WELCOME TO OUR DIGITAL HUMANITIES [DH] GUIDE
The goal of this guide is to provide a multi-faceted overview of the polymathic and inter-disciplinary aspects of the Digital Humanities (DH) as it has evolved since 1946 with the Index Thomisticus (the pioneering work of Jesuit scholar Roberto Busa). The DH comprises multiple domains energized by productive cross-fertilizations as it explores the innovative use of technology and computation in arts and humanities research both as a method of inquiry and as a means of dissemination. This in turn leads to highly collaborative initiatives that foster connections as well as new and diverse relationship across disciplines within a large part of the academic institution, as well as worldwide. It channels interest in rethinking the humanities in new and creative ways .
This guide is "organic." Created in September 2023 it is continuously updated and enlarged. Our goal is (a) to engage with the community of faculty, students and librarians at USC to advance digital humanities and also (b) to expand its reach worldwide.
This guide will continue to evolve as new resources and research tools become available to support research, teaching, and scholarship across DH's multiple domains and in so doing advance human knowledge.
Feedback and/or suggestions for additional resources, topics, or pages are warmly welcomed. Feel free to reach out to me at:
dmihram@usc.edu
The term “Digital Humanities” (DH) is an evolution of an earlier term, “Computing in the Humanities” which dates back to the project of an Italian Jesuit priest, Roberto Busa (1913 –2011). In 1946 Busa began and led, over the course of 34 years, what is now recognized as the inaugural digital humanities project, the encoding (on IBM punch cards ) nearly 11 million words of Thomas Aquinas’ texts leading to the creation of a concordance titled Index Thomisticus.
DH is now an interdisciplinary field that defies definition. It simultaneously describes research programs, a set of methods, publication venues, and a community of practice. It combines the traditional scholarly work of the Humanities with the use of computational methods and digital technologies to analyze artifacts and data. It encompasses the disciplines associated with the Humanities, such as ancient and modern languages, information studies, literature, media and communications, philosophy, geography, history, religion, art, and musicology. It culls the capabilities of archives, libraries, museums and information technology available in support of the research interests not only of humanists, social sciences researchers and librarians but also, more recently, engineers and computer scientists. Over the past decade it has expanded to include artificial intelligence, machine-learning, cultural anthropology, and law. This evolution has led to the development of new frameworks for research.
One aspect of DH’s use of technology in the development of projects is its use of software tools to enrich research and teaching methods within the humanities. Furthermore, as projects encompass multiple fields of inquiry as well as teams of researchers working collaboratively, the need often arises for the creation and development of new and additional software tools that redefine what it means to analyze texts, artifacts, or data. For example, some projects focus primarily on preservation and accessibility by using technologies such as 3D printing and virtual reality tools to reproduce historical artifacts, sites, and artworks with the goal of preserving and advancing the knowledge of the cultural heritage of countries worldwide.
Because of its extensive interdisciplinary approach, DH offers rich opportunities for collaboration between researchers, faculty, and students. It creates scholarship that transcends textual sources, such as multimedia sources, cultural datasets, and historical documentation while engaging disparate subject matters across media, language, location, and history.
As noted by the Open Book Publishers "The invention and application of digital methods, tools and media have had significant effects on scholarly research. They raise new questions about how we conceive knowledge, think about scholarship and develop new epistemic practices, while large-scale digitization projects and hyperactive social media have brought into focus social and historical texts, images and other data formerly difficult or impossible to reach. (...) our Digital Humanities Series: Knowledge, Thought and Practice is dedicated to the exploration of these changes by scholars across disciplines. Books in this Series present cutting-edge research that investigate the links between the digital and other disciplines paving the ways for further investigations and applications that take advantage of new digital media to present knowledge in new ways."
It is helpful, therefore to think about DH in terms of subcategories such as, for example:
Data Visualization Digital Libraries and Repositories Digital Mapping Digital Pedagogy Digital Publishing Online Social Networking Text Analytics, Analysis, Mining.
These subcategories, and many more, are represented by the pages within this Guide.
For a chronology of DH initiatives (1949-2012) and live links to resources, see John Unsworth's blog entry, "What's 'digital humanities' and how did it get here?" (Oct. 9, 2012).
See also:
"Keeping Up With...Digital Humanities", American Library Association, April 5, 2013.
"What are the Digital Humanities?" by David M, Berry (University of Sussex), British Academy Blog, 13 February, 2019.
Folger Shakespeare Library (2017). Glossary of Digital Humanities Terms. Originally compiled by Daniel Powell in conjunction with the Early Modern Digital Agendas institute in July 2013, the glossary below aims to help both novices and more advanced users of digital tools and approaches understand common terms employed in the digital humanities. Additions and updates are welcome. For more digital humanities tools for use at the Folger Shakespeare Library, see an extensive list in the article List of digital resources at the Folger.
For companion USC research guides, see:
Content Mining: Originally created by Caroline Muglia, in August 2018, this guide is now part of Danielle Mihram's Research Guides. This important guide provides information about available text mining resources and tools and whether or not the Libraries subscription databases support content mining.
Fair Use: Using Images in Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Ruth Wallach. This guide offers basic information on using images in theses/dissertations. Reasonable use of images and media in teaching, course papers, and graduate theses/dissertations is generally covered by fair use.
Google Scholar Tips by Christal Young. This is a guide on how to use Google Scholar effectively and search multiple library e-resources at once.
Humanities Research Guide by Melissa Miller and Christina Snider. This guide highlights key resources for Research, Learning, and Teaching in the Humanities.
Organizing Research for Arts and Humanities Papers and Theses by Ruth Wallach. The purpose of this guide is to provide you with information on some elements that go into researching and writing arts and humanities papers and theses. Because there is no unified structure to research and methodology in the arts and in the humanities, this guide provides general norms and suggestions, but is not comprehensive. Requirements and advice given to you by your faculty and/or committee members takes precedent and supersedes recommendations and instructions provided in this guide.
Spatial Sciences & GIS by Andy Rutkowski. USC Libraries and other related resources supporting academic scholarship in the spatial sciences.
Statistics & Data by Eimmy Solis. Social science numeric sources available through the USC Libraries and on the Internet.