Have you wondered about how successful DH grant-seeking is achieved? It begins with conversations about what we have in terms of resources, what we have done in the past, and what we want to do in the future. “Sharing experiences through stories is emerging ….as a powerful way to exchange and consolidate knowledge.” (Storytelling in organizations, Deborah Sole, 2002) Join us for a Talk session to explore the birthing of collaborative grant-seeking projects awarded to the Smathers Libraries and its partners. We also will brainstorm possible projects that might be hidden among session participants, and talk about the first steps to turn these project ideas into competitive proposals.

Digital humanities needs space to experiment and explore, but as David Graeber’s recent study reminds us university bureaucracies often make it hard to create or maintain that sort of sustained creative space (Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy). That means that to pursue digital humanities we need to understand bureaucracy and think about how to subvert it. In this session, I propose we use Graeber’s book as a starting point and brainstorm about ways to create successful spaces for experimentation, by carving out areas within the bureaucracy’s domain, by working at its margins, or acting outside its range.