Scholarly Communication and Publishing
Contributors
This guide was created in September 2024 by Cadence Cordell with contributions from Mary Ton.
What are Digital Humanities?
Digital humanities (DH) is the use of digital data and technologies to answer humanities research questions. DH is an extremely broad field and encompasses a variety of techniques, research methods, and datasets. DH can include:
- Seeing how many time a word or phrase appears in a text or texts, and analyzing its significance
- Creating virtual and interactive maps of both real and fictional location
- Creating visual representations how people, locations, and objects are interconnected
- Designing interactive online exhibits and texts
- And much more!
This guide is meant to help teach you about several of these methods, how to start using them, and where to find instructional resources. Recorded introductions to digital humanities topics are available on the Digital Humanities @ Illinois Media Space Channel.
Not sure what digital humanities methodology you should explore? Use the graph below to consider the key questions associated with different digital methodologies.
| What research questions am I interested in? | Digital Methodology |
|---|---|
| Identifying patterns and trends across language in large amounts of text | Text and Data Mining |
| Understanding peoples' relationship with geographic spaces over time and space | Mapping |
| Visualizing networks of relationships between people, things, and places | Network Analysis |
| Creating digital exhibitions and digital content to represent scholarship | Digital Publishing |
- The Digital Humanities Literacy GuidebookThis site is a good starting resource for learning about different digital humanities techniques and how to get started with them. In particular, it's "Topics in DH" page is a good starting point for learning about different DH methods and determining which ones interest you.
General Resources
- The Data-Sitters ClubThe Data-Sitters Club is a group of researchers who publish articles on computational text analysis and related digital humanities topics. They are a great beginner-friendly resource to learning about digital humanities software, techniques, and methods.
- The Programming HistorianThe Programming Historian publish beginner-friendly tutorials on a wide variety of digital humanities software and techniques, including network analysis, text mining, mapping, and more. All articles are open access and peer-reviewed.
- Digital Humanities @ Illinois WorkshopsDigital humanists at U of I maintain a Media Space channel with recordings of previous digital humanities workshops. These workshops cover a wide variety of topics, and the channel is regularly updated throughout the year.