Monster Theory 2.0

This chapter begins with the question: Is remix a monster, and digital humanities the means through which it is destined to bring down the old-fashioned, exclusionary, and hierarchical modes of humanities past? The answer is that the transgressive potential of remix and the digital humanities lies less in the form of these disciplines, and more in their practice: how they are allowed to intersect, evolve, and escape their traditional (anti)humanist foundations. The transgression and monstrosity of remix in digital humanities are perhaps not the transgression and monstrosity that some might expect. As a “monster,” digital humanities occupies a particularly poignant moment, straining between a nostalgia for the Classical ideals of the humanities, and the knowledge that many of these ideals have led to as much harm as good for humanity, creating Frankenstein's monsters that cannot peacefully exist in the same universe as their creators.