What is DH?

 The Digital Humanities book provided a digestible explanation of what Digital Humanities incorporates with the digital world and different humanities principles. As I read the preface, I appreciated the terms “introduction,” “intended,” and “guided by principles,” because it supported my current understanding of digital Humanities by implying that there is not one single definition of digital humanities. It makes sense to me that digital humanities requires continued research and analysis, as it evolves within our society.

I think that digital humanities is basically where the digital world supports and allows a platform to expand on, and analyze, humanities disciplines. I don’t think that digital humanities is intended to allow technology to change what is already there, but instead, to create and/or use the digital world to make those disciplines more accessible. The readings have helped me to have a better understanding of the value of studying and using digital humanities to analyze work that has been done, or could be done in the future.

An example of a digital humanities project is “The Moonwalkers: A journey with Tom Hanks” exhibit in Boston. According to The Boston Calendar at thebostoncalendar.com, the exhibit is a digital show that uses NASA footage and others historical data to tell an immersive story about the first steps on the moon.


Comments

  1. BaileySeptember 1, 2025 at 2:07 PM

    Hi Vicky!

    I really liked how you said that “…digital humanities is basically where the digital world supports and allows a platform to expand on, and analyze, humanities disciplines.” This is a great, simple and clear definition that perfectly, in my opinion, describes this very broad idea! You also brought up a good point when you said that digital humanities is not meant to change what is already there but, instead, to make this information more accessible and to add on to it using new means. This is also something that stood out to me in the reading. I like that digital humanities gives people a space to be creative and a means to add their own interpretations or lens to the story.

    The Moonwalkers exhibit is a good example of how people have used digital technologies to both research, interpret and present historical data. I love how interactive and immersive this exhibit seems to be – I think putting the audience into the story like this, makes it so much more interesting than just reading an old museum display card!

    Your definition and post reminded me of the data science class I took in high school. One of the assignments we did was inspired by a digital humanities work called, “Dear Data” which was a year-long visualization project that was created by two people who lived in different countries. Every week, they collected data about their lives and sent each other postcards that visualized this data. Here’s the link in case you are interested: https://www.dear-data.com/theproject.

    Nice work!
    Bailey

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dr. MSeptember 2, 2025 at 6:25 AM

    I'm glad the readings helped with your understanding, also confirming what you already understood to be the broad (multiple-definitions) world of DH!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

blog post 1: what is digital humanities?

Image
  MFA Boston "Real Photo Postcards: Pictures from a Changing Nation" (2022)      Hearing the term “Digital Humanities” in this class's title gave me the immediate impression that this class would teach about the online aspect of works in the English realm, such as news sites or other web-based published works. Since reading the beginning of the textbook and taking time to explore what Digital Humanities actually is, I have learned that it is far more steeped in research and quantification than I originally thought. As the textbook suggests, Digital Humanities is an incredibly broad field, and the term can be applied to a variety of projects and organized works. Specifically, the integration of technology to the materials being studied is something that is fluid, and can be changed according to the needs and the nature of the project.       With this loose definition in mind, the first type of works that come to mind are exhibits that I have seen a...
Read more

RM ☆ Blog Post 1

Image
One word that I have seen a lot while looking into digital humanities and what it means is “intersection” (usually between the digital world and, of course, the humanities). I think this word is re ally helpful when thinking about the definition of DH, as it highlights how two almost opposite things are combined... or... intersected. After the readings , my idea of DH is: a piece of work created digitally that focuses on the humanities , or the observance of human existence and experience . T he readings taught me that “ a project can be digital without being online,” which is something new to me that I had never thought of before. Early on in the textbook, I also learned the difference between “digital” (information in binary form), and “computational” (processes performed by algorithms). A quote that stood out to me that really helped me better my understanding of what DH is was: “These components ( materials, processing, & presentation ) and the activities on whic...
Read more