Humanities Computing as Digital Humanities

Abstract

Note from the Editors: This article focuses on the renaming of Humanities Computing to Digital Humanities and the difficulties this brings given the apparently differing scopes of these domains. Svensson draws on a range of materials to substantiate his argument and analysis, including, inter alia, posts from Humanist, conference materials, blogs and institutional websites. He goes on to argue that Humanities Computing is instrumental, methodological and text-based in focus and rarely engages with the digital as an object of study. Given the wide-ranging scope of Digital Humanities, which is indicated to be much broader and more generally aligned with the wide-ranging concerns and content of the traditional Humanities, a tension is seen to arise. He reflects that ‘A pertinent question is whether the discursive transition from humanities computing to digital humanities is mainly a matter of repackaging (humanities computing), or whether the new label also indicates an expanded scope, a new focus or a different relation to traditional humanities computing work’. It is therefore interesting to compare this piece with the previous chapters which focus particularly on the scope of Humanities Computing. Svensson followed this article with three companion pieces, all published in DHQ and freely available (‘The Landscape of Digital Humanities’ (2010), ‘From Optical Fiber To Conceptual Cyberinfrastructure’ (2011) and ‘Envisioning the Digital Humanities’ (2012) – see Selected Further Reading).