Defining Digital Humanities

There is a lack of consensus when it comes to a set definition for Digital Humanities (DH). However, many agree that digital humanities research requires utilizing technology to ask (and answer) traditional humanities questions in new ways.

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"The digital humanities can be understood as a nexus of fields within which scholars use computing technologies to investigate the kinds of questions that are traditional to the humanities, or... ask traditional kinds of humanities-oriented questions about computing technologies"

• Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Reporting from the Digital Humanities 2010 Conference, ProfHacker, July 12, 2010.

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Digital Scholarship is:

• Data-driven:
  • Involving data of some sort (though this data takes many forms)
• Diverse:
  • Accross institutions, digital scholarship operates in different ways
• Collaborative:

  • Research often involves a community that crosses disciplinary lines to exchange ideas and build projects

    • Instead of trying to pigeonhole digital humanities by prescribing particular methods or theoretical approaches, we can instead focus on a community that comes together around values such as openness and collaboration - Lisa Spiro, “This is Why We Fight”: Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities, Debates in the Digital Humanities, 2012.

    • The digital humanities today is about a scholarship (and a pedagogy) that is publicly visible in ways to which we are generally unaccustomed… a scholarship and pedagogy that are collaborative - Matthew Kirschenbaum, “What is Digital Humanities?”, ADE Bulletin 150 (2010):1-7.

Digital Scholarship is not:

• A “replacement” of traditional humanities/arts research methods

  • Rather, digital scholarship works hand-in-hand to extend the possibilities of deep thinking and criticism that characterizes the humanities, and the creativity that embodies the arts

    • The computer revolutionizes, not because it proposes an alternative to the basic hermeneutical procedure, but because it reimagines that procedure at new scales, with new speeds, and among new sets of conditions - Stephen Ramsay, 31, Reading Machines: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism, 2011.

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Digital Scholarship Resources at UI:

Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning (CDIL)

• A collaboration between CLASS and the U of I Library, the purpose of the CDIL is to advance digital scholarship opportunities at the University of Idaho.
• Our team collaborates on a wide variety of digital research and teaching projects.

Digital Scholarship Symposium & CDIL Fellowships

• A week-long summer symposium exploring a wide variety of digital scholarship tools and methodologies.
• The CDIL offers fellowships for faculty, grad students, and undergrads to attend and develop a digital project with CDIL librarians.

Open Educational Resources

• Integrated Music Theory Textbook (sponsored by one of the Library’s Think Open Fellowships)

Library Workshops

• Many DH-related workshops are held at the library throughout the semester. These workshops cover a variety of tools and methods that are relevant to digital scholarship.