I had a bit of an “Ah Ha” moment while I read Dave Parry’s “The Digital Humanities or a Digital Humanism” essay. In this section of the text, various authors discuss the future of DH and their interpretation of DH. Parry, however, captures and, in my opinion, eloquently defines Digital Humanities (even though he claims it is impossible to do so). He starts his essay by describing the lack of control scholars have over DH and how it is defined. Though, after reading the rest of the text, DH and the possibilities of DH have never been clearer to me. Parry argues that there isn’t a foundational project that exists that other DH projects can be based upon. However, I believe Parry captures the foundation when he says, “digital humanities is largely, or primarily, about using computing technologies as tools to do traditional humanities-based research.” Now, he makes it clear that what constitutes “research” is open-ended and SHOULD expand from texts to social media and beyond.
Keep on reading . . .