I get the digital humanities. I like and support the digital humanities. What I’d like to explore is when does “DH” work start to cross over into science and social science work, and if that is the case, when do we start to talk to scientists and social scientists about transforming some of their work into digital projects? (What is the standard product of a scientific research project? The final published article in PDF? There must be more…)
I think it’d be really helpful to the continued growth of digital scholarship broadly defined if we began to think about ways to apply traditional humanities skills (critical inquiry, close reading) to research problems and questions in scientific fields. Or, when could we, instead of becoming hackers and big data guru’s ourselves, pull a scientist into our DH research groups as a partner? What would make this collaboration valuable to all parties? Is this even probable? I think we’re often halfway there with GIS and visualization, but there may be more.
My point of view is obviously thinking about where the library could situate itself as a connector between the two sides of the academy, and how might a “digital scholarship center” involve itself in more than just digital humanities projects. Partially inspired by this post in DH Q&A, and the fact that I’m the Psychology Liaison at Florida State and really want to work with those researchers on new, cool, interesting things.
Inherent challenges? Tenure.
Inherent opportunities? Actual interdisciplinary work (not just historians working with English folks and librarians).
This session could be an addendum to these from other THATCamps:
- Creating an Introduction to Data Course (or, perhaps, Data Translation for Working on Data Science Teams, “Digital Literacy with a Maker Spirit”)
- DH + Social Sciences
Maybe some readings?
This would be a great brainstorming, sharing seminar session. Thanks, Micah, for walking us through these sticky and important issues.
And here’s a recent post from Lisa Spiro at DH+Lib on the topic too!