HASTAC

Warning: Use of undefined constant gPP_VIDEO_W - assumed 'gPP_VIDEO_W' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/jadedidc/public_html/wp-content/themes/fullscreen/lib/video-embed/video-post.php on line 139

HASTAC tent at Drumbeat

HASTAC is why we were able to go to Drumbeat.  The tent we were a part of was a HASTAC tent.  HASTAC provided funding for the grad students to go (in the spirit of full disclosure, so did Mozilla).  Future Class was associated with HASTAC before it was part of any department on campus (though officially it was listed as an Eng and ISIS course).  Needless to say, if it weren’t for HASTAC, this experience wouldn’t have been possible for me or the other members of future class.

But, what is HASTAC!?

Hastac it’s like this perfect storm.

this is a voluntary organization that we started in 2002
of people who just thought

that the way

higher education is structured
now
first of all
is still based on … these two cultures idea,
that there’s humanities  and arts

on the one hand

and deep critical thinking, those things that don’t get you a job over here / and technology and science over here / and that’s how you get a job and it doesn’t involve deep critical thinking.  It’s just about doing stuff.
That’s a

disaster. I’m sorry

but you don’t want to have the people making the technology not understanding the historical context and theoretical ideas
and you don’t want people who do think about those things not getting a job.
I mean its a really bad vision that comes out of the industrial age and out of an industrial age idea.  It’s certainly not how Newton did physics and theology in his era or Copernicus or anyone before the industrial age.

So HASTAC is really designed as an acronym (said as though it were one word)

H-A-S-T-A-C Humanities,

Arts,Science,&

Technology Advanced Collboratory
it’s about trying to put those things back together again.
Well, we were considered a renegade organization

until about

maybe last year
and now
we’re like the flavor of the month.
I mean every day it seems

some crazy new invitation is coming asking for us to teach people to think in a different way

and how to change the academy.

-Cathy Davidson, First Class Meeting