Jump to content
Journal

What are the qualities of a learner in a highly connected and divided world?

Two-and-a-half millennia ago, the Greek poet Archilochus broke the world of knowledge into two camps, represented by two different types: “the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” … The hedgehog’s great depth is inspiring for its rigor; the fox’s curiosity is astonishing in its energy. It is no an either/or situation: the goal is hybridization, the creation of hedgefoxes, capable of ranging wide, but also of going deep.

Digital_Humanities, p. 97-98

How to avoid the pitfalls of both profiles while retaining their respective assets? How does one specialize without putting on (too many) blinders? How pursue multiple (and often disparate) activities without scattering oneself in the surface?

Digital humanities are a discipline of interfaces, thanks to new connections (between fields, tools, cultures or media). But more than mere connection-making, it is the understanding the inner works of each part which drives the curiosity of the “hedgefox.”

Going beyond interfaces, thinking without limits—especially not those of a computer screen or a paper page.