What are the Digital Humanities?
The digital humanities (DH) is a dynamic field comprising a diverse community of scholars, researchers, and instructors interested in pursuing research questions in the humanities while experimenting with innovative technological methodologies. As an expanding mode of scholarship, the digital humanities produces collaborative, trans-disciplinary, and computationally engaged research, teaching, and publication. The digital humanities does not solely concern the “digital,” nor the “humanities”; Rather, DH is defined by the opportunities and challenges that arise from the union of these distinct intellectual approaches. Digital humanities provides the opportunity to bring digital methods to traditional research questions and it also asks humanistic questions about digital technologies and their social effects. The field of DH provides the opportunity to establish new relations between humanities, social sciences, visual arts, as well as natural sciences. By doing so, we simultaneously expand the audience and social impact of scholarship in the humanities, develop new forms of inquiry and knowledge production, and bring traditional approaches into new conversations.
Through engaging with digital humanities, we encourage the next generation of humanists through hands-on and project-based learning and scholarship. These methods complement existing classroom-based practices and simultaneously enhance the quality, accessibility, and visibility of humanistic research.