Welcome to the Digital Humanities Practicum (MLL 774/ ENG 613)

Among the many definitions that have been given to the Digital Humanities here are two that fit this seminar:

The digital humanities comprise the study of what happens at the intersection of computing tools with cultural artifacts of all kinds. This study begins where basic familiarity with standard software ends. It probes how these common tools may be used to make new knowledge from our cultural inheritance and from the contemporary world. It equips students to analyze problems in terms of digital methods, choose those best for the job at hand, apply them creatively and assess the results. It teaches students to use computing as an instrument to investigate how we know what we know, hence to strengthen and extend our knowledge of the world past and present. [ex P. Svensson, “The Landscape of Digital Humanities”, DHQ 4.1, 2010]

Digital Humanities research and teaching takes place at the intersection of digital technologies and humanities. DH aims to produce and use applications and models that make possible new kinds of teaching and research, both in the humanities and in computer science (and its allied technologies). DH also studies the impact of these techniques on cultural heritage, memory institutions, libraries, archives and digital culture. [Melissa Terras, Quantifying Digital Humanities, December 2011]

And, certainly, these are only two of many! Check this site where every time you refresh, you get a different definition: http://www.whatisdigitalhumanities.com/).

In this course we will move from basic concepts (what is data, files and formats, interfaces and the web architecture) to other more sophisticated (metadata), as well as different computation approaches to scholarly work across the humanities (text encoding, text analysis, mapping). The idea is to give you the space to explore different methods and tools across disciplines in digital scholarship and lay the ground for your future digital project.

This course has an eminently hands-on component. Each session is divided into a set of readings to discuss as a group in class, a tutorial to be completed at home, and a time to troubleshooting.

Each student, individually or in group, will have to conceive a digital portfolio or a proof of concept for a digital scholarly project.

This seminar is part of the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities.

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