More than a tool for global networking and intellectual exchange, digital technology has transformed the most basic terms of feminist scholarship: reading, writing, archival research, and publication itself. This article addresses how the Internet and the emerging field of digital humanities has fulfilled some of the larger aspirations of feminist scholarship as they were articulated at the dawn of the twenty-first century. When we move online, however, scholars engaged with history and new media identify new questions that require feminist attention. Among them are the digital divide between universities and their publics; transnational linguistic barriers; the uncertain future of journals within an altered reading and publishing environment; and the gendered history of digital technology itself.
Rather than making the next generation of history Ph.D.'s redundant or contingent laborers, digital technologies and the Internet have the potential to revive full time teaching. Although Digital Humanities is growing rapidly as a field, few history departments have tapped into the power of its pedagogy to teach critical thinking and research skills. Focused on making, rather than banking, knowledge, DH emphasizes flexibility and originality. Furthermore, by giving historians the technical and design skills to work outside the academy, it not only produces a new source of employment but would force universities to compete for historians just as they do for lawyers, economists and scientists.
Can there be such a thing as feminist pornography? Many still say no. Echoing decades of anti-pornography feminist literature, Gail Dines told the Daily Beast in 2012 that “anyone willing to feed off women’s bodies and use them as raw materials to make a profit has no right to call themselves feminists.” But many feminists, including those who make porn, disagree. Despite decades of efforts to suppress it, porn is reaching larger audiences than ever. Making porn more politically progressive for those who consume it and making sets safer for performers are critical issues for feminist intervention—and feminist pornographers have chosen to take on both.
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