Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 603.
            Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
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        Date: 2020-02-13 16:37:10+00:00
        From: Willard McCarty 
        Subject: missed opportunities

As you're probably aware, not a few messages posted on Humanist are
taken from other, more specialised lists. No problem here, except that
the overall tendency of activity's migration out into the older
disciplines marks lost opportunities for digital humanities.

For sure, this migration is a good sign of acceptance, for which we 
have fought long and hard against indifference and determined resistance. 
(Us older ones could tell many stories...) But these other disciplines 
are not primarily methodological; for me, the heart and soul of digital 
humanities is. On the positive side, this means that everything that 
happens with computing in whatever discipline is (potentially) relevant, 
even of prime interest. But the tendency to think only within the 
blinkered scope of a single discipline seems to be preventing our 
colleagues from seeing this.

Mind you, I am not advocating the breaking down of disciplinary
boundaries, rather expanding outward from one's discipline of origin.
Digital humanities provides a language, as it were, for all -- one that 
shows another way of seeing things.

Consider, then, if you would, encouraging our colleagues to keep one eye
on the methodology of their work wherever it happens and reporting
what's happening here. Digital classicists, digital historians et al.,
you have much of great interest to say to those who are not classicists, 
historians et al.

Many thanks.

Yours,
WM
--
Willard McCarty (www.mccarty.org.uk/),
Professor emeritus, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College
London; Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews
(www.tandfonline.com/loi/yisr20) and Humanist (www.dhhumanist.org)




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