This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

The Ubume Challenge: A Digital Environmental Humanities Project

Critical Statement

This Scalar site traces the ubume back through three popular sources that span centuries—the setsuwa collection Konjaku Monogatarishū, the illustrated encyclopedia Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, and the viral hoax “The Momo Challenge” —to contextualize a recurring folkloric figure that has most recently been appropriated in the U.S. as a creation of the digital age. The spoken stories in which the ubume originated served to deter listeners from entering parts of the land that belonged to the supernatural. Yet as we industrialized on a global scale, so too did our fears, and the environments that became more worrisome to us became those which we created, both in cities and online.

Similar to our passing down of the ubume’s story, we have passed down the story of technology-as-savior, one that enabled our age of the Anthropocene as much as it has enabled the ubume to become Momo. While we may not have always understood the extent to which humans impact the planet, there has been consistent uncertainties regarding industrialization—those uncertainties just did not belong to those with the dominant platform. I have created this site to give them one.

Because my first encounter with the ubume was through Momo, we begin and end in the United States with Momo as the guide to signify that the representations that follow are born through a Western lens. While the ubume offers critical insight into numerous social and cultural factors, my focus is on the environment, and Momo in my embedded comic sequence serves as a symbol for the land, and the robots, industry. In addition to expanding access beyond an academic audience, the medium of comics helps create an authorial transparency that allows users to decide whether they agree with my conclusions as opposed to the computer-generated visuals many people assume to be objective (Drucker). Increased user agency is crucial if we are to understand why certain histories are privileged over others, particularly in our current climate where the hands shaping our digital environments remain so largely hidden. As I am not attempting to construct any cause-and-effect narratives, but rather, bring to light hidden stories, the comic is meant to unify sections of research that can otherwise stand on their own.

While a digital humanities project might seem a paradoxical choice for a topic that heavily critiques our reliance on technology, that critique is not a condemnation. This Scalar site attempts to reach people where they are, and we cannot turn off all our devices now any more than we can rewind our clocks to undo all of their damages. Something we can do, and something this Scalar site seeks to aid, is grow a little more aware of the extent of their existence.

This page has paths:

Contents of this path:

This page is referenced by:

Critical Statement This Scalar site traces the ubume back through three popular sources that span centuries—the setsuwa collection Konjaku Monogatarishū, the illustrated encyclopedia Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, and the viral hoax “The Momo Challenge” —to contextualize a recurring folkloric figure that has most recently been appropriated in the U.S. as a creation of the digital age. The spoken stories in which the ubume originated served to deter listeners from entering parts of the land that belonged to the supernatural. Yet as we industrialized on a global scale, so too did our fears, and the environments that became more worrisome to us became those which we created, both in cities and online.

Similar to our passing down of the ubume’s story, we have passed down the story of technology-as-savior, one that enabled our age of the Anthropocene as much as it has enabled the ubume to become Momo. While we may not have always understood the extent to which humans impact the planet, there has been consistent uncertainties regarding industrialization—those uncertainties just did not belong to those with the dominant platform. I have created this site to give them one.

Because my first encounter with the ubume was through Momo, we begin and end in the United States with Momo as the guide to signify that the representations that follow are born through a Western lens. While the ubume offers critical insight into numerous social and cultural factors, my focus is on the environment, and Momo in my embedded comic sequence serves as a symbol for the land, and the robots, industry. In addition to expanding access beyond an academic audience, the medium of comics helps create an authorial transparency that allows users to decide whether they agree with my conclusions as opposed to the computer-generated visuals many people assume to be objective (Drucker). Increased user agency is crucial if we are to understand why certain histories are privileged over others, particularly in our current climate where the hands shaping our digital environments remain so largely hidden. As I am not attempting to construct any cause-and-effect narratives, but rather, bring to light hidden stories, the comic is meant to unify sections of research that can otherwise stand on their own.

While a digital humanities project might seem a paradoxical choice for a topic that heavily critiques our reliance on technology, that critique is not a condemnation. This Scalar site attempts to reach people where they are, and we cannot turn off all our devices now any more than we can rewind our clocks to undo all of their damages. Something we can do, and something this Scalar site seeks to aid, is grow a little more aware of the extent of their existence.

This page references:

Critical Statement