Although it is as yet rather surface-level, my understanding of Digital Humanities is the manner in which the intersection of the digital revolution and the tools it affords us can change and assist our studies of the humanities.
I find its chronological scope in particular to be fascinating, as its nature allows for both a refreshing perspective on pre-digital works with entirely new tools (such as computational language analysis), alongside a more integrated philosophy of examining newer works released within digital infrastructure.
I am also appriciative of its meta-analysis capabilities, such as its scrutiny of the accessibility and functionality standards of academic circles. It encourages freer and more accessible knowledge sharing and support for those either in need or without access, and presents a framework through which disciplines can work to deconstruct the ‘ivory tower’ of academic resource and understanding. It also has the potential to provide accomodations for those who are disabled or otherwise require further infrastructure to participate, both widening access and the perspectives entering the field.
As also discussed briefly in the seminar (and relating somewhat to the broad temporality of the field), another point of interest is the incredible speed with which the discipline evolves alongside the medium. Particularly within the last half-decade or so, the conflict between Digital Humanities’ focus on freedom of knowledge and publication and ethical questions around data harvesting and misinformation provide even a possible avenue for philosophical discussion. At the risk of abstracting a legitimately pressing issue of legitimacy versus freedom, the ethical conundrums of implementing academic standards and frameworks within such a free field of study can encourage further questions of value and accessibility from an entirely different lens.
I find the aspects of the meta-analytical nature of DH that you mention in your understanding of the field very relevant, especially your attention to DH’s potential for accessibility and accommodation within academic circles. Your observation that DH can open its doors to academics previously excluded from its ‘ivory tower’ is so significant. I believe that the field’s commitment to innovative thinking and breaking rigid scholarly schemas is an aspect of DH that certainly may be appealing and welcoming to, e.g. scholars with disabilities. In that sense, DH appears to offer not only new tools but also a broader understanding of what counts as knowledge production and how that knowledge is generated, shared, and valued, and, particularly, who is “allowed to” create knowledge.
I was especially intrigued by your point about DH’s capacity to create ‘a refreshing perspective on pre-digital works with entirely new tools’. It very much reminded me of a new strand within Comparative Literature that concerns itself with practices of Re-reading. Whether through developing new ways of reading familiar and well-known texts or establishing new ways of presenting already existing knowledge and interpretations, I suppose DH seems particularly well-suited here. Similar points raised also eli in the thoughts on retaining the textures and dimensions of literature! Maybe such thinking suggests that DH, rather than flattening literary works into data, offers relatively new ways of engaging with their complexity? Maybe DH is truly a field particularly capable of creating new ways of translating literature to the public? Perhaps it allows the hidden dimensions of literature to come to the forefront? In a way, does DH allow for re-reading works with attention to the elusive aspects that were previously omitted, or excluded within purely verbal critical frameworks? And more broadly, how does it all change how literature is experienced in the contemporary world?
I find the accessibility point you raise to be very important. It seems Digital Humanities, significantly more so than traditional humanities, both has the capacity and ethos for accessibility. How things like text can be enlarged or shortened, re-contextualised in ways that offer more clarity, summarised in forms that mean the access point of academic discussions is significantly lower. It gets me thinking about things such as youtube essays, or substack, or honestly even the role of AI. When you write about “legitimacy and freedom” – I think that is quite central in this discussion. When do the constructive efforts of the digital humanities start to lose important elements of these texts? How can we balance accessibility and attempt to democratise these texts without losing them? But are these even legitimate concerns? Who is up to to decide what a text “ought” to be?
Digital Humanities really is something that flourishes in “post-truth” sentiments, but there does appear to be a level of uncomfortability when brought to its logical conclusion.
In my definition of digital humanities I also considered how it has the capacity for greater accessibility and to spread information and knowledge with greater effect. This idea is discussed in the reading Pixel Dust: Illusions of Innovation in Scholarly Publishing where Joanna Drucker identifies why digital humanities, although still restricted to academics and professional interests, can be of use to nonacademics. The reasons Drucker identifies are: ideas can filter down, academic research can address misinformation and that projects can maintain intellectual life and public discourse. A comment made on my own post questioned the degree to which this accessibility can manifest. However, you highlight the ‘potential’ of digital infrastructure for greater participation – and while I agree with the comment made on my post – I think that a key aspect of DH is the expanding field of research/ variety of projects. There is capacity within this difficult to define area of study to adapt to the criticisms continually raised against it.