demystifying digital humanities fall workshop 1

What is DH, and why does it matter?

Have you taken the DH Profile Quiz?http://tinyurl.com/dmdhquiz

Defining DH• By when it began (1946, approximately:

date of Roberto Busa’s plan for the Codex Thomisticus)

• Its stability, or lack thereof

• Its self-consciously mutable and multimodal nature

• According to its friction with traditional a.k.a. analog humanities

What others say“...I like to say that digital humanities is just one method for doing humanistic

enquiry.”--Brian Croxall, Emory University

“A term of tactical convenience.”

--Matthew Kirschenbaum, U of Maryland

“I think digital humanities is an unfortunate neologism, largely because

the humanities itself is a problematic term.”

--Trevor Owens, Library of Congress

“I don’t. I’m sick of trying to define it. When forced to, I’ll make the referent the people instead of the ideas or methods -- Digital

Humanities is the thing practiced by people who self-identify as Digital

Humanists. It’s helpful to have a name for the field chiefly for institutional authority.

Though granted I think it does involve coding/making/building/doing things with computers, things related to, you know,

the humanities.”--Amanda French, Center for History and

New Media

Values behind DH

Goals: what we can do• Provide necessary background and

vocabulary via these workshops and the DMDH website.

• Make the digital humanities a safer, less intimidating, and more welcoming space for experimenting.

• Allow you to begin charting your own course, and developing your own projects.

• Build a DH cohort at UW.

Limits: what we can’t do

CAN BECOME A DIGITAL HUMANIST

But don’t worry...

Websites for EvaluationOld Bailey Online : http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/

DHPoco - Rewriting Wikipedia Project : http://dhpoco.org/rewriting-wikipedia/

The Homer Multitext Project : http://www.homermultitext.org/

TranscribeBentham : http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/

UVic Maker Lab in the Humanities: http://maker.uvic.ca/

www.twitter.com/feministhulkwww.twitter.com/autoblake

http://tinyurl.com/fycchat2 and http://fycchat.blogspot.com

Website Evaluation QuestionsWhat do you see as the project teams’

priorities?

Which DH values do you see in operation?

What sort of usage (and user) is being posited?

What aspects (if any) aren’t working well?

Is there anything else that stands out, or raises questions for you?

Flash Project Development

Brainstorm a DH project with your team!(Students at Cabrini College brainstorm a DH project on porn. Image c/o Adeline Koh.)

Will it focus on one distinct topic? Or on bringing multiple topics together?

What artefacts will it contain, or collect?

How will users interact and/or contribute?

What forms (modes) will it take?

Flash Project Brainstorming

What perspectives do you want it to explore?

Resources for further training and collaboration

DMDH (http://www.dmdh.org)HASTAC (http://www.hastac.org)DHSI (http://www.dhsi.org)TEI Seminars at Brown University (http://www.wwp.brown.edu/outreach/seminars/)UW Libraries Workshops (http://www.washington.edu/lst/workshops)Profhacker (http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/)

Online coding courses: Skillcrush (http://www.skillcrush.com) and Codecademy (http://www.codecademy.com), many others (just google!)Digital Humanities on Twitter -- no account needed (https://twitter.com/paigecmorgan/digital-humanities)

With thanks to our sponsors...

Faculty sponsors: Tyler Fox, Ann Lally, Brian Reed, Miceal Vaughan, Stacy Waters, Helene Williams

Works CitedThe quotes in the slide “What

others say” were taken from the essay “Day of DH,” in Debates in the Digital Humanities, edited by

Matthew K. Gold, and published by the University of Minnesota Press in

2012.

Thanks to Adeline Koh for permission to use the image in

Slide 11.