As someone in academia, and who cares about non-academics’ access to information, the first thing that strikes me is that Lauren Klein‘s article is published in a paywalled academic journal, American Literature published by the prestigious Duke University Press. I’m disappointed that she did not contribute the article to her institutional repository. Naughty DH scholar! In contrast, Lev Manovich‘s article is published on his personal website. Self-publishing may lead readers to grant Manovich’s writing to be less authoritative than a refereed journal like American Literature. Also, Manovich’s article is full of usage errors, beginning with the title, “What is Visualization?,” which proper usage would render “What Is Visualization?” The usage errors prompt me to observe that Manovich is a non-native English speaker, having emigrated to the US when he was 21. At the same age, more or less, Klein was graduating from Harvard. Fancy! Continue reading →