Digital humanities is a somewhat difficult term to define and even more difficult to define succinctly. My own definition most closely aligns with what is written in “A Short Guide to the Digital Humanities” (Burdick et al. 2012), although studying other definitions and analyzing mature projects have broadened my perspective and forced me to revisit and refine my mental model.

Digital humanities is a project-based, transdisciplinary approach to studying, teaching, and sharing cultural heritage and humanities research utilizing computational methods and tools to extend the possibilities of scholarly inquiry and discourse in terms of analysis, scope, scale, and audience, beyond what traditional printed scholarship can accomplish alone. Research on the theory and metatheory of the field also fall under a larger umbrella of digital humanities and is relevant to and interconnected with the practical work.

I describe digital humanities as both project-based and transdisciplinary. Every resource I’ve consulted describes the work as hands-on. In performing a search of the word project in each of the articles I’ve referenced, and the word appears frequently (212 times in “A Short Guide to Digital Humanities”). Even as it applies to pedagogy, projects are utilized and used interactively if not built. I prefer the word transdisciplinary over interdisciplinary when describing digital humanities because it infers a blurring of the lines between disciplines while solving a problem by applying methods or modes of thinking in a new context. Projects often utilize techniques like information mining, data visualization, tagging, mapping, georeferencing, modeling, and many others born outside the humanities and applied in innovative ways. In addition to drawing from computer science, the digital humanities “embrace quantitative methods from the social and natural sciences as well as techniques and modes of thinking from the arts.” (Burdick et al 2012) Klein and Gold also acknowledge how much the digital humanities have been informed by (and have also informed) and borrowed from other disciplines (2016). Additionally, projects depend on team members with varied skillsets built in disciplines outside the humanities.

I have categorized digital humanities as an approach to applying methods and tools. Framework or mode are other words I considered but ultimately settled on approach. It’s a digital approach but allows flexibility in method and tool depending on the discipline and the goals of the individual project. Mode implies a format in common (all digital in this case) but the variety of formats is rather broad when considering the inclusion of games and virtual reality projects, so perhaps modes as a plural would be more accurate. Method is too narrow; a field of study doesn’t seem descriptive enough, although I find myself reaching for it still.

Computational methods don’t replace traditional methods, but rather open new and different avenues of inquiry and new capabilities for collaboration and communication. To me this is the heart of the digital humanities. Beyond the bounds of print scholarship, multiple views and angles of the same material can be available to view, filter, sort, and view with new perspective. Multilinear forms of argument are also possible (Burdick et al. 2012). Online platforms also allow for increased collaboration and dialogue amongst scholars, librarians, archivists, and with the public. I have explored several projects as part of my coursework and have discovered how layered the analysis and how dynamic the experience can be. I found it easy explore the research and discover additional insights of my own. (For some examples, see America’s Public Bible, Constructing the Sacred, and Virtual Paul’s Cross Project.)

A deeper examination of the history and theory of digital humanities practice has gained traction over the last several years, expanding the range of study and discourse. Researchers of a field once known as humanities computing are attempting to shed light on longstanding structural, cultural, linguistical biases in the digital humanities as a field and in institutions that provide funding, as well as the historical biases in archives and source materials (See Fiormente, Ricaurte, and Chaudhuri 2022).  Some scholars are also revisiting the historical narrative to better acknowledge female contributions to the field (see Wernimont and Losh 2018). An example of some of the many theoretical topics being explored include how computational tools reshape the study of humanities and how wearable technology shapes the human experience.

As technology advances and as this approach to humanistic study grows, it will be interesting to see how the definition of digital humanities continues to change in the future.

References

Burdick, Anne, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp. “A Short Guide to the Digital_Humanities.”  In Digital Humanities, 122-27. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2012.

Fiormonte, Domenico, Paola Ricaurte, and Sukanta Chaudhuri, “Introduction,” in Global Debates in the Digital Humanities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022).

Klein, Lauren, and Matthew K. Gold. “Digital Humanities: The Expanded Field.” Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016.

Wernimont, Jacqueline, and Elizabeth Losh, eds. “Introduction.” In Bodies of Information: Intersectional Feminism and Digital Humanities. University of Minnesota Press, 2018.