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An Introduction to Digital Humanities
Can a machine tell me what books are about? Do Twitter Bots have politics? Can we teach computers to read? When we apply digital research methods or digital modes of thought to our humanistic questions, we’re engaged in a burgeoning field broadly conceived as Digital Humanities (DH). In this introductory course we will explore the discourses of DH, we will experiment with digital tools and research methods, and we will become practicing digital humanists through a critical engagement with those tools, methods, and discourses.
All students interested in an introduction to Digital Humanities methods and meanings are welcomed. The more humanistically-inclined student should be interested in experimenting with technologies, while the computational expert should be prepared to think critically about digitally-inflected humanistic inquiry. One-half of the course will feature hands-on practice, while the other half will offer contextualizing theories and discussions. (NB: Because of the professor’s disciplinary biases, our questions and datasets will trend toward literary applications. You’ve been warned!)
Course Objectives
My course objectives are pinned to the College’s Graduate Qualities. By the end of the semester we will have worked together to toward becoming “creative and independent thinkers with exceptional ablities to ask important questions, research complex issues, solve problems, and communicate new knowledge and insight” (from the College Mission Statement).
Learning Goals
This broad conception constitutes the learning goals for the course; more specifically, students will
- engage in critical and creative thinking about and through digital humanities methods and modes of thought;
- bring to fruition a researched and thought-out digital humanities project;
- when appropriate, work collaboratively across disciplines to explore interdisciplinary lines of questioning and thought; and
- actively and effectively participate in intellectual exploration through thoughtful engagement in discussions and adept communication of the students’ own ideas.
Booking Meetings
Course Archive: 2017
An Introduction to Digital Humanities by Jacob Heil is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.