Addie - What is DH?

Before doing these readings, I saw digital humanities as basically a modern version of regular humanities work. I assumed it meant taking something from history, literature, or art and putting it into a digital format. Now I see that the “digital” part can actually affect the way we study something, the questions we are able to ask, and even the conclusions we come to.

What helped this idea click for me was the textbook’s explanation of DH through materials, processing, presentation, and participation. A digital project is not only about what people see at the end. Someone has to decide what materials belong in it, how they should be organized, what tools should be used, and how other people will interact with the finished project. I think that decision-making is a big part of what makes something DH.

At the same time, I wouldn’t call everything done on a computer digital humanities. Reading a scanned copy of a book instead of the physical book, for example, doesn't automatically make the experience DH. The format changed, but nothing about the actual approach to studying the book necessarily changed. For me, DH starts when digital methods become part of how we explore or interpret a humanities topic, instead of technology just being used for convenience.

Another part of the readings that changed my perspective was the attention given to ethics. The textbook brings up accessibility, privacy, bias, ownership, and other concerns that can come up when creating digital projects. I hadn't considered how much responsibility comes with deciding what gets preserved digitally, how it gets described, and who gets access to it.

One example I would consider DH is creating a 3D digital reconstruction of a historical site that has been damaged or destroyed. The textbook describes a similar project involving photographs, drawings, field notes, and other records being used to reconstruct a site digitally. What interests me about this example is that it could let people experience a place they may never be able to visit in its original form. It also shows why DH is more than simply “putting history online.” It can actually give us new ways to experience, question, and understand the past.