Wednesday 5 April 2017

“Digital humanities”


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Name : Gausvami Surbhi A.
Assignment Topic : “Digital humanities”
Paper no.  Literary theory and criticism
Email id: gausvamisurbhi17@gmail.com
Roll No. : 24
Submitted to :  Dr. Dilip Barad, Department of English
                            MKBU University.

*What is Digital humanities:
                “Digital humanities is an academic field concerned with the application of computational tools and Methods to traditional humanities disciplines such as literature, history and philosophy“
               
                                            
                One may ask the question that what is the connection between digital and humanities because it seems that both are completely contrast field. Digital concerned with machine and humanities concerned with arts and literature. Every method, knowledge and approach is interdisciplinary. Man is a social animal. Thus the knowledge or education can not be separated from the human life. Knowledge being the central point around which ethical, religious, spiritual, physical, mechanical and psychological aspects of human life. This aspects are interwoven. The aim of education is the unification of knowledge existing in different branches of learning. Therefore digital and humanities are directly connected and according to famous structuralist  Gerard Genette method developed for the study of one discipline could be satisfactorily applied to the study of other discipline as well, which he calls, “intellectual Bricolage” No subject can be taught in isolation. Every subject is inter disciplinary.

                 Digital humanities means computer assisted literary study since the invention of computers, it knows only one language that is English. Thus English department and digital world are directly connected and digital technique can applied to other humanities field as well. Computers have been part of our disciplinary lives for well over two decades now. During this time digital humanities has accumulated a robust professional apparatus  that is probably more rooted in English than any other departmental home.

                Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It can be defined as new ways of doing scholarship that involve collaborative transdiciplinary and computationally engaged research ,teaching and publishing it brings digital tools and methods to the study of the humanities with the recognition that the printed word is no longer the main medium for knowledge production and distribution. By providing and using new applications and techniques, DH makes new kinds of teaching and research possible, while at the same time studding and critiquing these impact cultural heritage and digital culture. Thus, a distinctive feature of DH is its cultivation of a two way relationship between the humanities and the digital.

               The goal of digital humanities is to create scholarship that transcends textual sources. A growing number of researchers in digital humanities are using computational methods for the analysis of large cultural data such as the Google books corpus. For eg. If some Ph.D. candidate do his research on “Female characters in Virginia Woolf novel” and if he buy all the novels of virgina Woolf and then read and do analysis then it will take years. But if give this instruction to computer then within a second or minute you will get the data.

* Tools:-
                 Digital humanities scholars use a variety of digital tools for their research. Which may take place in an environment as small as a mobile device or as large as a virtual reality lab digital humanities include everything from personal equipment to institutes and software to cyberspace. Some scholars use advanced programming languages and databases, while others use less complex tools, depending on their needs. Digital humanities tools is a list of online or downloadable digital humanities tools that are largely free  helping students and others who lack access to funding or institutional savers. Face open source web publishing platforms like word press and omeka are also popular tools.

              The phrase digital humanities, is not singular but it is plural. Able to address and engage disparate subject matters across media, language, location, and history. DH values collaboration plurality, investigation of human culture. It just not the use of digital technology for humanity projects but how the use of digital technology for humanities projects changes the user’s experience.
               What is the “digital humanities” also known as “humanities computing “ It’s tempting to say that whoever asks the question has not gone looking very hard for an answer. Willard mccarty has been contributing papers on the subject for years. Under the earlier appellation, John Unsworth has advised “What is humanities computing and what is it not” Most recently Patrik svensson has been publishing a series of well documented articles on multiple aspects of the topic, including the lexical shift from humanities computing to digital humanities. An organization called the Alliance of digital humanities organizations hosts a well attended annual international conference called digital humanities. There is a book series, topic in the digital humanities.

              Crucially, digital humanities, is visible in another way : the social networking service twitter as a students we can “tweets” regarding study, syllabus, and unlike facebook  twitter allows for asymmetrical relationship. You can “Follow” someone or they can follow you. Without the relationship being reciprocated. In this way students can have information exchange.

* Four pillars of digital humanities:
1) Projects
2) Tools and Resources
3) Research Methods
4) Omeka

(1) Digital Humanities Projects:
* Women in print:
             Women in print is a peer reviewed e-book series that the university of Illinois published online featuring digitized books, transcriptions and facsimiles.

