Digital Humanities

Hello Readers, This blog is a part of Thinking Activity given by Dr.Dilip Barad sir to put emphasis on How digital Humanities helps in different fields to Learn Language and Literature through technology. It also explores extremely new  creative and Innovative ideas with new dimensions.

# Define Digital Humanities?

First try to understand the separate word… Digital means an electronic technology which generates, stores and processes data in terms of only two digits 1 and 0. 

Humanities is a field of study, which analyses Human society and Culture. The Humanities include all Social Sciences, Language, Literature as well as politics or Religion, Any kind of Art or Music etc.. According to Matthew Kirschenbaum…

"The digital humanities today is a scholarship and pedagogy that are collaborative and depend on networks of people and that live an active 24-7 life online"

So, Digital Humanities is a wider field of study, research and scholarly activity, which makes interconnection between the digital world or technology or computing with discipline of Humanities. So Digital Humanities is Computer Assisted Literary Learning. 

Digital Humanities is a kind of collaborative or interdisciplinary form of studying. It expanded the traditional form of communication and comprises the broad collection of information with the help of technology on one platform. Some of its facets are…

• The preservation and sharing of collection which is very difficult to access or find.
• The Fostering of new creative expression by use of digital media.
• The use, analysis and creation of digital tools which can help in research or classroom.

# What is it doing in English Departments?

"What is Digital Humanities and What is it doing in English Department" is a work by Matthew G. Kirchenbaum analyses why Digital Humanities flourished more in English Department rather than any other Department. Why the most influential field find Institutional home often as English Department…

• English is a Universal Language, Computer Language is all about Coding, so Coding started in English Language, So this is the first and foremost reason that Digital Humanities have more fair relations with English Departments.
• Because of the Computer it has become very easy to input any text in Computer and can be accessed by the audience on a larger platform. Because of that Computer became integral part of English Department especially in Linguistic, Stylistic and Composition
• In Last two decades, means in the 21st Century we can see the rising interest in e-books, e-readers and in larger area-textual digitization projects demanding close connection between English Department, Reading and Textuality.

# Do You have any need for it in the study or research of literature?

Digital Humanities is a kind of Methodology which creates interdisciplinary scope. Digital Humanities comprises Investigation, analysis, composition and Presentation of information in an electronic form. Which helps in multiple ways to study or do research in literature.

• The use of Technology in the field of Humanities helps us to explore more creative and innovative ideas in the research field.
• If we take an example of How we are using technology for academic purpose, then Of Course it will help to expand our thinking process at School as well.
• Very easy to access any Data and information for research.
• Digital Humanities help us to read from a distance-Data as Text.
• Digital Humanities also opens new opportunities for Data-Visualization, information retrieval, Data-mining.
• It helps to complete our work in very less time compared to the traditional way of research. Where no material is available and people are wandering for different books and references. Instead of that Digital Humanities available most of the material online, it is very easy to gather material within very less time.

# Can it help in  study or research regional literature written in Local languages as it helps in the study of English Literature?

Yes, It may help in study or research literature written in local languages as it helps in the study of English Literature. But there is a possibility that it may not be as effective as English literature. There are some possible reasons behind that are like….

English is a Universal Language, So there is a widespread influence of English and also lot's of Data converting work Done for English Literature also. So, It helps more in English.

Another reason is that there is also the need of Software which is used to convert regional language in electronic form. So, we can Sustain our regional literature as well.

So, It can be said that Like Digital Humanities helps to study English Literature in a similar way It also helps to study Regional Language and Literature but for that there is need of hard work to transform all the information in electronic form in that particular regional language.

So this is how Digital Humanities as a field of Study and also methodology which helps us to learn literature and language through visualization and graphics. It also expands your critical point of view.

Thank You....