Research Guides: Digital Humanities: Getting Started

Digital Humanities is...

All the ways that the humanities and digital technologies intersect.

— Rebecca Davis

What is Digital Humanities?
Refresh this webpage to get a new definition each time. Quotes were pulled from participants from the Day of DH between 2009-2012. As of December 2012, the database contains over 500 rows and randomly selects a quote each time the page is loaded.

Defining Digital Humanities by Melissa Terras (Editor); Julianne Nyhan (Editor); Edward Vanhoutte (Editor)
ISBN: 9781409469636

Publication Date: 2013-12-23

This reader brings together in one core volume essential readings that have emerged in Digital Humanities. Great for scholars and students who want to discover the history of Digital Humanities and for those who wish to understand the many possibilities that exist when trying to define DH.

Introduction to Digital Humanities

The Digital Humanities Literacy Guide
Carnegie Mellon University's DH Literacy Guide surveys the field and also groups resources by topic including but not limited to Black Digital Humanities, DH Feminism, and Multilingual DH.
Introducing Digital Humanities (Full) Prezi by Korey Jackson
Link to the site hosting Korey Jackson's Prezi Introducing Digital Humanities.
A 3-Step Introduction to Digital Humanities for Library-Dwellers
A blog post for Hack Library School that quickly defines what Digital Humanities is/are and the issues DH raises for libraries and librarians.
What is Digital Humanities and What is it Doing in the Library?
2012 blog post from In the Library with a Lead Pipe, an open access, open reviewed journal.
What Is Digital Humanities and What’s It Doing in English Departments?
Matthew Kirschenbaum, Professor of English and Digital Studies at the University of Maryland, noted literary media archeologist, and author of Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing (HUP 2016) and Mechanisms (MIT 2008), describes DH in English.

Overview Resources

Given DH's eclecticism, no definitive overview of the field exists. The following represent a few ways to get acquainted with the range of projects and approaches of DH, and check out the “Research and Resources” section of this guide for more in-depth reading recommendations.

Black DH List (Google Doc)
Community-sourced listing linking Black Digital Humanities projects and resources.
CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide
An online guide to all things DH, including tools, forums, conferences, and more.
Digital Humanities Now
Digital Humanities Now showcases the scholarship and news of interest to the digital humanities community through a process of aggregation, discovery, curation, and review.
Getting Started in the Digital Humanities
Lisa Spiro's blog on Digital Humanities. Lisa is a consultant and researcher focused on digital humanities, digital pedagogy, and scholarly communications technologies.
DH Awards
A set of annual awards where the public is able to nominate resources for the recognition of talent and expertise in the digital humanities community.

Tools for Incorporating Digital Humanities Into the Classroom

Digital Humanities has many points of intersection with pedagogy, particularly with open pedagogy and open educational resources (OER). For more information about OER, visit NYU's OER Research Guide. For information about teaching digital humanities in your classroom, try the following resources.

Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Concepts, Models, and Experiments (from MLA)
A curated collection of reusable and remixable pedagogical artifacts for humanities scholars in development by the Modern Language Association.
Each keyword entry is curated by an experienced practitioner of digital pedagogy, who briefly contextualizes a pedagogical concept and then provides ten supporting artifacts, such as syllabi, prompts, exercises, lesson plans, and student work drawn from courses, classrooms, and projects across the humanities.
JITP Tool Tips
The Journal of Interactive Technology based at the CUNY Graduate Center publishes a number of short forms, including Tool Tips, Blueprints, and Teaching Fails, which model ways of incorporating digital options in the classroom.
Zotero - DH Syllabi
Examines different approaches to digital humanities education. Includes syllabi and curriculum planning documents, as well as as articles about open education, networked pedagogies, and more. Members are encouraged to help build the collection.

Some Blogs to Follow

Perhaps because its practitioners are testing the capacities of digital communication, digital humanities boasts a rich range of scholarly blogs. The following are some notable scholars who use blogs as part of their DH work.

dh + lib
Where Digital Humanities and Libraries meet.
Dan Cohen's Blog
Blog of the Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America.
Amanda L. French's Blog
Explores how fields of literature, history and philosophy can be impacted by computers and the Internet; blog of Research Assistant Professor and THATCamp Coordinator at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University,
Miriam Posner's Blog
Miriam Posner coordinates and teaches in the Digital Humanities program at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Simon Tanner's Blog
Strategist, thinker & consultant in how the digital domain relates to library, museum, archiving & media digital strategies.
Ted Underwood’s Blog
Professor of English and Information Sciences working at the forefront of text analysis and machine learning for literary studies.

Digital Humanities at NYU

For more information and the latest updates about digital humanities at NYU, visit https://digitalhumanities.nyu.edu/.