Department of English

The term digital humanities describes a range of interdisciplinary tools, methods, and techniques that use technology to enhance the study of arts and humanities. At the same time, digital humanities understands technology as cultural production and thus subject to humanistic critique. In its relatively short history, we have seen waves of research in digitization, text encoding, born-digital text creation, data mining, critical code studies, and critical making. All of this activity has resulted in enhanced access to materials; illuminated connections across disparate time, space, and branches of knowledge; helped us understand concepts at micro and macro levels; and created opportunities for learning by making. This course will combine complex theoretical readings with practical experiments with digital tools and techniques. The class will explore various sites at Penn like special collections and makerspaces to consider how humanists and artists use technology in novel ways. Students can expect to gain experience collecting and managing data, digitizing research material, and working with tools for digital publication. No prior technological expertise is expected; the only requirement is a capacious epistemic curiosity.