Quinn Dombrowski
@quinnanya.me
Multilingual digital humanities, founder of the Textile Makerspace at Stanford & the Data-Sitters Club, teaches data visualization with textiles, helped start #DHmakes. SUCHO 🇺🇦 co-founder, archiving at-risk cultural heritage. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Pinned
Quinn Dombrowski
@quinnanya.me
· Nov 10
The Data-Sitters Club Books
Check out our main series and our multilingual mystery series! Feeling lost? Check out our index of book topics, tools, mistakes, and more! Main series:,,, DSC #1 Quinn's Great Idea, DSC #2 Katia a...
datasittersclub.github.io
Hi, I'm Quinn, I run a Textile Makerspace and teach data visualization with textiles at Stanford, in a weird job between the library and non-English literatures. I post a lot of fun textile things via #DHmakes, along with digital humanities text analysis stuff, including the Data-Sitters Club.
All caught up to the present on my data weaving of chat messages with my girlfriend, and one week to go until it's finished! 🥳
I'm already turning schemes into plans for the next data weaving in the pipeline. #DHmakes
I'm already turning schemes into plans for the next data weaving in the pipeline. #DHmakes
February 16, 2026 at 5:02 PM
All caught up to the present on my data weaving of chat messages with my girlfriend, and one week to go until it's finished! 🥳
I'm already turning schemes into plans for the next data weaving in the pipeline. #DHmakes
I'm already turning schemes into plans for the next data weaving in the pipeline. #DHmakes
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
As a historian and a sentimental, I'm not even comfortable with people's traces gracefully degrading until not even a memory is left. But the AI angle does feel worse when I'm in certain moods: like a zombie afterlife, a face twisted but recognizable.
February 16, 2026 at 3:25 PM
As a historian and a sentimental, I'm not even comfortable with people's traces gracefully degrading until not even a memory is left. But the AI angle does feel worse when I'm in certain moods: like a zombie afterlife, a face twisted but recognizable.
In "DSC 13: Goodbye Friends, Goodbye" I wrote about finding Scott Enderle's StackOverflow posts randomly when trying to solve a problem, even after he died. I loathe the idea of all those digital footprints of his getting turned into AI slop, and losing that trace of him in the process.
February 16, 2026 at 3:16 PM
In "DSC 13: Goodbye Friends, Goodbye" I wrote about finding Scott Enderle's StackOverflow posts randomly when trying to solve a problem, even after he died. I loathe the idea of all those digital footprints of his getting turned into AI slop, and losing that trace of him in the process.
So much of #DHmakes these days has been responding to the current awfulness but this essay on Heated Rivalry is a good reminder of the power of (and need for) imagining what a better world would look like for us all. 💖 I'll be thinking about this for a while.
Heated Rivalry shows us that the most transportive, visionary, speculative future isn’t one that looks different from our reality. It’s one that feels different. It’s a difference that we as the audience can feel as if we’ve already lived in that world too.
Heated Rivalry and the Art of Anti-Dystopia
Joy in the present makes joy in the future seem plausible.
jenka.substack.com
February 16, 2026 at 2:43 AM
So much of #DHmakes these days has been responding to the current awfulness but this essay on Heated Rivalry is a good reminder of the power of (and need for) imagining what a better world would look like for us all. 💖 I'll be thinking about this for a while.
If this wasn't a gut punch: "Surveillance becomes “care.” Isolation becomes “us against the world.” Economic dependence becomes “being looked after.” And crucially, the harm is ... patterned, cumulative, and often invisible to everyone except [maybe also including!!] the person living inside it."
I regret to inform you one of the most on point takes I've seen about Heated Rivalry is on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/pulse/heated...
Heated Rivalry and the Rejection of Romanticised Harm
Why audiences are craving intensity without entitlement and what that shift reveals about masculinity, safety, and control I didn’t expect a hockey romance to get under my skin. I certainly didn’t exp...
www.linkedin.com
February 16, 2026 at 2:29 AM
If this wasn't a gut punch: "Surveillance becomes “care.” Isolation becomes “us against the world.” Economic dependence becomes “being looked after.” And crucially, the harm is ... patterned, cumulative, and often invisible to everyone except [maybe also including!!] the person living inside it."
Bookmarking this to share with students in the Textile Dataviz class when they're struggling to get started on their final projects. Really appreciate how Kim lays out the struggles of a project like this: it's never just "stitch the color for the temperature". #DHmakes
2026 Temperature Project: A Cozy Garden (and a Chaotic January Catch-Up)
A whimsical garden cottage powered by sheer determination. January nearly broke me, but my 2026 temperature cross stitch project is officially underway. 🌱
A whimsical garden cottage powered by sheer determination. January nearly broke me, but my 2026 temperature cross stitch project is officially underway. 🌱
2026 Temperature Project: A Cozy Garden (and a Chaotic January Catch-Up)
A whimsical garden cottage powered by sheer determination. January nearly broke me, but my 2026 temperature cross stitch project is officially underway. 🌱
kimberlyfaye.blog
February 15, 2026 at 3:38 PM
Bookmarking this to share with students in the Textile Dataviz class when they're struggling to get started on their final projects. Really appreciate how Kim lays out the struggles of a project like this: it's never just "stitch the color for the temperature". #DHmakes
#DHmakes 🧶
"My husband complains about the cold," the man said. "Can you teach me a spell to keep him warm?"
