Digital Technology And The Practices Of Humanities Research

How does technology impact research practices in the humanities? How does digitisation shape scholarly identity? How do we negotiate trust in the digital realm? What is scholarship, what forms can it take, and how does it acquire authority? This diverse set of essays demonstrate the importance of asking such questions, bringing together established and emerging scholars from a variety of disciplines, at a time when data is increasingly being incorporated as an input and output in humanities sources and publications. Major themes addressed include the changing nature of scholarly publishing in a digital age, the different kinds of ‘gate-keepers’ for scholarship, and the difficulties of effectively assessing the impact of digital resources. The essays bring theoretical and practical perspectives into conversation, offering readers not only comprehensive examinations of past and present discourse on digital scholarship, but tightly-focused case studies. This timely volume illuminates the different forces underlying the shifting practices in humanities research today, with especial focus on how humanists take ownership of, and are empowered by, technology in unexpected ways. Digital Technology and the Practices of Humanities Research is essential reading for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the changing culture of research practices in the humanities, and in the future of the digital humanities on the whole.

How does technology impact research practices in the humanities? How does digitisation shape scholarly identity? How do we negotiate trust in the digital realm? What is scholarship, what forms can it take, and how does it acquire authority?This diverse set of essays demonstrate the importance of asking such questions, bringing together established and emerging scholars from a variety of disciplines, at a time when data is increasingly being incorporated as an input and output in humanities sources and publications. Major themes addressed include the changing nature of scholarly publishing in a digital age, the different kinds of 'gate-keepers' for scholarship, and the difficulties of effectively assessing the impact of digital resources. The essays bring theoretical and practical perspectives into conversation, offering readers not only comprehensive examinations of past and present discourse on digital scholarship, but tightly-focused case studies.This timely volume illuminates the different forces underlying the shifting practices in humanities research today, with especial focus on how humanists take ownership of, and are empowered by, technology in unexpected ways. Digital Technology and the Practices of Humanities Research is essential reading for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the changing culture of research practices in the humanities, and in the future of the digital humanities on the whole. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

This timely volume illuminates the different forces underlying the shifting practices in humanities research today, with especial focus on how humanists take ownership of, and are empowered by, technology in unexpected ways. Digital Technology and the Practices of Humanities Research is essential reading for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the changing culture of research practices in the humanities, and in the future of the digital humanities on the whole.

This volume introduces the reader to the wide range of methods that digital humanities employ, and offers a practical guide to the study, interpretation, and presentation of cultural material and practices. In this instance, the editors consider digital humanities to include both the use of computing to understand cultural material in new ways, and the application of theories and methods from the humanities to interpret new technologies. Each chapter provides a step-by-step guide to cutting-edge methodologies so that students can make informed decisions about the methods they use, consider ethical practices, follow practical procedures, and present their work effectively. Readers will develop practical and reflexive understandings of the software and digital devices that they study and use for research, and the book will help new researchers collaborate and contribute to their scholarly communities, and to public discourse. As contemporary humanities work becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, and increasingly permeated by and with digital technologies, this volume helps new researchers navigate an evolving academic environment. Humanities and social sciences students will find this textbook an invaluable resource for assessing and creating digital projects.

This cutting-edge and comprehensive introduction to digital humanities explains the scope of the discipline and state of the art and provides a wide-ranging insight into emerging topics and avenues of research. Each chapter interweaves the expert commentary of leading academics with analysis of current research and practice, exploring the possibilities and challenges that occur when culture and digital technologies intersect. International case studies of projects ranging from crowdsourced manuscript transcription to computational reconstruction of frescoes are included in each chapter, providing a wealth of information and inspiration. QR codes within each chapter link to a dedicated website where additional content, such as further case studies, is located. Key topics covered include: • studying users and readers • social media and crowdsourcing • digitization and digital resources • image processing in the digital humanities • 3D recording and museums • electronic text and text encoding • book history, texts and digital editing • open access and online teaching of digital humanities • institutional models for digital humanities. Readership: This is an essential practical guide for academics, researchers, librarians and professionals involved in the digital humanities. It will also be core reading for all humanities students and those taking courses in the digital humanities in particular.

The first volume to introduce the techniques and methods of reading digital material for researchDigital Humanities has become one of the new domains of academe at the interface of technological development, epistemological change, and methodological concerns. This volume explores how digital material might be read or utilized in research, whether that material is digitally born as fanfiction, for example, mostly is, or transposed from other sources. The volume asks questions such as what happens when text is transformed from printed into digital matter, and how that impacts on the methods we bring to bear on exploring that technologized matter, for example in the case of digital editions. Issues such as how to analyse visual material in digital archives or Twitter feeds, how to engage in data mining, what it means to undertake crowd-sourcing, big data, and what digital network analyses can tell us about online interactions are dealt with. This will give Humanities researchers ideas for doing digitally based research and also suggest ways of engaging with new digital research methods. Key featuresFirst volume centred on the navigation and interpretation of digital material as research methods in the HumanitiesUp-to-date analyses of issues and methods including big data, crowdsourcing, digital network analysis, working with digital additionsBased on actual research projects such as para-textual work with fanfiction, reading twitter, different kinds of distant and close readings

"The essays in this collection offer a timely intervention in digital humanities scholarship, bringing together established and emerging scholars from a variety of humanities disciplines across the world. The first section offers views on the practical realities of teaching digital humanities at undergraduate and graduate levels, presenting case studies and snapshots of the authors' experiences alongside models for future courses and reflections on pedagogical successes and failures. The next section proposes strategies for teaching foundational digital humanities methods across a variety of scholarly disciplines, and the book concludes with wider debates about the place of digital humanities in the academy, from the field's cultural assumptions and social obligations to its political visions." (4e de couverture).

This book provides new critical and methodological approaches to digital humanities, intended to guide technical development as well as critical analysis. Informed by the history of technology and culture and new perspectives on modernity, Smithies grounds his claims in the engineered nature of computing devices and their complex entanglement with our communities, our scholarly traditions, and our sense of self. The distorting mentalité of the digital modern informs our attitudes to computers and computationally intensive research, leading scholars to reject articulations of meaning that admit the interdependence of humans and the complex socio-technological systems we are embedded in. By framing digital humanities with the digital modern, researchers can rebuild our relationship to technical development, and seek perspectives that unite practical and critical activity. This requires close attention to the cyber-infrastructures that inform our research, the software-intensive methods that are producing new knowledge, and the ethical issues implicit in the production of digital humanities tools and methods. The book will be of interest to anyone interested in the intersection of technology with humanities research, and the future of digital humanities.