[This is an edited version of a talk I gave today at the 2009 convention of the Modern Language Association. I omit here some of the local details and concrete examples I offered at MLA. At this point, I feel more comfortable voicing these specifics than publishing them online – but I do commit to seeking out further opportunities to open the kind of frank and important conversations I advocate below. This text (like everything posted on my personal website) reflects my opinions only – not those of my colleagues or employers. I welcome comment, including correction and instruction.]

I’ve decided to spend my 10 minutes of introduction on the MLA convention’s “Links and Kinks” panel indecorously – in opening conversation about one of the least genteel, least talked-about aspects of collaborative work in the digital humanities. I’ve been active in this community of practice for 14 years – and can count on one hand the number of interchanges I’ve had about these issues that were both unguarded and productive.

The policy issues related to institutional and academic status that I want to put before the panel are so uncomfortable that they tend to make good-hearted, collaborative folks like all of you behave as if they can be wished away – as if they’ll shrivel up and die if they are studiously ignored. But here, as in other areas of the academy, benign neglect is bad behavior. Consciously ignoring disparities in the institutional status of your collaborators is just as bad as being unthinkingly complicit in the problems these disparities create. Read the rest of this entry »