"I can teach you to bind hair into a net to catch heat," the wizard said, "using arcane counting and a pair of fine wands."
After a while, the man said "Isn't this knitting?"
"This, too, is magic."
"I can teach you to bind hair into a net to catch heat," the wizard said, "using arcane counting and a pair of fine wands."
After a while, the man said "Isn't this knitting?"
"This, too, is magic."
February 15, 2026 at 4:50 AM
#DHmakes 🧶
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life & you will call it fate.
You deserve to heal & be healed.
You deserve to heal & be healed.
February 15, 2026 at 1:45 AM
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life & you will call it fate.
You deserve to heal & be healed.
You deserve to heal & be healed.
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
Listen, it was us nerdy, artsy & eccentric types who made social media what it is in the first place. Allllllll these other folks who made fun of us in the 90s for talking to strangers online ruined OUR party.
They can go.
We're here 'til closing. Last ones out the club turning off the lights!
They can go.
We're here 'til closing. Last ones out the club turning off the lights!
Hey artist/creator/writer/etc people: if tomorrow you were guaranteed a very comfortable living the rest of your life, how would that affect your relationship to social media?
February 14, 2026 at 6:47 PM
Listen, it was us nerdy, artsy & eccentric types who made social media what it is in the first place. Allllllll these other folks who made fun of us in the 90s for talking to strangers online ruined OUR party.
They can go.
We're here 'til closing. Last ones out the club turning off the lights!
They can go.
We're here 'til closing. Last ones out the club turning off the lights!
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
roses are red
vodka is clear
vodka is clear
How many restraining orders you thinking we are dealing with here
February 14, 2026 at 6:11 PM
roses are red
vodka is clear
vodka is clear
To give love and actually feel loved in return is a great gift. Hope you feel that today. ❤️
‘Try to Love the Questions’ (detail)
block print, gold ink and graphite on an old geological map
18” x 14”
#printmaking #sciart #anitomical #valentine
‘Try to Love the Questions’ (detail)
block print, gold ink and graphite on an old geological map
18” x 14”
#printmaking #sciart #anitomical #valentine
February 14, 2026 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
I don't think it is only our job to teach students how to read long novels; it may also be our jobs to teach them how to live without an online surveillance state. To learn without intrusive apps. To swap notes. To write in a book's margins. To exist in their communities in slow, clunky, human ways.
February 14, 2026 at 3:41 PM
I don't think it is only our job to teach students how to read long novels; it may also be our jobs to teach them how to live without an online surveillance state. To learn without intrusive apps. To swap notes. To write in a book's margins. To exist in their communities in slow, clunky, human ways.
Spent a couple hours on the I-80 overpass last night as a dancing frog as part of a weekly protest. It was very warm (though completely windproof!) We danced to music in Spanish and Arabic and English. The honking was intense. It was good for the soul.
February 14, 2026 at 3:08 PM
Spent a couple hours on the I-80 overpass last night as a dancing frog as part of a weekly protest. It was very warm (though completely windproof!) We danced to music in Spanish and Arabic and English. The honking was intense. It was good for the soul.
Me: We might go to a protest this weekend.
Local 7-year-old: Is it gonna be "boo ICE!" or "go trans!"?
Local 10-year-old: It's... kinda all the same thing.
Collective liberation ftw.
Local 7-year-old: Is it gonna be "boo ICE!" or "go trans!"?
Local 10-year-old: It's... kinda all the same thing.
Collective liberation ftw.
February 13, 2026 at 10:02 PM
Me: We might go to a protest this weekend.
Local 7-year-old: Is it gonna be "boo ICE!" or "go trans!"?
Local 10-year-old: It's... kinda all the same thing.
Collective liberation ftw.
Local 7-year-old: Is it gonna be "boo ICE!" or "go trans!"?
Local 10-year-old: It's... kinda all the same thing.
Collective liberation ftw.
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
And will we just vote and wait for our reps to act on this? No. Will we push for ways to get some of this through actions like boycotts and protests and strikes? Hell, yes. Will this take the rest of our fucking lives? Yes, it will. Are we ready for that? Yes, we are, because we love our neighbors.
February 13, 2026 at 5:22 AM
And will we just vote and wait for our reps to act on this? No. Will we push for ways to get some of this through actions like boycotts and protests and strikes? Hell, yes. Will this take the rest of our fucking lives? Yes, it will. Are we ready for that? Yes, we are, because we love our neighbors.
