Defining Digital Humanities
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 2 Defining Digital Humanities has been an issue for those involved with it and those eager to study it. The first group want to label the field as logical and solid, while the second group want to understand it and search it, so it is very important for both groups to have a certain definition, one they can always refer to. Although DH might sound like something people realize, it really can be as vague as the unknown, for this reason it needs to be defined. Digital humanists are desperately attempting to find a definition for this branch of humanities, so it can be accepted by those who are rejecting it, and it can be available for those who are not familiar with it. Moreover, agreeing on a relatively single definition of DH is not an easy task since it involves a wide range of activities, also a wide range of perspectives of what’s DH and what is not. However, it is possible with determination and convergence of views, and seeking what is best for the future of the field.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 1 Determining a particular definition of DH is hard, but it’s key for the flourishing of the field because if it is not defined, people who wants to learn it would be too intimidated by the ambiguity surrounding it. Therefore, it would push them away rather than attract them. Early in the semester, we talked about how ivy league schools do not have digital humanities’’ classes or digital humanities’ scholars, I believe this is part of the problem of not having a specific definition of the discipline, they know it exist, but they don’t know what exactly it is, and in the meanwhile, it doesn’t seem that anybody is answering this question.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 2 Now going back to the initial questions, “how might DH change people fundamentally, if it does at all? And what does the risk of such a fundamental change mean as we attempt to define DH?” I honestly believe that DH changes people basically because it gives them a chance to experience Humanities, the field they always were passionate about and cared about, in a whole new and exciting world. Switching the humanities from traditional paper-based methods to modern digital-based methods is very enlightening because it makes our discipline more reachable and achievable. In a sense that you can do digitally whatever you normally do on paper, in a much less time and in a more convenient space. For example, if you were writing a feedback comment on one of your fellow scholars’ literary review of a piece, you can search online the terms you don’t understand, or you can easily take a look at what others have said about the same literary work, or you can highlight the points you think are worth discussing, etc. You can do all of that while sitting on your couch in your living room at 10 p.m. So I believe doing such a change would make our lives easier, and it would not risk our knowledge of the humanities, the only thing I feel we could be risking in switching to the digital is, not having instant and concrete interaction with others in the field.
I like your idea of two different groups trying to define DH. What kind of people or scholars would fit under those two categories? Why are their motives for defining DH different?
In my post, I argued more towards not creating a clear definition for DH, but I like your reasons for why we need a clear one. You say that to arrive at a clear definition, it is possible “with determination and convergence of views”. With the number of views that exist for DH, does this mean our final definition will be very long and complicated? Or do we need to streamline our definition, which could streamline the field as well and eliminate certain aspects of it that are still good?
To follow up on Emmy’s comments here, I’m curious to see who / what fits into the “groups” that you describe in this paragraph, and where you notice divisions occurring between members of these groups.
The claims you make here about why we need to define DH clearly bring to mind the fights that erupted in the 80s and 90s over the use of literary theory. Many people resisted the intrusion of theory into the traditional literary classroom (or research project); others, though, argued that theory gave literary scholars a common “vocabulary” and a set of clear definitions and objectives for literary research. I definitely fall into the second camp, and I see theory as providing a useful basis for discourse. Do you think of DH as accomplishing the same sort of thing for contemporary humanist scholars?