Department of English

Most humanities scholars use digital tools and technologies every day to augment methods and techniques familiar to researchers for generations. The emerging field of the digital humanities however goes beyond using digital tools as just a supplement and places them at them at the center of humanities research. What new questions might we discover and answer in our own research projects using digital methods? How can we critically assess the results and claims of the growing body of digitally-inflected humanities scholarship? This seminar will introduce graduate students in the humanities to these questions and the field of digital humanities as both methodology and budding discipline in its own right. Students will learn about the digital humanities through critical readings about the use of digital tools and techniques as well as concrete hands-on instruction in these tools themselves. Prominent skills and topics covered include text mining, mapping and network analysis, primary sources and digitization, as well as managing humanities research data. The seminar is aimed at graduate students in research humanities programs and will involve collaboration between students from different fields and disciplinary backgrounds. All participants in the class will be expected to produce an argument-based project based on the use of digital tools and techniques by the end of the semester.