Transformative Digital Humanities

Transformative Digital Humanities takes a two-pronged approach to the digital humanities: it examines the distinct kinds of work currently being undertaken in the field, while also addressing current issues in the digital humanities, including sustainability, accessibility, interdisciplinarity, and funding. With contributions from humanities and LIS scholars based in China, Canada, England, Germany, Spain, and the United States, this collection of case studies provides a framework for readers to develop new projects as well as to see how existing projects might continue to develop over time. This volume also participates in the current digital humanities conversation by bringing forward emerging voices that offer new options for cooperation, by demonstrating how the digital humanities can become a tool for activism, and by illustrating the potential of the digital humanities to reexamine and reconstitute existing canons. Transformative Digital Humanities considers what sorts of challenges still exist in the field and suggests how they might be addressed. As such, the book will be essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of information science and digital humanities. It should also be of great interest to practitioners around the globe.

Digital Humanities is a transformational endeavor that not only changes the perception, storage, and interpretation of information but also of research processes and questions. It also prompts new ways of interdisciplinary communication between humanities scholars and computer scientists. This volume offers a unique perspective on digital methods for and in the humanities. It comprises case studies from various fields to illustrate the challenge of matching existing textual research practices and digital tools. Problems and solutions with and for training tools as well as the adjustment of research practices are presented and discussed with an interdisciplinary focus.

This volume presents an exploration of Digital Humanities (DH), a field focused on the reciprocal transformation of digital technologies and humanities scholarship. Central to DH research is the practice of modelling, which involves translating intricate knowledge systems into computational models. This book addresses a fundamental query: How can an effective language be developed to conceptualize and guide modelling in DH? Modelling, with its historical roots, carries multifaceted meanings influenced by various disciplinary contexts. Modelling Between Digital and Humanities innovatively connects DH with the historical tradition of model-based thinking in the humanities, cultural studies, and the sciences. It endeavors to reshape interpretative frameworks by contextualizing DH's modelling practices within a broader conceptual landscape. Through an exploration of digital, visual and data models, the book asserts that DH holds the potential to be a cornerstone of a novel cultural literacy paradigm. By probing the interplay between technology and thought, the book ultimately positions DH as a catalyst for transformative cultural insights.

This open access book challenges the contemporary relevance of the current model of knowledge production. It argues that the full digitisation of society sharply accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic has added extreme complexity to the world, conclusively exposing the inadequacy of our current model of knowledge creation. Addressing many of the different ways in which reality has been transformed by technology – the pervasive adoption of big data, the fetishisation of algorithms and automation, and the digitalisation of education and research – Viola examines how the rigid conceptualisation in disciplines’ division and competition is complicit of promoting a narrative which has paired computational methods with exactness and neutrality whilst stigmatising consciousness and criticality as carriers of biases and inequality. Taking the humanities as a focal point, the author retraces schisms in the field between the humanities, the digital humanities and critical digital humanities; these are embedded, she argues, within old dichotomies: sciences vs humanities, digital vs non-digital and authentic vs non-authentic. Through the analysis of personal use cases and exploring a variety of applied contexts such as digital heritage practices, digital linguistic injustice, critical digital literacy and critical digital visualisation, the book shows a third way: knowledge creation in the digital.

