In a digital world, choices
Burdick et al. “One: From Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 19.
about what remains and what is eliminated, what is made accessible, how and in
what form, are just as enduring and just as potentially enhancing or damaging.
The passage discusses the importance of creating the interface for any Digital Humanities projects in the digital world. Many choices go into making an accessible and informative interface. We must consider the end-users’ display’s readability, engagement, and interactivity. However, this can be difficult because the digital part of Digital Humanities projects can involve a lot of exploring the research objects, compiling data, analyzing, and modeling. By then, we will have tons of information we want to present. As a result, the humanities part of Digital Humanities requires the humanist in us to select and parse through what information is relevant and in dialogue with interested disciplines that we want to focus on.
Interdisciplinary thinking is still a new thing to me. I’m interested in computer science, so I expected to take many computer science-related classes. However, I learned that most students consider double majoring and minoring. The passage allows me to evaluate what other subjects interest me and other disciplines I could learn from. Digital Humanities introduces me to a new realm of combining traditional humanities and computational methods. After reading more about this field, I learned that I can add humanistic values to my code and not focus on only the functionality of the code. Furthermore, I can incorporate more elements into my code to create a user-friendly output.
I’m most excited about pursuing artificial intelligence, machine learning, and software development. Generative AI is one of the fields that need more diverse input. If a particular group dominates a field, it has power over what is visible and accessible. This power dynamic usually has damaging effects in suppressing and marginalizing minorities’ history and cultural values. Digital Humanities projects aim to combat this problem by allowing constant revision to the projects. I would like to learn more about these Digital Humanities methods that can empower me to integrate my perspective and values.
