“Digital work takes place in the real world, and humanists once accustomed to isolated or individualized modes of production must now grapple with complex partnerships and with insuring the long-term availability and viability of their scholarship.”
Burdick et al. “One: From Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 21.
This passage grasped my attention because it highlights why a humanities scholar may feel unenthusiastic about the emerging prominence of the digital humanities. As someone who feels comfortable studying history through reading primary sources and writing about my secondary research and interpretation, this sentence resonated with my hesitancy to adopt new means of producing meaningful scholarship. However, I understand the value of approaching a topic from different lenses, and I signed up for this class in order to improve my ability to do that. I believe there is value in both traditional and digital humanities work, and learning “fluency” in both is essential to creating meaningful humanities projects.
The quotation, combined with our class activity on the spreadsheet containing digital humanities definitions, brought to mind my winter break research project with Professor Willis. The project involved many spreadsheets and data analysis, and I will learn to apply digital techniques to enhance my ability to contribute to the project. I am currently interested in learning how I can apply digital humanities to my work, and I plan to incorporate a digital map into my comps project on Benjamin of Tudela’s travels next year. I want to be able to use digital tools to ensure that my scholarship has long-term viability for future scholars interested in Medieval Jewish history and travel.
Under the umbrella of Digital Humanities, I am excited to learn about coding. It has always been something mysterious to me even though I have many friends for whom it is a major part of their academic life. I am also looking forward to learning more ways to analyze data sets and use GIS software, which will be very useful to conducting historical and archaeological research. Finally, I am open to learning any types of programs or skills that Professor Mason believes will be helpful to me as I pursue a career in the field of history with additional interest in archaeology.