I am deep into my first major "take it apart and fix it" moment with the 3d printer. It's the kind of thing that's always terrified me. But I'm telling myself that I handle small fiddly things all the time with embroidery, knitting, and crochet and screws are no different. #DHmakes #DHtries
February 13, 2026 at 6:07 PM
My DEF CON talk on DIY web archiving and SUCHO made it into the annual publication, the Hackers' Almanack (p. 10)!
All in all, it's a very accessible summary of major trends and highlights from the conference, worth checking out!
harris.uchicago.edu/sites/defaul...
All in all, it's a very accessible summary of major trends and highlights from the conference, worth checking out!
harris.uchicago.edu/sites/defaul...
February 13, 2026 at 5:31 PM
My DEF CON talk on DIY web archiving and SUCHO made it into the annual publication, the Hackers' Almanack (p. 10)!
All in all, it's a very accessible summary of major trends and highlights from the conference, worth checking out!
harris.uchicago.edu/sites/defaul...
All in all, it's a very accessible summary of major trends and highlights from the conference, worth checking out!
harris.uchicago.edu/sites/defaul...
There are few scenes of elementary school dismissal louder than the Thursday before a 4-day-weekend when the kids have spent the last half hour of school binging Valentine's Day candy.
February 12, 2026 at 10:23 PM
There are few scenes of elementary school dismissal louder than the Thursday before a 4-day-weekend when the kids have spent the last half hour of school binging Valentine's Day candy.
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
Progress is being made on the visualizations for my data jacket! Two more to go then I can start sewing the jacket itself.
Far left is visualizing 800 years of Kyoto peek cherry blossom bloom dates, the two on the right are NYC Parks data on land designations in the city.
#DHmakes
Far left is visualizing 800 years of Kyoto peek cherry blossom bloom dates, the two on the right are NYC Parks data on land designations in the city.
#DHmakes
February 12, 2026 at 1:24 PM
Progress is being made on the visualizations for my data jacket! Two more to go then I can start sewing the jacket itself.
Far left is visualizing 800 years of Kyoto peek cherry blossom bloom dates, the two on the right are NYC Parks data on land designations in the city.
#DHmakes
Far left is visualizing 800 years of Kyoto peek cherry blossom bloom dates, the two on the right are NYC Parks data on land designations in the city.
#DHmakes
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
"We've used, & been encouraged to use, rhetoric that offers digital humanities as a [bad, now dead] backup plan given the jobs crisis in the humanities...where does that leave us? Let me offer an alternative: DH is a training ground for socially-engaged work in your communities." - @quinnanya.me
I wrote up the talk I gave at CESTA a couple weeks ago, on how we're overdue on changing the narrative about what digital humanities prepares students for. It's not fallback jobs in tech, it's getting involved in your community in moments of crisis. And craft helps build those skills. #DHmakes
Craftivism in a Crisis: Making the Humanities Matter When It’s All ...
[/assets/images/header_craftivism.jpg] https://www.quinndombrowski.com/blog/2026/02/10/craftivism-crisis/ This is a write-up of a talk I gave at CESTA on January 29, 2026, with an epilogue covering...
quinndombrowski.com
February 12, 2026 at 4:52 AM
"We've used, & been encouraged to use, rhetoric that offers digital humanities as a [bad, now dead] backup plan given the jobs crisis in the humanities...where does that leave us? Let me offer an alternative: DH is a training ground for socially-engaged work in your communities." - @quinnanya.me
TFW your kid comes back from their dad's with assorted confusing Valentine preparation mishaps, so you pause the whistle printing and stay up late to ensure they can bring an adequate quantity of golden frogs to school tomorrow. 🐸 #DHmakes
February 12, 2026 at 7:30 AM
TFW your kid comes back from their dad's with assorted confusing Valentine preparation mishaps, so you pause the whistle printing and stay up late to ensure they can bring an adequate quantity of golden frogs to school tomorrow. 🐸 #DHmakes
Hacky-ass lockup right here, folks!
February 12, 2026 at 1:53 AM
#DHmakes I love how this print also doubles as screaming.
New #letterpress print in support of my dear friend, Ben Bascom, and his forthcoming March lecture at the U of Louisville, "A is for Abjection: Bilious Methods in Nineteenth-Century American Literature"
February 12, 2026 at 1:06 AM
#DHmakes I love how this print also doubles as screaming.
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
I've been thinking about this a lot. There's a major tension here between "get my data cleaned quickly, efficiently, and as a responsible steward of my research resources" and "teach the next generation how to conduct research." Anyone who tells you the answer is easy is kidding themselves
Claude code will inevitably reduce dramatically the hiring of undergraduate RAs which will further increase the gap between what students are taught and how we conduct research.
February 11, 2026 at 11:57 PM
I've been thinking about this a lot. There's a major tension here between "get my data cleaned quickly, efficiently, and as a responsible steward of my research resources" and "teach the next generation how to conduct research." Anyone who tells you the answer is easy is kidding themselves