What is Digital Humanities?

The field Digital Humanities is broad although some people are close minded to its true potential. To break it down ‘digital’ simply is involving or relating to the use of computer technology and ‘humanities’ is coming to an understanding with human culture, history, literature, art, music and philosophy. So you basically marry these two definitions into one which gives you an academic field concerned with the application of computational tools and methods to traditional humanities disciplines such as literature, art, music, history and culture. The main goal is to shed light on old and new humanities research.

This is an ever-changing definition though, not one scholar will give you the same definitive answer as to what exactly Digital Humanities is just because it is such a massive field and those involved in it work on so many different things. Projects in this field use tools like 3-D mapping, electronic literary analysis, and digitization but that’s just a few things. Social media is widely used as well which I personally think is so interesting. I basically grew up surrounded by social media networks so I’ve been learning as things advance but I want to learn more about them and how to use the things we’ve learned in class even though it’s only been a few things so far.

Collaboration is also a huge part of this field, with sharing research and ongoing projects anything is possible. Individuals is this field are able to learn so much and its always changing so you definitely won’t be stuck behind a boring old desk all day doing the same thing day in and day out. You have the ability to learn about different cultures, anthropology, archaeology, geography, art, history, literature, religion and the list goes on.

The hyperlink attached here is what I thought was a really cool piece on the stories of  a 1971 strike at a northern Maine paper mill. Listening to this kinda takes you back to the time and the audience gets a rush of emotions with what's going on from the interviews and the narrator.  This is just one small example of the different things you can do in the Digital Humanities field, what I really love is the aspect of taking something old that people probably don't even know exists and making it new... giving it a twist and renewing it.