* Emblematica
            Largest renaissance emblem book collections are being digitized, indexed, and organized into a portal that provides access to emblem book collections worldwide.

* Image of Research:
           Students are invited to submit an image and text articulating how the image connects to their research.

* The uses of scale in literary study :

          A collaborative project that aims to encourage livelier exploration literary history by demonstrating the substantial  literary historical value of new methodologies reducing barrier to entry for scholar and sharing resources for normalizing large collections of text.

* Virtual verse :
          This is a joint initiative between the University of Illinois at Urbana campaign and the university of Jenness to curate digitally published poetry from around the internet.

* Note :
          Illinois University concerned with humanities and they have these much projects in the field of DH.
(2) Tools and resources :
(i) Digital Humanities Software
(1) Nvivo 10
(2) R studio
(3) Abbyy fine reader
(4) Atlas

(ii) Digital Humanities Hardware
(1) My computer
(2) Morae abserver workstation
(3) Various accessories
(4) Digital scanners
(5) Dual Monitor PCS

* Tools around the Web
(1) Paper machines
(2) Topic Modeling tool
(3) Omeka
(4) World Maps
(5) ORA
(6) Mathematica

(3) Research Methods :

1) Data Curation :
            Humanities data can be text, geospatial  data results of analysis and more.

2) Digital Publishing
            Method for showcasing and sharing scholarly work

3) Image Analysis
            Extracting information from digital images utilizing digital image processing techniques.

4) Text Encoding
           Text encoding is a process where documents are transferred to an electronically searchable format for digital humanities research.

5) Audio Visual Projects
          It includes projects like documentaries, podcast or media presentations.

6)  Machine Learning Rules to teach computers how to accomplish tasks.

(4) Omeka :
             Omeka is a software tool that enable you to create dynamic online exhibits that showcase collections of digital images, text and other multimedia formats in one seamless site.

* What’s it doing in English Departments?

                            

              My English department is the live example of Digital humanities. I am the student of English department, MKBU university, Bhavnagar, Gujarat and I am studying under the guidance of Dr. Dilip Barad, Head of the English Department, MKBU University.

            We are the students of English literature. We have to deal with arts and literature including poetry, drama, novels, criticism etc. then one may ask the question what computers are doing there or laptops, mobiles are useless for you students. No it’s not.

            Our sir is very much Technology friendly man. He has developed one laptop bank in our department and all the students have smart phone. He inspired us to write blog on whatever activity we have done. He himself wrote numbers of blogs and published it online. we have to do thinking activity write blog and publish it online. So others also can be beneficial. We write assignments and make presentation in our blog and publish it online. So everyone can view it. We access more and more internet for more information and study.

          We are habituated to collect information regarding syllabus from various internet sources. It enhance student's mental horizon and they can study deeply, and become master of their subject. We have unit online test and we get materials by mails. and we have to write blog regarding units or classroom activity.

         Recently, our sir talked about “what if machines write poems ?”  “ What if machines write better poems than humans ?”

        In the seventeenth year of the digital era it sounds stupid to ask weather machines / computers can write poems or not. We face ever grave and frightening question. What if machines write better poems than humans? What if human poem sounds mechanical and machines humane ? and time will come when computers / machine will be privilege over humans.

       We got the experience of writing poems with the help of computers and this is the link, where you can write poems, by computer.


        We are learning through flipped learning. In which we watch video related to our syllabus such as Derrida, Wordsworth, T.S.Eliot which are posted online by our sir first we watch that video give online quiz, write answers, and then ask questions to teacher about quarry.

       At the end of M.A. study students make their digital portfolio in which they publish their activity online including blogs, assignments, presentation progress graphs etc. This is how digital humanities works in our department.

* Conclusion :
       This is a 21st century, a modern era, the of information. And every method every study is interdisciplinary no subject can be taught in isolation. One can not discriminate digital and humanities field. And if they will go together then it will create landmark.

* Net sources :

* Digital humanities Wikipedia.
  * dilipbarad.blogspot.in
* Article by Mathew G.Krischenbaum.



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