Pairing full-length scholarly essays with shorter pieces drawn from scholarly blogs and conference presentations, as well as commissioned interviews and position statements, Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016 reveals a dynamic view of a field in negotiation with its identity, methods, and reach. Pieces in the book explore how DH can and must change in response to social justice movements and events like #Ferguson; how DH alters and is altered by community college classrooms; and how scholars applying DH approaches to feminist studies, queer studies, and black studies might reframe the commitments of DH analysts. Numerous contributors examine the movement of interdisciplinary DH work into areas such as history, art history, and archaeology, and a special forum on large-scale text mining brings together position statements on a fast-growing area of DH research. In the multivalent aspects of its arguments, progressing across a range of platforms and environments, Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016 offers a vision of DH as an expanded field—new possibilities, differently structured. Published simultaneously in print, e-book, and interactive webtext formats, each DH annual will be a book-length publication highlighting the particular debates that have shaped the discipline in a given year. By identifying key issues as they unfold, and by providing a hybrid model of open-access publication, these volumes and the Debates in the Digital Humanities series will articulate the present contours of the field and help forge its future. Contributors: Moya Bailey, Northeastern U; Fiona Barnett; Matthew Battles, Harvard U; Jeffrey M. Binder; Zach Blas, U of London; Cameron Blevins, Rutgers U; Sheila A. Brennan, George Mason U; Timothy Burke, Swarthmore College; Rachel Sagner Buurma, Swarthmore College; Micha Cárdenas, U of Washington–Bothell; Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Brown U; Tanya E. Clement, U of Texas–Austin; Anne Cong-Huyen, Whittier College; Ryan Cordell, Northeastern U; Tressie McMillan Cottom, Virginia Commonwealth U; Amy E. Earhart, Texas A&M U; Domenico Fiormonte, U of Roma Tre; Paul Fyfe, North Carolina State U; Jacob Gaboury, Stony Brook U; Kim Gallon, Purdue U; Alex Gil, Columbia U; Brian Greenspan, Carleton U; Richard Grusin, U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Michael Hancher, U of Minnesota; Molly O’Hagan Hardy; David L. Hoover, New York U; Wendy F. Hsu; Patrick Jagoda, U of Chicago; Jessica Marie Johnson, Michigan State U; Steven E. Jones, Loyola U; Margaret Linley, Simon Fraser U; Alan Liu, U of California, Santa Barbara; Elizabeth Losh, U of California, San Diego; Alexis Lothian, U of Maryland; Michael Maizels, Wellesley College; Mark C. Marino, U of Southern California; Anne B. McGrail, Lane Community College; Bethany Nowviskie, U of Virginia; Julianne Nyhan, U College London; Amanda Phillips, U of California, Davis; Miriam Posner, U of California, Los Angeles; Rita Raley, U of California, Santa Barbara; Stephen Ramsay, U of Nebraska–Lincoln; Margaret Rhee, U of Oregon; Lisa Marie Rhody, Graduate Center, CUNY; Roopika Risam, Salem State U; Stephen Robertson, George Mason U; Mark Sample, Davidson College; Jentery Sayers, U of Victoria; Benjamin M. Schmidt, Northeastern U; Scott Selisker, U of Arizona; Jonathan Senchyne, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Andrew Stauffer, U of Virginia; Joanna Swafford, SUNY New Paltz; Toniesha L. Taylor, Prairie View A&M U; Dennis Tenen; Melissa Terras, U College London; Anna Tione; Ted Underwood, U of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign; Ethan Watrall, Michigan State U; Jacqueline Wernimont, Arizona State U; Laura Wexler, Yale U; Hong-An Wu, U of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign.

Digitizing Enlightenment explores how a set of inter-related digital projects are transforming our vision of the Enlightenment. The featured projects are some of the best known, well-funded and longest established research initiatives in the emerging area of 'digital humanities', a field that has, particularly since 2010, been attracting a rising tide of interest from professional academics, the media, funding councils, and the general public worldwide. Advocates and practitioners of the digital humanities argue that computational methods can fundamentally transform our ability to answer some of the 'big questions' that drive humanities research, allowing us to see patterns and relationships that were hitherto hard to discern, and to pinpoint, visualise, and analyse relevant data in efficient and powerful new ways. In the book's opening section, leading scholars outline their own projects' institutional and intellectual histories, the techniques and methodologies they specifically developed, the sometimes-painful lessons learned in the process, future trajectories for their research, and how their findings are revising previous understandings. A second section features chapters from early career scholars working at the intersection of digital methods and Enlightenment studies, an intellectual space largely forged by the projects featured in part one. Highlighting current and future research methods and directions for digital eighteenth-century studies, the book offers a monument to the current state of digital work, an overview of current findings, and a vision statement for future research.

