My Future in the Digital Humanities
You might be asking “Sure, all of this stuff is cool (and honestly a little confusing), but how do you plan on using it in your academic/career pursuits?” And to answer that question, I would say, I’m still not positive. My time in Digital Humanities has taught me that asking questions and being inspired are fundamental parts of the learning process. I can picture myself sitting in a class in the fall and perking up when the teacher mentions a text that is rumored to have been co-authored. I now have a basic understanding of Stylometry and the tools to explore whether that text was or was not co-authored. But that is simply one example. Digital Humanities is about more than what I plan to do, but how will I use it going forward with everything I do! I believe that I don’t need a concrete research project to think like a digital humanist, asking questions about digital ethics, open-sourcing, and AI will certainly not go away in academia any time soon so instead I want to use what I have learned to inform all of my work in any class.
That is not to say there are not things I’m interested in researching further in the Digital Humanities field. In the fall of my freshman year, I worked on a large research project about the repatriation (also known as a facilitated return) of museum artifacts. In doing so, I came across the idea of a digital repatriation which involved creating permanent replicas of artifacts for museums to keep for displays and educational purposes, while the original gets returned to its country/culture of origin. I still see many DH projects that can be done in the sphere of history/museum studies. Perhaps a geospatial representation can be created by picking a specific cultural group and plotting on a map all the museums that possess their artifacts (stolen or donated) and clickable metadata can be used to add pictures of the artifact and a blurb of significance.
I will continue to build upon my Digital Humanties knowledge by taking humanities classes and practicing and applying what I learned in Canada. I also now have an additional interest in technology courses that I originally viewed as not applicable to my interests in History, Classics, and Writing. Returning back to Loyola in the fall, I wish to be a resource for faculty and other students looking to explore Digital Humanities, hence why I have chosen to make this dynamic webpage as a resource. My hope is that as I continue to explore the fields of Digital Humanities, I can add to this page and inspire others, just as those at DHSI did for me!