One of the most important aspects of being a digital humanists (however we want to use that term) is that often, in a scholarly context, you must have both a ‘traditional’ academic focus and a DH side specialty. Not always, and it’s changing, but it can become difficult to juggle what seems to be two more or less full academic directions. Making them cross-pollinate, and thus not redoubling your efforts, is key.

So, to illustrate that, a brief list of what I’m working on today (and the last few and coming weeks):

• Comprehensive exams. I’m on my second one, focusing on early modern drama as a textual & staged media artifact. My first was on DH as a field. Currently working through the 1590s. 
• Collaboratively drafting a paper on A Social Edition of the Devonshire MS for the Renaissance Society of America meeting in April. Also creating a Powerpoint to accompany.
• Developing a six-person, Pecha Kucha style MLA 2014 session proposal on new models for the dissertation. We’re all graduate students, and all working on or planning non-traditional dissertation projects. Not to spoil, but these are some great people, working on everything from hybrid digital-print projects to the dissertation as graphic novel to situating the traditional dissertation in an #altac context.
• Corresponding with folks at MediaCommons and the Scholarly Communication Institute to develop a collaborative cluster of content focused on graduate education in the humanities in the 21st century, with all that technological advances entail.
• Drafting a whitepaper on the Renaissance English Knowledgebase (REKn), the early modern node in the Laura Mandell-led Advanced Research Consortium (ARC). When fully online, REKn will join NINES, 18th Connect, and MESA as a federated database system allowing research into digital resources spanning centuries.
• Planning another paper for the RSA convention focused on visualizing networks of dialogue in the early modern play Ralph Roister Doister using Gephi.
• Trying to read David Golumbia’s post on definitions of DH, which has been open for a few days.

That’s a snapshot of my day in very brief form. I’m busy, as are all of you, I’m sure. 🙂

Off to read!