All too often, defining a discipline becomes more an exercise of exclusion than inclusion. Disrupting the Digital Humanities seeks to rethink how we map disciplinary terrain by directly confronting the gatekeeping impulse of many other so-called field-defining collections. What is most beautiful about the work of the Digital Humanities is exactly the fact that it can't be tidily anthologized. In fact, the desire to neatly define the Digital Humanities (to filter the DH-y from the DH) is a way of excluding the radically diverse work that actually constitutes the field. This collection, then, works to push and prod at the edges of the Digital Humanities - to open the Digital Humanities rather than close it down. Ultimately, it's exactly the fringes, the outliers, that make the Digital Humanities both lovely and rigorous. This collection does not constitute yet another reservoir for the new Digital Humanities canon. Rather, our aim is less about assembling content as it is about creating new conversations. Building a truly communal space for the digital humanities requires that we all approach that space with a commitment to: 1) creating open and non-hierarchical dialogues; 2) championing non-traditional work that might not otherwise be recognized through conventional scholarly channels; 3) amplifying marginalized voices; 4) advocating for students and learners; and 5) sharing generously to support the work of our peers. TABLE OF CONTENTS // Cathy N. Davidson, "Preface: Difference is Our Operating System" Dorothy Kim and Jesse Stommel, "Disrupting the Digital Humanities: An Introduction" I. Etymology Adeline Koh, "A Letter to the Humanities: DH Will Not Save You" Audrey Watters, "The Myth and the Millennialism of 'Disruptive Innovation'" Meg Worley, "The Rhetoric of Disruption: What are We Doing Here?" Jesse Stommel, "Public Digital Humanities" II. Identity Jonathan Hsy and Rick Godden, "Universal Design and Its Discontents" Angel Nieves, "DH as 'Disruptive Innovation' for Restorative Social Justice: Virtual Heritage and 3D Reconstructions of South Africa's Township Histories" Annemarie Perez, "Lowriding through the Digital Humanities" III. Jeremiad Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, "Gold Star for You," "Mongrel Dream Library" Michelle Moravec, "Exceptionalism in Digital Humanities: Community, Collaboration, and Consensus" Matt Thomas, "The Trouble with ProfHacker" Sean Michael Morris, "Digital Humanities and the Erosion of Inquiry" IV. Labor Moya Bailey, "#transform(ing)DH Writing and Research: An Autoethonography of Digital Humanities and Feminist Ethics" Kathi Inman Berens and Laura Sanders, "DH and Adjuncts: Putting the Human Back into the Humanities" Liana Silva Ford, "Not Seen, Not Heard" Spencer D. C. Keralis, "Disrupting Labor in Digital Humanities; or, The Classroom Is Not Your Crowd" V. Networks Maha Bali, "The Unbearable Whiteness of the Digital" Eunsong Kim, "The Politics of Visibility" Bonnie Stewart, "Academic Influence: The Sea of Change" VI. Play Edmond Y Chang, "Playing as Making" Kat Lecky, "Humanizing the Interface" Robin Wharton, "Bend Until It Breaks: Digital Humanities and Resistance" VII. Structure Chris Friend, "Outsiders, All: Connecting the Pasts and Futures of Digital Humanities and Composition" Lee Skallerup-Bessette, "W(h)ither DH? New Tensions, Directions, and Evolutions in the Digital Humanities" Chris Bourg, "The Library is Never Neutral" Fiona Barnett, "After the Digital Humanities, or, a Postscript" Conclusion Dorothy Kim, "#DecolonizeDH or A Practical Guide to Making DH Less White"

This book provides an accessible introduction to, and overview of, the digital humanities, one of the fastest growing areas of literary studies. Lane takes a unique approach by focusing on the technologies and the new environment in which the digital humanities largely takes place: the digital laboratory. The book provides a brief history of DH, explores and explains the methodologies of past and current DH projects, and offers resources such as detailed case studies and bibliographies. Further, the focus on the digital laboratory space reveals affiliations with the types of research that have traditionally taken place in the sciences, as well as convergences with other fast-growing research spaces, namely innovation labs, fabrication labs, maker spaces, digital media labs, and change labs. The volume highlights the profound transformation of literary studies that is underway, one in which the adoption of powerful technology – and concomitantly being situated within a laboratory environment – is leading to an important re-engagement in the arts and humanities, and a renewed understanding of literary studies in the digital age, as well as a return to large-scale financial investment in humanistic research. It will be useful to students and teachers, as well as administrators and managers in charge of research infrastructure and funding decisions who need an accessible overview of this technological transformation in the humanities. Combining useful detail and an overview of the field, the book will offers accessible entry into this rapidly growing field.