Introduction to Digital Humanities

This course is a hands-on introduction to Digital Humanities, which may be defined as using digital technologies to investigate questions traditional to the humanities or to ask humanities-oriented questions about the digital. What are these questions? As usual, it depends, depends on the scholar’s theoretical orientation, methods, and resources at hand (including not only primary source materials, but time, skill, and support). This course is relevant to literary scholars, historians, media scholars, information scholars, and all those who are interested in how humanists engage in cultural studies. It will include learning to evaluate DH questions and DH projects through project-based exercises in creating and interpreting digital humanities resources and tools and a close (and critical) look at the infrastructural, institutional, and political issues involved in interrogating “the digital” in the humanities. As we look at the concepts, methods, theories, and resources of DH through the perspective of practice, we will consider how computational methods are being used to further humanities research but also, more importantly, how our understanding of computing technologies is deepened by humanities research. No prerequisites are required for this course.