Introduction: The Questions of Minimal Computing
Roopika Risam, Alex Gil · Digital humanities quarterly · 2022
Minimal computing is the answer.Minimal computing is easy.Minimal computing consists of multiple methods, some as yet to be imagined.Minimal computing will end pandemics/thwart Putin/stop climate change.Minimal computing will save the humanities.Minimal computing is a false prophet.Minimal computing distracts from the pressing issues of the day.Minimal computing is static site generation.Minimal computing is hard.Minimal computing is not the answer.Perhaps all of these statements made, explicitly or implicitly, throughout this special issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly are true.Perhaps they are all fiction.Or, perhaps, minimal computing is a methodological Jekyll and Hyde, [1] good, evil, and, well, strange, all at once.Or, perhaps, minimal computing is a Rorschach inkblot -those of us who practice and critique it see what we want to see, project our hopes and fears, and expect too much.In this special issue, the first collection of peer reviewed scholarship on minimal computing, we shed light on the theories and practices of minimal computing through a blend of theoretical essays and case studies that illuminate how to undertake digital humanities scholarship under institutional and infrastructural constraints.UNEP 2018 UNEP."Latin America Wakes up to the Problem of Plastic Straws."UN Environment Programme (UNEP), August 29, 2018.https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/latin-america-wakes-problem