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What are the Digital
Humanities?
Alyssa DeBlasio, PhD
Dickinson College (USA)
[email protected]
OUTLINE
1. Introduction: Defining the “Field”
2. DH for Research
3. DH for Teaching
4. Going Forward: Challenges &
Questions
5. Conclusion: Questions & Contributions
1. DEFINING THE “FIELD”
How do you define DH?
All the ways that the humanities and digital technologies intersect.
—Rebecca Davis
The thoughtful use of computing in humanistic inquiry and the
thinking through of computing from the perspective of the
traditions of the humanities. —Geoffrey Rockwell
The use of digital technologies to generate and answer new
questions relevant to humanities and to share and transform
scholarship and its modes of creation/dissemination. —Michael
Widner
… a commitment to the openness of knowledge. Plus a
commitment to build new scholarly objects. —Enrico Natale
The humanities in and for a digital age. —Laurie N. Taylor
Humanities. —Martin Holmes
How do you define DH?
adds something
uses digital technologies but more than the tech
direction of the humanities?
commitment to the openness of knowledge and
info.
• open-source tools
• Renewed and reconceived role of the library and
archive
•
•
•
•
Melissa Terras (University College London)
http://melissaterras.blogspot.ru
2012
http://melissaterras.blogspot.ru
OUTLINE
1. Introduction: Defining the “Field”
2. DH for Research
3. DH for Teaching
4. Going Forward: Challenges &
Questions
5. Conclusion: Questions & Contributions
DH FOR RESEARCH
(1) Digitizing materials for public research
• Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource
Center
(2) New ways of presenting research
• Mapping the Republic of Letters
(3) New ways of conducting research (crowd
sourcing)
• Transcribe Bentham
OUTLINE
1. Introduction: Defining the “Field”
2. DH for Research
3. DH for Teaching
4. Going Forward: Challenges &
Questions
5. Conclusion: Questions & Contributions
BENEFITS
1. Visibility
BENEFITS
1. Visibility
2. Merge research and teaching
3. Inter-institutional collaboration
4. “Teach Smarter” – maximize instructor efficiency
and student learning outcomes
OUTLINE
1. Introduction: Defining the “Field”
2. DH for Research
3. DH for Teaching
4. Going Forward: Challenges &
Questions
5. Conclusion: Questions & Contributions
4. GOING FORWARD: CHALLENGES &
QUESTIONS
• access to digital resources
• digital literacy
• faculty workload
institutional
 support
TYPES OF INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT
1. Offer digital humanities training, seminars, conferences,
etc.;
2. Collaborate with members of other academic
departments, organizations or projects outside the home
institution;
3. Create and nurture a “zone of experimentation and
innovation” in the humanities;
4. Academic appointments and staffing for the DH;
5. Incentivize research in digital scholarship among faculty;
6. Create, host, and encourage digital-based collections;
7. Provides technology support and solutions to humanities
departments.
Modified from: Patrik Svensson, “Landscape of the Digital Humanities,” Digital Humanities
Quarterly 4.1. (2010)
4. GOING FORWARD: CHALLENGES &
QUESTIONS
• access to digital resources
• digital literacy
• faculty workload
institutional
 support
• assessment – teaching & research
• data storage
• long-term project sustainability
QUESTIONS
1. Do digital technologies add something to my
research?
2. Does the project make my teaching better and
easier?
3. Do I have support for the project? Can I achieve
what I want visually?
4. Is the project sustainable in the long-term?
5. CONCLUSION: QUESTIONS &
CONTRIBUTIONS
Alyssa DeBlasio (Dickinson College)
[email protected]