Digital Humanities - A Loose Personal Working Defintion

What is "Digital Humanities," as a field of study? A simple answer from my beginner's perspective is the confluence of human expression and a digital medium. To elaborate on the first part, I would consider the fields inherently thought of as "humanities," notably communication/rhetoric, philosophy, language, art, music, literature...essentially, the ways in which we, as self-aware beings, try to reflect our awareness within and upon the world. As for the digital part, I interpret it to be the overall medium by and through which the other, more-traditional media are viewed, with an important note that in my view, the originating medium can be digital itself, or the various non-digital media, if the intended method of taking in the object is digital.

An example discussed in class, the animated gifs of Miley Cyrus twerking on (to?) various works of traditional art, comes to mind. While a crucial part of the piece is that artwork ("The Scream," for example), and that artwork originates in realspace (i.e. exists, was created in, and was meant to be viewed in the flesh-and-blood analog world), the electronic addition of Miley to the pictures creates a new object, one that offers a new perspective, or subtly or significantly subverts an established perspective. In short, the new thing created is human expression conveying an implicit or explicit commentary through an ultimately digital medium, and meant to be viewed as such.

                Another example that seems relevant is the e-book, or at least those available on the Amazon Kindle. Users can highlight passages, quotes, etc., and the Kindle will show those highlighted sections to others reading the same book. This creates a subtextual narrative beyond the scope of the book itself, as it reveals (or at least alludes to) the thoughts of another person on the book, telling us in an interactive way something of what they feel or think. Thus a digitized object becomes a digital object. Something new is created that takes place exclusively on a digital platform.



            It is easy to perceive that such a movement may and will have its detractors, especially amongst those deeming themselves traditional academics. It appears to be a new discipline, and that can be frightening and disruptive to the scholarly status quo. I feel that, however, that rather than being a new discipline, the field is better thought of as the same discipline, expanded slightly, utilizing new tools. Human expression, as a whole, has not changed. The vehicle for it may, but the urge remains regardless of the means. Co-opting a thought from Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, “can’t see it matters whether paths are protein or platinum.”