New to the life of digital humanities - best ways to start getting my feet wet?

Digital Humanities Questions & Answers » Applications, Tools, Formats

New to the life of digital humanities - best ways to start getting my feet wet?

(6 posts) (5 voices)

Asked 6 years ago by Elizabeth Glascock
Latest answer from Patrick Murray-John
This question has a best answer.

Tags:

Elizabeth Glascock
Member
At present, I am finishing the last year of my undergrad work in English. The field of Digital Humanities as study and an alternative from seven more years of literature was presented as a lecture last spring on campus by Matthew Kirschenbaum "What are Digital Humanities and Why are They Saying Such Terrible Things About It?" I researched and researched and researched some more only to discover that I already sit on a funny border between literature and technology. I became extremely excited, especially being one who is obsessed with textual concepts and primary sources.

Presently, I already use a few collaborative sites, Evernote, Dropbox, and Zotero for many of my needs. I am even attending a few conferences here over the next couple months dedicated to DH. However, I am looking for advice on some of the best ways to incorporate this into my present everyday life more than I already do.

Any advice or words of wisdom as to the incorporation of DH into my daily life now as an undergrad would be greatly appreciated.
Tweet this question
Posted 6 years ago Permalink
Stéfan Sinclair
Admin
I suspect various people will chime in with some useful advice. You may also want to send a message to mentoring@digitalhumanities.org about the ACH Mentoring Programme. Here's a slightly edited version of the last message we sent out on Humanist:

The Association for Computers in the Humanities (ACH) has an ongoing mentoring programme. We try to match new scholars and practitioners in the digital humanities with mentors who can help provide advice and guidance. The potential benefits will vary depending on the individuals involved, but some of the objectives are as follows:
- have new-comers to digital humanities meet more established professionals
- allow broader networking between digital humanists
- provide professional guidance about jobs and careers
- provide additional discipline-specific advice
Mentoring can take place virtually (email, etc.) or in person (at the Digital Humanities conference or elsewhere) and our annual activities usually culminate in two events at the Digital Humanities Conference:
- a mentoring mixer with all participants present (a casual meeting at a café or bar)
- a jobs slam during the ACH annual general meeting (employers and prospective employees present themselves briefly)
Participation in the mentoring programme is free and often fun! If you'd like to participate in the mentoring programme as a potential mentor or mentee, please email mentoring@digitalhumanities.org and provide the following information (you can also tweet @sgsinclair or @dhanswers):
- are you a potential mentor or mentee?
- what are your areas of expertise and experience
- are you planning on attending the next Digital Humanities conference?
If you're a mentee, please feel free to describe in more detail what you would most value from a potential mentor.
Posted 6 years ago Permalink
cforster
Member

I think a simple thing you can do is follow folks on twitter. You may very well already be doing this, but if not I think it is the easiest and the most effective way to see what people are doing. You mentioned Matthew Kirschenbaum, so @mkirschenbaum would be a good place to start.

There are plenty of others, but instead of potentially leaving some folks out, check out the list Dan Cohen has of digital humanities tweeps.

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
Bethany Nowviskie
Admin
Best Answer

I'll second Stéfan's recommendation of the ACH mentoring program, especially if you'll be attending a THATCamp or the big, annual DH conference (this year at Stanford) -- and will also say that the best way to incorporate digital humanities into your daily life as an undergrad is probably not to think of it in terms of gadgets and tools, but rather research questions. For your next paper assignment, consider what kinds of questions you can ask using online archives, databases, and interfaces (including historical and geospatial ones! not just literary datasets) that you couldn't really answer without them. I think of DH as a community of practice, but also as a community with a particular turn of mind. We're always trying to press forward with enabling technologies, especially when what they enable are more questions! (So I'm glad you asked, and hope to see you around.)

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
Elizabeth Glascock
Member

Replying to @Bethany Nowviskie's post:

I designed an independent study for this semester spanning multiple aspects of the humanities with a primary focus in Victorian Literature. As an added bonus, it provides me with a fantastic essay for the grad school application process.

Sadly, I did not find out about the THATCamp in Chicago next month until I was too late to apply; however, I do have the opportunity to attend the Colloquium that it is associated with. Yes, I believe the mentoring program is an excellent resource. Thank you for that!

@cforster At the suggestion of my university English department's DH guru, I did begin following people on twitter. Since they are starting a MA in DH next fall, I knew that he would be a prime starting point.

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
Patrick Murray-John

In addition to being active on twitter, I'd also suggest building up your digital identity. The best way to do that is to start up a blog, and comment on others' blogs. Wordpress.com is probably the quickest way to get your feet wet. But as you wade into deeper waters, getting your own domain, then migrating to your own installation of wordpress (or other CMS) in your own server space are likely next steps.

Moving in that direction would do two things. First, it would give you practical technical experience with web hosting and servers. Second, it kind of marks out a commitment to having a place in the online world. In the same way that dropping the money on a membership to a professional organization is a way to assert a place within that organization, having your own domain name and server space is a less formal way of asserting, "I am a digital humanist".

Posted 6 years ago Permalink

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.