LibGuides: Digital Humanities: Introduction

Welcome to Digital Humanities

[This guide was based on an original version, many thanks to Boston College University Libraries: http://libguides.bc.edu/digitalhumanities]

Digital Humanities: Five Definitions

1. Humanities + Digital

2. A cross-disciplinary community in humanities that uses technology, especially web computing, as an analytical tool for critical inquiry and/or a means of scholarly collaboration and communication.

3. Maybe it isn't so simple

4. Visual definition

5. 250 definitions

Introductions to the Field

Digital Humanities spans a broad variety of organizations, approaches, tools, methodologies, and of course disciplines. Here are some helpful guides and articles to get you started.

Blackwell's "A Companion to Digital Humanities"
Providing a concise overview of Digital Humanities, this e-book is a compilation of 37 articles focusing on computational methods, basic humanities principles, specific applications, dissemination, and archiving.
Blackwell's "A Companion to Digital Literary Studies"
This guide is a complete overview of the application of computing in literary studies including best practices for digital preservation.
Conjectures on World Literature - Franco Moretti
In this influential article, Franco Moretti discusses the use of digital analytics in comparative literature, coining the term "distant reading" as an analytical corrective to modernism's "close reading."
Getting Started in the Digital Humanities [blog post]
Informational post that includes best practices, tutorials, and workshop listings. From Lisa Spiro, Rice University.
Presentation: "Bringing Digital Humanities to the Community College and Vice Versa”
Video and presentation materials from Anne McGrail, from an all-day pre-conference strategic discussion at the Community College Humanities Association national meeting, October 24, 2013.
Promoting Open Access in the Humanities - Peter Suber
The humanities has been slower than the sciences and social sciences to embrace Open Access scholarly publishing. Peter Suber, don of Open Access, explains why and offers recommendations. 2004-2005.
The CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide
A collaborative resource guide, the CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide includes helpful links such as funding information, upcoming conferences, and sample syllabi.
The differentiation of literary and nonliterary diction, 1700-1900
Ted Underwood shares the development process of his analysis of language changes, using data mining of literature samples, an interesting example of "distant reading."
Tooling up for Digital Humanities (Stanford Univ.)
Provides an "entryway" into digitization, text analysis, spatial analysis, databases, data visualization, and pedagogy for scholars interested in starting to explore digital humanities.
Why humanists need to understand text mining [blog post]
Ted Underwood reasons that humanists already do naive text mining, and need to do it better.