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- Library AND Information Service
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Welcome to this introductory guide to Digital Humanities at Stellenbosch University Library. This guide was created to make DH related library resources accessible and discoverable to those interested in the dynamic field of Digital Humanities. Any questions about using the guide or about DH research more generally should be emailed to the contacts
Various definitions for Digital Humanities are available and in its simplest form, it can be described as “an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or digital technologies and the disciplines of the Humanities” (Wikipedia, 2021). DH is defined broader in the literature as follows:
Digital Humanities is an umbrella term for theories, methodologies, and practices related to Humanities scholarship that uses the digital computer as an integrated and essential part of its research and teaching activities. The computer can be used for establishing, finding, collecting, and preserving material to study; as an object of study in its own right; as an analytical tool; or for collaborating and disseminating results (Brügger, 2016)
Research on and development of means and methods for constructing formal models in the Humanities (Theoretical Digital Humanities), and the application of these means and methods for the construction of concrete formal models in the Humanities disciplines (Applied Digital Humanities (Piotrowski, 2018).
The Digital Humanities try to take account of the plasticity of digital forms and the way in which they point towards a new way of working with representation and mediation, what might be called the digital ‘folding’ of memory and archives, whereby one is able to approach culture in a radically new way (Berry, 2012).
Digital Humanities are computational methods that are trying to understand what it means to be human, in both our past and present society. it encourages thinking about computational methods in the Arts and Humanities, and then into culture and heritage, in as broad a sense as possible (Terras, 2016).
Word cloud of The Digital Humanities and Humanities Computing: An Introduction by S Schreibman, R Siemens, & J Unsworth (from http://tdbowman.com/wp/2012/09/08/scientometrics-scholarly-communication-and-big-data-oh-my/)
