The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Students and Scholars

The Digital Humanities is a comprehensive introduction and practical guide to how humanists use the digital to conduct research, organize materials, analyze, and publish findings. It summarizes the turn toward the digital that is reinventing every aspect of the humanities among scholars, libraries, publishers, administrators, and the public. Beginning with some definitions and a brief historical survey of the humanities, the book examines how humanists work, what they study, and how humanists and their research have been impacted by the digital and how, in turn, they shape it. It surveys digital humanities tools and their functions, the digital humanists' environments, and the outcomes and reception of their work. The book pays particular attention to both theoretical underpinnings and practical considerations for embarking on digital humanities projects. It places the digital humanities firmly within the historical traditions of the humanities and in the contexts of current academic and scholarly life.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction to the digital humanities; 2. The organization of humanities research; 3. The elements of digital humanities: text and document; 4. The elements of digital humanities: object, artifact, image, sound, space; 5. Digital tools; 6. Digital environments; 7. Publication: pre-release, release, and beyond; 8. The meta-issues of digital humanities 1; 9. Meta-issues 2: copyright and other rights, DRM, open access; 10. The evolving landscape for the digital humanities; Epilogue: the half-life of wisdom; Appendix: digital tools.

About the Author :
Eileen Gardiner is co-founder and co-publisher of Italica Press. She has served as director of ACLS Humanities E-Book, executive director of The Medieval Academy of America, and co-editor of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. She is author of Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante, Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell, The Pilgrim's Way to St Patrick's Purgatory, and Hell-on-Line, a website on the infernal otherworld in various traditions. Ronald G. Musto is co-founder and co-publisher of Italica Press. He has served as director of ACLS Humanities E-Book, co-executive director of The Medieval Academy of America, and editor of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. He has taught at New York University, Duke University, North Carolina and Columbia University, New York, and has held American Academy in Rome, National Endowment for the Humanities and Mellon Foundation fellowships. He has published nine books and various articles, including Apocalypse in Rome and Renaissance Society and Culture (co-edited with John Monfasani).

Review :
'Deep scholarship and lively engagement with a vast range of contemporary innovations animate this concise, reliable, indeed almost indispensable book.' James J. O'Donnell, author of Avatars of the Word 'Here is the rare publication that offers an insider's deep understanding of the humanities as well as the practitioner's experience of the digital. A wealth of theoretical and technical information is on offer, including an invaluable compendium of resources for the aspiring researcher. But the book's crucial insight is that the fundamental issues shaping this arena are cultural, not technological.' Gail Feigenbaum, Getty Research Institute 'This remarkably intelligent and lucid book explains how the emergence of the digital world has created remarkable opportunities for gains in knowledge through the practice of the humanities. This book, providing a useful appendix and glossary, will lead students and scholars alike to think afresh about why they consider knowledge, its sources, and its representation the way they do.' Nicola Courtright, Amherst College