The Growth of Digital Humanities in Sessions and Job Ads at MLA

Mark Sample has published the annual round-up of digital humanities (DH) sessions for the upcoming Modern Language Association conference. Here's a look at Sample's lists of sessions from over the years:  

• September 19, 2013: Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2014 MLA (76 sessions)
• October 17, 2012: Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2013 MLA (66 sessions)
• October 4, 2011: Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2012 MLA (58 sessions)
• November 9, 2010: Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2011 MLA (44 sessions)
• November 15, 2009: Digital Humanities Sessions at the 2009 MLA (27 sessions)

Sample notes that the 76 sessions represent 9% of the total 810 sessions for the upcoming MLA conference. The DH sessions have been on a steady increase, and notably, the numbers of ads for tech jobs have increased. 

In 2007-2008, ads for "technology and digital media" on the MLA job represented 10.6% of the list; the next year, it dipped to 9.0% but went up to 11.1% of the list in 2009-2010. In 2010-2011, the tech and digital media jobs were at 14.1%, and in 2011-2012, the ads were at 14.3%. As I noted in a recent entry, job ads for African American literature declined during the same time period, plummeting to 6.3%.  

Speaking of which, of the 195 DH sessions that took place between 2009 and 2013, approximately 4 of the sessions concentrated on African American topics. There are 2 sessions on black literary topics among the 76 total sessions for the upcoming 2014 conference. Thus, overall, we will have about 6 sessions concentrated on African American topics out of the total 271 sessions.  In other words, African American topics represent 2% of digital humanities sessions at MLA. 

Related:
• Digital Humanities
• Mark Sample's annual DH @ MLA round-ups
• A decline in job ads for African American literature