The Digital Humanities: From the Edge to the Center

GoalsTools and Projects

Getting Started-------------

Learning and TeachingCareer PathsPredictions

Hanger 51

“Hanger 51.” Retrieved: October 29, 2012 from http://indianajones.wikia.com/wiki/Hangar_51.

Casaubon’s Key to All Mythologies

“Edward Casaubon, Retrieved on October 31, 2012, from: http://elfestindehomero.blogspot.com/2012/06/el-senor-casaubon-academico-fracasado.html

DH: Some General Goals• Collaboration: Foster active scholarly conversations; engage the public as

partners. • Innovation: Use digital tools to ask new questions and create new forms

of scholarship in new mediums. • Academic Engagement: Adopt high-impact educational practices such as

collaborative research. Cultivate both the traditional and the digital. • Professional and Public Service: Build a new scholarly infrastructure and

create resources that serve more diverse local local and global needs. • Alternative Career Paths: Develop sustainable alternatives to the tenure

track, while working to expand what “counts” for tenure and promotion.• Strengthen the Humanities: Justify ongoing support from institutions,

foundations, academic administration, the government, and the public, including students and parents.

DH: Tools and Projects• Digital Research Tools (DiRT) Wiki. • Multimedia Publications: Southern Spaces.• Digital Archives: Walt Whitman Archive,

Who Speaks for the Negro? Many others, see IATH-Sponsored Archives.

• Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Cleveland Project, Civil War Washington.

• Digital Simulations: Digital Roman Forum, World’s Columbian Exposition.

• Peer Editing: “Writing History in the Digital Age,” also countless blogs.

• Data Mining and Visualization (“Culturomics”): Google Ngram Viewer, TagCrowd.

Some DH History

The “Next Big Thing”: Father Roberto Busa (1913-2011), The Index Thomisticus (1949-2005): a corpus analysis tool including 188 books by Aquinas and 61 other authors, originally 70,000 pages, now online.

Roberto Busa – in the background the Index Thomisticus (2006). Retrieved October 29, 2012, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roberto_busa_e_index_thomisticus.jpg

DH: Getting Started• What interests you? What kind of pilot project could you develop? Seek inspiration and support. • Visit “Getting Started in Digital Humanities” and NITLE’s Digital Research Tools (DiRT) wiki.• Read Debates in the Digital Humanities, edited by Matt Gold; A Companion to Digital Humanities by Susan

Schreibman, Ray Siemans, and John Unsworth. • Find solutions on “Digital Humanities Questions and Answers.”• Become familiar with scholarly best practices for DH in your discipline (MLA and AHA guidelines). • Identify sources of grant support, especially the NEH’s Office of DH, see their library of funded projects. • Participate in the DH community– Look for DH sessions at your disciplinary conferences. – Attend a THATCamp or training workshops like the Digital Humanities Summer Institute. – Read and respond to DH blogs like Dan Cohen’s.– Follow DH’ers on Twitter. – Advertise your project on DH Commons. – Find collaborators: other students, faculty, IT staff, and librarians; look beyond your campus, especially at

the DH centers. • Present at conferences (such as ADHO), build projects into your syllabi, and publish. • Present your project at conferences; apply for grants; publish.

DH: Learning and Teaching

• “High Impact Educational Practices” (George D. Kuh). – Undergraduate Research– Collaborative Assignments and Projects – Common Intellectual Experiences– Service Learning– Diversity Experiences/Global Learning– Learning Communities– Capstone Courses and Projects

DH: Teaching• Hybrid teaching; the flipped classroom. • Social Media: Twitter, Facebook• Public writing--individual and collaborative: blogs, wikis,

Google Docs.• Cross/multi-institutional courses; enhanced specialization• Project-based classes that assemble teams from across

disciplines. • From student to author and project manager.• Alternatives to the research paper, by itself. • No more “Indiana Jones Warehouses,” Keys to all

Mythologies. • Consider: Early Novels Database, Looking for Whitman. • DH Syllabi Wiki.

DH: Alternative Academics

DH: Predictions: 1• Traditional scholarly publication, including peer

review, will move online and will incorporate DH approaches.

• Collaborative research and writing will become more accepted in the humanities.

• Hiring, promotion and the tenure process will recognize and support DH.

• DH will become part of teaching at all levels of the curriculum, driven by student/market demand—a big faculty development challenge.

• There will be relatively fewer tenure-track positions but a wider range of alt-ac positions; academic careers will become more fluid and mobile.

DH: Predictions: 2• Undergrads will become even more skeptical

of traditional graduate training. • Humanists will be expected to find external

support for their projects. • Plan for long-term sustainability, collaborative

partnerships, public engagement, and assessment.

• DH skills soon will cease to confer much advantage on the academic job market: they will be assumed.

• Digital Humanities methods will become part of the ordinary practices of the humanities.