“The advent of Digital Humanities implies a reinterpretation of the humanities as a generative enterprise: one in which students and faculty alike are making things as they study and perform research, generating not just texts (in the form of analysis, commentary, narration, critique) but also images, interactions, cross-media corpora, software, and platforms.”
Burdick et al. “One: From Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 10.
When I was in first grade, I told my class that I wanted to be a video game designer when I grew up. As someone who loved reading and writing, it was easy for me to fall in love with video games as a story-telling device. It felt like a tech upgrade for the book, one where I could visualize the components of the narrative. Most importantly, it allowed me to use my creativity to make something and see my creation come to life.
This interest in using digital tools to visualize and create texts has stayed with me as I’ve ‘grown up’ and has driven my passion for the digital humanities. The “reinterpretation of the humanities as generative enterprise” reconciles my love for history with my desire to create. I have found the most joy in designing and executing projects; I love using my imagination and historical knowledge to make something that other people can enjoy. As a project-oriented discipline, the digital humanities seemed like the ideal space for me.
Beyond suiting my own personal preferences, I believe DH’s emphasis on “making” is more accessible and allows humanists to venture outside the confines of academia. One of my frustrations with the traditional humanities is how insular it can be, as journal subscriptions can be expensive and academic texts use complex jargon. By designing digital projects, digital humanists are able to reach a broader audience and communicate in a way that everyone can understand.
This term, I look forward to exploring new software that will allow me to better craft stories and continue to make things. With this in mind, I am particularly excited to learn more about virtual reality and simulation.
Hi Grace! I really resonated with this post and the points you made about being able to reach a broader audience using projects rather than traditional humanistic journals, essays, etc. I also really agree with your point about being able to see the things you create, and that’s sort of the reason I like Computer Science and why I wanted to take this class as well.
On the note about video games, I also agree that they can be a super engaging way to tell a story. One of my classes this term is actually using a platform called Gather that acts like a video game where you move an avatar around a room to find the various assignments, or to connect audio and video with classmates, and I think its added a lot of community to the online class that otherwise wouldn’t have been there!
Grace, I was really interested in your connection between video games, reading, and writing — I would imagine that the world-building and narrative parts of video games are very similar to writing a story. I like the idea that Digital Humanities can be just another form of story-telling; I hadn’t thought of it in that way before reading your post, but it makes a lot of sense. Stories are so much more accessible than scholarly articles!
Love the photo, too 🙂