What is Digital Humanities?

There is a bridge between our everyday studies of the humanities and technology, this bridge is called the Digital Humanities. The Digital Humanities is a subgroup that allows collaboration between the two fields in a way that promotes a space for discovery. Fields like language, history, literature, philosophy, geography, religion, and art are all apart of the humanities and benefit from collaborating with technology. Digital Humanities specializes in utilizing technology to enhance and accelerate the process of humanities studies. The digital humanities is more of a collaborative field more than anything. This area of study is meant to build upon other fields and integrate technology in a way that allows for easier research and ways to express this research.

One of the most important tools used here at the Center for Digital Humanities (CDH) at Montclair is GIS, a mapping tool that is used to easily visualize geographical and qualitative information. For example, if the Art department at Montclair State wanted to visually show where lost art has been recovered across Europe, CDH would transfer this data into GIS. The Art department would have a visually appealing, digital map, rather than a written format. This collaboration would allow for the art department to be able to express their work in a new way that was otherwise restricted.

Here at CDH, the teams, comprised of new hires and the senior members, are split into multiple teams. These teams include Technical Support, Media, Communications, Programming and Administrative assistance. Each team is tasked with various projects, some even created by the students, to assist in the Digital Humanities curriculum.  

Digital humanities is about collaboration with others on innovating projects. This field has a very strong future because we as a society are only moving in the direction where technology is only becoming more prevalent. At the center here we strive to make digital humanities something tangible and a benefit to the campus.