In his article “What Is Digital Humanities and What’s It Doing in English Departments?” from the Debates in the Digital Humanities volume, Matthew Kirschenbaum turns self-reflexive. He notes that the definitional essay is already a DH sub-genre. You can easily track down the genealogy for the term “Digital Humanities,” and a google search will lead to a satisfactory Wikipedia definition. First and foremost, Digital Humanities is a branch of the humanities with a common methodology, namely the intersection of computing and humanities.
Public Scholarship
After pouring that definitional concrete, Kirschenbaum begins to build on that foundation. DH work is typically social, and it has had official associations since its inception. It is now recognized by the NEH, the preeminent federal funder of humanities work, and the press for DH continues to be fantastic. Part of DH’s ability to form in the public and institutional consciousness so quickly has been its openness to social media such as Twitter. Absent conference participants could post public essays that spread like wildfire. In such moments, DH shows how its methods could really help re-think the entire scholarly venture and bring real reform.
English vs. History
In the space of a single paragraph, Kirschenbaum lists six reasons why DH has sprung up in English rather than, say, History departments. They are: the key role text has played in computer programming, the overlap between computing and composition, the synthesis between editorial methods and new digital possibilities, the zeitgeist of the hypertext, English Departments’ openness to cultural studies and its ilk, and finally the growing popularity of e-reading. Even now, DH has become a catch-all term for what’s edgy and hip and a final death-throw from the humanities.
Conclusion
Kirschenbaum ends by insisting that along with the methodological commitment to computing and humanities, DH shares an impulse to make scholarly products public. Scholarship, pedagogy—it’s all fair and open game.
This post is the second in a series of summary articles about a new edited collection of essays on the Digital Humanities.