offer readers critical reflections and bold visions for the future as they address issues of environmentalism, decolonization, Indigenous sovereignty, multilingualism, labor justice, feminism, national development, and beyond from a variety of disciplinary perspectives embedded in concrete digital systems. Including innovative ""infrastructure manifests,"" the essays in this book illuminate how DH can both study and shape the systems that sustain culture, scholarship, and connection.

Contributors: Anne Beaulieu, U of Groningen; Kyle Booten, U of Connecticut; Ann Borda, U of Melbourne; Susan Brown, U of Guelph; Toby Burrows, U of Western Australia; Ashley Caranto Morford, Weber State U; Javier Cha, U of Hong Kong; Jing Chen, Nanjing U; Arianna Ciula, King's College London; Maya Dodd, FLAME U, Pune, India; Martin Paul Eve, Birkbeck, U of London; Allan Gomez, Philly Community Wireless; Matthew N. Hannah, Purdue U; Matthew Hockenberry, Fordham U; Arun Jacob, U of Toronto; Mike Jones, U of Tasmania; Lucie Kolb, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW; Ian M. Miller, St. John's U, New York; Sylvia K. Miller, Duke U; Sarah Montoya, Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow; Saumyaa Naidu, independent researcher; Sharika Parmar, FLAME U, Pune, India; Kush Patel, Srishti Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Bengaluru; Miriam Posner, UCLA; Puthiya Purayil Sneha, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad; Paul Spence, King's College London; Lik Hang Tsui, City U of Hong Kong; Deb Verhoeven, U of Alberta; Miguel Vieira, King's College London; Devren Washington, Philly Community Wireless; Alex Wermer-Colan, Temple U and Philly Community Wireless; Darren Wershler, Concordia U; Grant Wythoff, Princeton U and Philly Community Wireless.

Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

Edited by: Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, James Smithies
Imprint: University of Minnesota Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 254mm, Width: 178mm, Spine: 21mm
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9781517916084
ISBN 10: 1517916089
Series: Debates in the Digital Humanities
Pages: 424
Publication Date: 20 January 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Contents Introduction. ""Object of Study"": Digital Humanities and Critical Infrastructure Studies Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, and James Smithies Part I: Critical Infrastructure Studies (and Digital Humanities) 1. Interfaces for the Anthropocene Anne Beaulieu 2. Replatforming Susan Brown 3. Networking the Nation: Settler Colonialism as an Analytic in Critical Infrastructure Studies Sarah Montoya 4. Manifesting Connection: Digital Humanities for the Critical Study of Logistics Matthew Hockenberry 5. Critical Studies of Tech Stacks: What Can Technologies Tell Us About a Lab Culture? Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, Arianna Ciula, and Miguel Vieira 6. Shadow Libraries and Pirate Infrastructures Martin Paul Eve Part II: Digital Humanities (and Critical Infrastructure Studies) 7. Digital Humanities and the Energetics of Big Data Javier Cha and Ian M. Miller 8. Alternative Infrastructures for Digital Equity: Community-Based Internet Access Alex Wermer-Colan, Grant Wythoff, Allan Gomez, and Devren Washington 9. Understanding Multilingualism in Digital Humanities Infrastructures Paul Spence 10. What's Missing: Studying Digital Humanities and Critical Infrastructure in India Maya Dodd and Sharika Parmar 11. Connecting Digital Systems by Whom and for Whom? Taking Stock of the Digital Humanities Infrastructures in China Lik Hang Tsui and Jing Chen 12. Reproducibility and Contestation in Humanities Digital Infrastructure Deb Verhoeven, Mike Jones, Toby Burrows, and Ann Borda 13. Scrounging Darren Wershler Part III: (Re)envisioning Digital Humanities Infrastructure 14. Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces Kush Patel, Ashley Caranto Morford, and Arun Jacob (Pedagogy of the Digitally Oppressed Collective) 15. Making Infrastructure Writable Lucie Kolb 16. Online Feminist Publishing and Content Creation as Feminist Infrastructure in India Puthiya Purayil Sneha and Saumyaa Naidu 17. Digital Humanities from Below: Speculating on Solidarity Infrastructure Matthew N. Hannah and Miriam Posner 18. Imagining a Future of Multimedia E-books Sylvia K. Miller 19. Subjective Functions: How Should Humanistic Research Be Quantified? Kyle Booten Appendix: Infrastructure Manifests Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, and James Smithies, Editors Contributors

Alan Liu is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is author of several books, including The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information. Urszula Pawlicka-Deger is research manager in the Discovery Research program at Wellcome Trust. She is coeditor of Digital Humanities and Laboratories: Perspectives on Knowledge, Infrastructure, and Culture. James Smithies is professor of digital humanities at the Australian National University and director of the HASS Digital Research Hub. He is author of The Digital Humanities and the Digital Modern.