Digital Humanities - Research, Teaching, and Learning: INTRODUCTION

The Digital Humanities in Oxford University [4:48 mins.]. Published on Jun 6, 2014. Specialists in the digital humanities from across the University talk about what this exciting field means to them, and how the use of digital technology in the humanities is allowing whole new fields of research to emerge.

To view any one of these videos, please click on the video's title.

PART 1.  EARLY DISCUSSIONS (Two videos)

American Historical Association: 2014 Annual meeting: Workshop – How to get started in Digital History [51.59 mins.] As more historians become interested in using digital tools and methods, it is incumbent upon the AHA to support its members in this burgeoning area of scholarship. As part of that effort, we are taking steps to expand the digital aspects of the program at the annual meeting in Washington, D.C. this coming January. This pre-conference workshop will bring together historians with an interest in using digital tools and resources with experts in digital history to address such questions as how to build collaborative projects, where to find funding, what is the best way to manage projects, how to use digital tools in the classroom, and more.

The Community of Scholars [1 hr 4 mins.], The NITLE Summit 2012 - Keynote Address by Dan Cohen.; and What is ‘Digital Humanities’ and Why do We Need it?[1 hr 4 mins]. The NITLE Summit 2012 - Keynote Address by Edward Ayers.  NITLE was established in September, 2001 through a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The original charge of this grant-funded initiative was to stimulate collaboration between selected liberal arts colleges, and to act as a catalyst for the effective integration of emerging and newer digital technologies into teaching, learning, scholarship, and information management at those colleges. In 2015, NITLE migrated its operations to the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR Council on Library and Information Resources), headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Institute closed in 2018.

PART 2 "My Digital Humanities" Series

My Digital Humanities – Part 1 [3:42 mins.].  Published on Oct 11, 2016. This video features six professionals in the field of Digital Humanities, who explain what Digital Humanities mean to them (Stéfan Sinclair - McGill University, Geoggrey Rockwell- University of Alberta, Laura Mandell - Texas A&M University, Bryan Carter - University of Arizona, Claire Clivaz - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Bill Endres - University of Oklahoma). The video is the first in the series 'My Digital Humanities' produced as part of the #dariahTeach project, an online platform for teaching 'Digital Humanities' funded by an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership EU grant.

My Digital Humanities – Part 2 [3:44 mins.]. Published on Oct 26, 2016. Toma Tasovac from the Belgrade Center for Digital Humanities gives his own definition of digital humanities in this second part of 'My Digital Humanities' series. In this video, Toma addresses both sides of the Digital Humanities coin. On the one hand, he argues that DH runs the risk of becoming a 'decontextualiser of the traditional humanities turning everything into conveyor belt scholarship'. On the other hand, he believes that DH enables deeper and more meaningful engagements with our (digitised) cultural heritage in ways and forms that were not available before.

My Digital Humanities – Part 3 [3:51 mins.]. Published on Nov 2, 2016. This is the third video in the series 'My Digital Humanities' featuring Kenneth Price (University of Nebraska), Elena Pierazzo (Université Grenoble Alpes), Elli Bleeker (University of Antwerp), Patricia Murrieta Flores (University of Chester), and James Cumming (University of Oxford).

My Digital Humanities – Part 4 [3:58 mins.]. Published on Dec 1, 2016. This video is the fourth in the series 'My Digital Humanities'. It features Roderick Coover (Temple University), Angel D. Nieves (Hamilton College), Kathryn Sutherland (University of Oxford), Marjorie Burghart (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), and Paul Eggert (Loyola University Chicago). 

Humanities in the Digital Age [2:04:22]. Published on Apr 21, 2016.   What is happening to the intellectual field called the humanities? Powerful political and corporate forces are encouraging, even demanding science and math-based curricula to prepare for a globalized and technological world; the astronomical rise in the cost of higher education has resulted in a drumbeat of complaints, some which question the value of the traditional liberal arts and humanities. And of course, and far more complexly, the emerging storage and communications systems of the digital age are transforming all fields of knowledge and all knowledge industries. Middlebury College provost Alison Byerly and Harvard University psychology professor Steven Pinker addressed how the humanities will cope with these challenges. MIT Communications Forum director David Thorburn moderated.

Jeffrey Schnapp  "Digital Humanities"  Feb 18, 2014  on new forms of knowledge and digital media (12:51 mins). "What are the boundaries of the humanities? What are the new forms of production of knowledge?" Schnapp is the founder/faculty director of metaLAB (at) Harvard and faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. At Harvard, he serves as Professor of Romance Literatures and Comparative Literature, and is on the teaching faculty in the Department of Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

Early Definitions (2009-2012) 

• For four years (2009-2012), the sponsors of the annual Day in the Life of the Digital Humanities event invited participants to respond to the question: “How do you define the digital humanities?". Hundreds of answers were gathered and are now archived.  This initiative is now sponsored by CenterNet, an international network of digital humanities centers.
• "The digital humanities today is "a scholarship and pedagogy that are collaborative and depend on networks of people and that live an active 24-7 life online" (Matthew Kirschenbaum, ADE Bulletin, Vol. 150 (2010), pp. 55-59).
• “At its core digital humanities is more akin to a common methodological outlook than an investment in any one specific set of texts or even technologies…. Yet digital humanities is also a social undertaking. It harbors networks of people who have been working together, sharing research, arguing, competing, and collaborating for many years.... a culture that values collaboration, openness, non hierarchical relations, and agility”  (Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, 'What is Digital Humanities and What's it Doing in English Departments? ADE Bulletin 150 : 55-61, 2010).
• "The particular contribution of the digital humanities, however, lies in its exploration of the difference that the digital can make to the kinds of work that we do as well as to the way that we communicate with one another" (Kathleen Fitzpatrick, The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 8, 2011).   
• "The phrase Digital Humanities… describes not just a collective singular but also the humanities in the plural, able to address and engage disparate subject matters across media, language, location, and history. But, however heterogeneous, the Digital Humanities is unified by its emphasis on making, connecting, interpreting, and collaborating.”  (See, "A Short Guide to the Digital Humanities," pp. 122 in Digital Humanities by Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp, MIT Press,  2012).

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).

Spiro, Lisa. Blog Post:  Getting Started in the Digital Humanities (Posted on October 14, 2011).  Re-issued in  Journal of Digital Humanities Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter 2011.

Schnapp, Jeffrey. A Short Guide to the Digital Humanities.  An open pdf excerpt from Digital Humanities, by Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker,  Peter Lunenfield, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp, MIT Press, 2012 pp. 121-126.  It is a concise overview of the field: As digital methodologies, tools, and skills become central to work in the humanities, questions regarding fundamentals, project outcomes, assessment, and design have grown in importance. This Short Guidesets out to provide a set of checklists and guidelines in concise and shareable form.