An Interpretation of Digital Humanities

Abstract

There is a common thread running through this collection which highlights a new level of interaction with data and text, integrating thinker and machine in a complex relationship which questions the very concept of ‘humanity’.This may have profound implications for our understanding of what we mean by the humanities; what exactly is a ‘text’ if it changes in the moment of consumption? Deep reading has always been a process of interaction with text (Carr 2010; Kittler 1999), but the digital humanities take this one step further.Instead of simply losing ourselves through our imagination, the nature of digital technology is such that we are becoming integrated with the text itself;our brain is not simply picturing a new world, it is instead developing a new world, opening up new neural pathways in reaction to the speed and expanse of interaction with digital data (Carr 2010: 141). The new digital readers, with hyperlinks and notes, offer a new mediated experience of‘reading’. What then can we define as the text itself if each person’s interaction with it is completely different, following alternative links and pathways? As the digital humanities provide us with new technologies.