Digital Humanities

Purpose

Digital tools have become increasingly important for humanities scholars, enabling them to pursue new forms of inquiry and present research in innovative ways. Scholars use data mining techniques to analyze literary texts, deploy digital mapping tools to track change over space and time, compile and publicize digitized oral histories and visual archives, and create documentary films and other forms of digital, multimedia storytelling. At Colby, an increasing number of faculty have been collaborating with colleagues in Academic ITS and the libraries to apply digital tools to research and teaching. Historically, work in the digital humanities (DH) has often been collaborative, drawing together scholars, librarians, and technologists with different but complementary skillsets.

One of the major challenges of the Digital Humanities (DH) is that the field continually changes as new tools and techniques are developed. Given congested work schedules, it is impossible for any individual to stay abreast of the range of new practices. Meanwhile, many exciting modes of DH are being practiced on the Colby campus, but in different departments and programs. Rather than incrementally teaching ourselves new DH practices, we intend to puncture these silos and use each other as resources.

The Digital Humanities Roundtable will foster the development of DH research and teaching at the college. This working group will help faculty across campus connect, share their different forms of digital expertise, and together explore new developments in the field.

The Digital Humanities Roundtable is a collaborative research project sponsored by the Provost’s Office.