My working definition of digital humanities fits a vision of multidisciplinary scholarship. My specific focus on digital history as a segment of digital humanities looks at analyzing data, text, or maps of humans from the past placed into the digital space. Digital humanities fieldwork involves a scholar who can use one or multiple digital technologies and be able to do research that must allow adaptation as the technology evolves over time. The knowledge learned in the practice of digital humanities can be used to convey information and teach others in the digital space. This definition should be expansive and not limited to a specific set of computer technology nor one particular field of humanities.
I came to my personal definition of digital humanities through the definition given by Trevor Owens and UCLA, as those definitions best matched my personal belief in the work of interdisciplinary digital humanities. Trevor Owens’s definition is slightly vague yet concrete. Defining the users as scholars, educators, and archivists applies digital history rather than other projects that can be artistic within digital humanities. Owens lists no specific computer programs or technologies, unlike the specific digital humanities definition by Johanna Drucker. Her definition, while helpful to list the multiple programs that can be used to analyze art or text for projects, those programs can become obsolete over time. While I understand that you do not want the definition to be so broad that it includes anyone with a website or a computer to use for humanities research, it should also not limit researchers or scholars to one type of digital work or analysis. While the UCLA definition does include specific examples of analytic techniques, it also leaves an open expanse of the field to be limitless. I don’t believe that digital humanities definition should consist of specific coding languages or software programs as these will change over time. The definition should stay limitless to allow future growth within the digital humanities field and any new techniques or analyses. This is how I came to my personal definition of digital humanities.
