December 21, 2021: Wishes for the AMST Elves: Digital Yoknapatawpha

[As ever, a holiday week series of wishes for the AmericanStudies Elves—this time focused on some of the communities and folks I love most. Leading up to a special post on a holiday wish for us all!]

In this early August post on my Dad Steve Railton’s AmericanStudies web projects, I highlighted the third and newest such project, Digital Yoknapatawpha. I’m a huge fan of all three websites, and for far more than simply filial reasons—these projects to my mind embody the best of what Digital Humanities work can be, do, offer, and mean. And DYis perhaps the best and most important yet, not only because it’s so fully collaborative and features so many voices and perspectives, and not only because it can help us keep the complex and important works of William Faulkner in our collective memories and conversations, but also because it really models how technological resources and multimedia elements can be wedded to literature and culture, to reading and analysis, in ways that should be at the heart of our continued work as educators. For all those reasons, AmericanStudies Elves, I wish for a very bright future indeed for Digital Yoknapatawpha.

Next wish tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What wishes would you beam out to the Elves?