http://www.dhsi.org/events.php
http://adho.org/administration/conference-coordinating-program-committee/adho-conference-code-conduct
http://adho.org/administration/conference-coordinating-program-committee/adho-conference-code-conduct
http://eadh.org/about/diversity-and-inclusivity
https://ach.org/activities/advocacy/ach-statement-in-the-aftermath-of-the-2016-election/
https://ach.org/activities/advocacy/ach-statement-in-the-aftermath-of-the-2016-election/
https://csdh-schn.org/inclusivity-and-diversity-statement/
https://csdh-schn.org/inclusivity-and-diversity-statement/


 



 



 



 



 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DT3tQqgRM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DT3tQqgRM
























https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html






















https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JQH1RvKiNxZbOq6mzV8QKBCB8n_kqIPNrd3lj8JIsKc/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JQH1RvKiNxZbOq6mzV8QKBCB8n_kqIPNrd3lj8JIsKc/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JQH1RvKiNxZbOq6mzV8QKBCB8n_kqIPNrd3lj8JIsKc/edit?usp=sharing


https://privilege.huc.knaw.nl/


Try it at home (or here, right now)

https://privilege.huc.knaw.nl

















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● ✔
● ✔

●
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●

● ✔
● ✔

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Series celebrate repetition of 
method across lots of examples





● The important thing is not “What can we edit 
next?”

● Rather
− “Can we edit that?” 
− “Can we do something other than ‘edit’?”
− “What can we apply computation to next?”
− “How does this affect our computation?”



Series celebrate diversity of problem
rather than comprehensiveness



It is the variety of new problems, 
not the number of successful examples

 that moves the field forward



Variety of new problems

● McCarty and Short’s 
image has boxes and 
bubbles, not columns 
and silos

● It is the way that the 
domains intersect 
through computing 
methods that is “the 
field”



✔
This is Digital Humanities



✔
This is (still) Digital Humanities



x
This is a Special Interest Group for Latin

Concordance Builders 



A DH where everyone agrees with me is dead. 
A DH where everyone’s like me is dying.



Three implications

1. It is possible to do digital work in the 
Humanities without doing “Digital Humanities”: 
● Use computation to advance historical work 

rather than use historical examples to advance 
our understanding of how to solve Humanities 
problems computationally

● e.g. a structurally marked-up transcription and 
edition of a straightforward medieval 
manuscript is (today) Medieval Studies, not 
Digital Humanities



Three implications

2. Diversity (of problem) is more important than 
“Quality” (of work) if you are doing Digital 
Humanities 
● DH Began as text-focussed discipline:

● Databases, stylistics, and text-representation
● It is exciting because it isn’t that any more

● New subjects (text, images, 3D)
● New techniques (XML, GIS, Crowd sourcing, wikis, 

visualisation, etc)
● New arenas (Academy, GLAM, popular, etc.)
● New people (Scholars, Crowd, Journalists, Citizen 

scientists, etc.)



Three implications

3. It’s not (just) a 
Diversity of Problem
− The flaw in McCarty 

and Short’s diagram 
is that it assumes 
there is a single 
methodological 
commons: 
“Communications & 
Hypermedia”



Not just... diversity (of problem)

● Great disciplinary 
realisation of the last 5-7 
years is that  diversity of 
people, region, language, 
context is as important as 
diversity of application

● There should be as many 
ovals in the diagram as 
there are clouds and 
(disciplinary) boxes



Not just... diversity (of problem)

● Why are some groups 
able to control attention 
and others not?

● How do (groups of) 
people differ in their 
relationship to 
technology?

● How do you do digital 
humanities differently in 
high- vs. low-bandwidth 
environments?



Not just... diversity (of problem)

● How does digital 
scholarship differ when it 
is done by the colonised 
and the coloniser?

● How is what we discuss 
and research influenced 
by factors such as class, 
gender, race, age, social 
capital?

● Etc. !!!



Conclusion

● DH depends on a supply of problems to continue its 
development

● Because it exists at the intersection of fields and 
involves the study of this intersection, its growth needs 
to be measured by its width rather than its bulk

● A DH that never got beyond a traditional interest in text, 
concordances and editing would be a DH that had died

● The same is true for a DH that cannot get beyond a 
narrow group of practitioners bringing a relatively 
limited set of problems



... no matter how well “they” do it.





Funding

• SSHRC
• ADHO
• HuC Humanities Cluster KNAW