(does anyone know)

What is Digital Humanities?

Humanities Computing? Digital Humanities? Digital History? A field? A practice? A discipline? A waste of time?

https://whatisdigitalhumanities.com/

Humanities Computing

Digital Humanities 

But first, how did we get here?

Blending of science, humanities, and state power.*

 

*this is still true.

Both share a similar mission:
"using information technology to illuminate the human record, and bringing an understanding of the human record to bear on the development and use of information technology."

 

From, "The Digital Humanities and Humanities Computing: An Introduction"

Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, http://digitalhumanities.org:3030/companion/view?docId=blackwell/9781405103213/9781405103213.xml&doc.view=print&chunk.id=ss1-1-3&toc.depth=1&toc.id=0. 

What is technology?

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” -- Mark Twain,

Codex --> Printed Book --> Ebook

The Codex Gigas, 13th century, Bohemia.

The Gutenberg Bible, 15th century, Germany.

Project Gutenberg, 2019, World Wide Web.

Punch Cards

  • IBM is rescued by the Social Security Act. The punch card becomes the official computing device for the New Deal. 

1940s:

  • Jorge Luis Borges (author) publishes "Garden of Forking Paths." Suggests ideas of a multiverse, or multiple pathways.
     
  • Vannevar Bush (scientist on Manhattan project) publishes "As We May Think." Hypothesizes the Memex, which would tie information together through free association.
     
  • Jesuit priest Father Busa attempts to index the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas with the help of IBM computing. (completed 1970s)

1950s-1960s

  • Alan Turing cracks the Enigma code and designs the Turing Test.
     
  • ELIZA one of the first AI programs to pass the Turing Test.
     
  • Ted Nelson conceives of Project Xanadu and invents the term "hypertext."

The Internet

1980s-1990s

  • The graphical user interface replaces the command line by 1980s, leading to the personal computing revolution.
     
  • World Wide Web and Electronic Mail gain popularity.
     
  • Hypercard creates possibility for user-guided explorations of virtual worlds. 

21st Century

  • The Internet continues to expand (RIP Floppy Disk and CD-ROM).
     
  • Web 2.0: the web becomes participatory. Enter Myspace, Livejournal, Facebook and other social media websites.
     
  • Content management systems (CMS) like Omeka and Wordpress are built for people to publish online.

Digital Humanities

Open source/Open access

 

Collaboration

 

New scales of analysis/publication

Open source = code freely available

Open access = content freely available

DH teams are often interdisciplinary and interinstitutional: scholars, web developers, librarians, students, the public

Use computational methods to analzye sources in new ways

Use web publishing tools to reach larger audiences

What do Digital Humanists make?

Brennan: "approach to researching and interpreting the past that relies on computer and communication technologies to help gather, quantify, interpret, and share historical materials and narratives." 

https://inclusivehistorian.com/digital-history/

  1. Digital Collections

  2. Teaching and Learning

  3. Digital Exhibits and Publications

  4. Collaborative Digital Public History

  5. Computational Analysis

Writing for the Web:

Use clear, grammatically correct writing with good organization.

Lead with your main ideas/argument.

Think about your audience. Assume they will read at their own pace, path, and attention span, not yours. Keep paragraphs short!

Incorporate media in creative ways. Use hyperlinks!

Avoid value judgments--it's boring, I love it--and replace with critique or analysis--it feels dated because, the use of [blank] is effective because, the use of [blank] was ineffective because...

Citation matters!

Citations matter! Give credit where credit is due! For all citations, use the EasyFootnotes shortcode (outlined in the WordPress tutorial in Drive).

 

Make sure citations include the following information:

  • Author(s) (remember--PEOPLE write scholarship)
  • Title of piece (chapter, article, blog)
  • Title of larger publication (entire book, journal, website)
  • Date of publication
  • Place of publication (websites can be an exception)
  • URL.
     

For example:

Sheila Brennan, "Digital History," The Inclusive Historian's Handbook, June 4, 2019, https://inclusivehistorian.com/digital-history/.

Further Reading

What is Digital History?: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/what-is-digital-history

Digital History: http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/

Social Security and IBM: https://www.wired.com/2012/06/how-social-security-saved-ibm/

Making a Turing Test in Slack: https://botsociety.io/blog/2018/03/the-turing-test

The Curse of Xanadu: https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/

Hamlet and the Holodeck review (hypertext): https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/hamlet-on-the-holodeck-twenty-years-later

Victory Garden (hypertext novel based on Borges): http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/VictoryGarden.html

Garden of Forking Paths Comic: https://johnmiers.com/portfolio/fp/

New Media Reader: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/new-media-reader

Gleick, The Information: https://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/1400096235

Carr, The Shallows:  https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750

 

What is Digital Humanities?

By jdauteri

What is Digital Humanities?

  • 492

More from jdauteri