Re-“Making” General Education

Making is not only interactive; at its best it is an inclusive practice, driven by self–determination and authenticity (Mann 32). According to Byrne and Davidson, making erases or transcends disciplinary boundaries (2015, 11). Similarly, Sheri- dan and colleagues find that “[D]isciplinary boundaries are inauthentic to makerspace practice … Makerspaces seem to break down disciplinary boundaries in ways that facilitate process– and product–oriented practices, leading to innovative work with a range of tools, materials, and processes (2014, p. 527).

Making is not inevitably inclusive or barrier–breaking, however. While the maker movement has the potential to create “Maktivists” — creators “who make things for social change” (Mann 29) — educators like Cipolla warn that the main- stream maker movement valorizes market values and is deeply marked by gender, race and class distinctions (266–267). Identifying as a maker, argues Chachra, is “a way of accruing to oneself the gendered, capitalist benefits of being a per- son who makes products” (Chachra, 2015).

To oppose this, some authors believe we must practice critical making “as a form of intervention in hierarchical power systems,” one that pays attention to the relationship between the maker and what is made, and centers the process of collective making rather than finished products (Cipolla, 266). Similarly, Novotny has argued that Maker Pedagogy can democratize the pursuit of knowledge due to its “potential to unmoor implicit boundaries in one’s academic practice … [and] to broaden and complicate epistemological beliefs (how knowledge gets created, by whom, for whom).” It thereby invokes “an interesting, possibly disruptive set of power dynamics.” (Novotny 2019, 56–57).

Maker Pedagogy and Digital Humanities: A Possible Model for Gen Ed?

To define Digital Humanities simply, it (1) uses digital tools to interrogate questions important to the liberal arts and humanities, and (2) examines the contexts of digital and new media technologies. Digital Humanities, with its myriad methodological and interdisciplinary approach- es, is a particularly good example of making that facilitates tinquiry and intellectual play.

Interestingly, Franzini (2016) defines DH not as a field but as

the digital alter ego of intercultural studies: a community bridge or a space where people from different disciples and backgrounds come together to learn how to talk to each other and to effectively combine skills to conduct joint and interdisciplinary research.

She thus sees DH as a digital forum for interpreting and negotiating meaning, skills that are vital to liberal education. Digital tools have a unique potential to help us frame and understand places — both in the past and present — from a variety of perspectives and contexts.

An excellent example of a DH approach that works in this way is The Knotted Line (see image below). According to its website,

The Knotted Line is an interactive, tactile laboratory for exploring the historical relationship between freedom and confinement in the geographic area of the United States. With miniature paintings of over 50 historical moments from 1495-2025, The Knotted Line asks: how is freedom measured?

The Knotted Line combines disorienting audio (that can be turned off) with a purposefully non–linear and, fittingly, knotty presentation format. The site enables users to uncover historical examples in the United States where human freedom has been subverted. In doing so, users move down a twisty, sinuous timeline where they use their mouse or trackpad to coax information/events to reveal themselves. Sometimes a glimpse reveals itself momentarily and then moves away, forcing the user to hunt for the elusive information. It’s a powerful visual metaphor for the deliberately disguised nature of the carceral state.