Digital Humanities

Digital Humanities

Yael Netzer

Short description

The development in the computational world and the massive digitalization of data within the humanities change and widen the various fields of study, the research methodologies and the manners of knowledge representation and presentation that are available to the humanist. Some compare the era of digital humanities to the printing revolution, since change goes beyond the usage of new tools, being fundamental in perception and thought.

The term ‘Digital Humanities’(DH)  includes not only the computational tools and methods, such as advanced search, information retrieval, quantifying events, exposing patterns in texts or within collections, but also new ways of communication, of writing, of sharing and exposing the knowledge through the web and in addition, alternative ways of readings (close vs. distant reading, hermeneutics that are introduced through tagging, by adding meta-data, by transforming data into social network or presenting it on maps).

We will discuss manners of classification and categorization, we will learn to collect and curate data, clean it, prepare it to processing, and will get familiar with tools of archiving, enriching data, natural language processing and visualization.

The hands-on nature of the course is such that students will have the opportunity to learn how to use these tools by themselves, and will need to devote time each week to participating in the practical class.

As the main assessment for the course, students will produce a digital project which conforms to the same high standards of scholarly rigour as an assessed essay.

By the end of this course, DH concepts and ideas should be accessible to the students, they will be acquainted with  various digital projects, representations, computational tools and standards.

Course Policy

Curiosity and Honesty

Course Requirements

Midterm 15%, Participation and ‘digital life’ 10% , Final project 75% (50% digital -25% report).

Minor assignments: Weekly assignments – working with tools or a short essay, reading assignments.

Mid Term: An in-class exam

Final requirement: Final project (in couples): a digital project submitted with a written descriptive report (6 pages  - theoretical background, explanations).

Attendance and Participation: Mandatory