Digital Humanities is a broad interdisciplinary field as well as an ever-evolving one. Therefore, the readings are both broad and hyperspecific. I would recommend sticking to books published in the last 10 years, so they mention projects and tools that are still available online. Older books are useful for tracking how we got to our current moment in DH, but can be frustrating.
On this page, you can find some good general recommendations, and on the sub-pages, you can find books on specific topics or from popular series within the field.
Debates in the Digital Humanities
Between Humanities and the Digital
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Scholars from a range of disciplines offer an expansive vision of the intersections between new information technologies and the humanities. Between Humanities and the Digital offers an expansive vision of how the humanities engage with digital and information technology, providing a range of perspectives on a quickly evolving, contested, and exciting field. It documents the multiplicity of ways that humanities scholars have turned increasingly to digital and information technology as both a scholarly tool and a cultural object in need of analysis. The contributors explore the state of the art in digital humanities from varied disciplinary perspectives, offer a sample of digitally inflected work that ranges from an analysis of computational literature to the collaborative development of a "Global Middle Ages" humanities platform, and examine new models for knowledge production and infrastructure. Their contributions show not only that the digital has prompted the humanities to move beyond traditional scholarly horizons, but also that the humanities have pushed the digital to become more than a narrowly technical application. Contributors Ian Bogost, Anne Cong-Huyen, Mats Dahlström, Cathy N. Davidson, Johanna Drucker, Amy E. Earhart, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Maurizio Forte, Zephyr Frank, David Theo Goldberg, Jennifer González, Jo Guldi, N. Katherine Hayles, Geraldine Heng, Larissa Hjorth, Tim Hutchings, Henry Jenkins, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Cecilia Lindhé, Alan Liu, Elizabeth Losh, Tara McPherson, Chandra Mukerji, Nick Montfort, Jenna Ng, Bethany Nowviskie, Jennie Olofsson, Lisa Parks, Natalie Phillips, Todd Presner, Stephen Rachman, Patricia Seed, Nishant Shah, Ray Siemens, Jentery Sayers, Jonathan Sterne, Patrik Svensson, William G. Thomas III, Whitney Anne Trettien, Michael Widner
Disrupting the Digital Humanities
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All too often, defining a discipline becomes more an exercise of exclusion than inclusion. Disrupting the Digital Humanities seeks to rethink how we map disciplinary terrain by directly confronting the gatekeeping impulse of many other so-called field-defining collections. What is most beautiful about the work of the Digital Humanities is exactly the fact that it can't be tidily anthologized. In fact, the desire to neatly define the Digital Humanities (to filter the DH-y from the DH) is a way of excluding the radically diverse work that actually constitutes the field. This collection, then, works to push and prod at the edges of the Digital Humanities — to open the Digital Humanities rather than close it down. Ultimately, it's exactly the fringes, the outliers, that make the Digital Humanities both heterogeneous and rigorous. This collection does not constitute yet another reservoir for the new Digital Humanities canon. Rather, its aim is less about assembling content as it is about creating new conversations. Building a truly communal space for the digital humanities requires that we all approach that space with a commitment to: 1) creating open and non-hierarchical dialogues; 2) championing non-traditional work that might not otherwise be recognized through conventional scholarly channels; 3) amplifying marginalized voices; 4) advocating for students and learners; and 5) sharing generously and openly to support the work of our peers.
On the Digital Humanities
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A witty and incisive exploration of the philosophical conundrums that animate the digital humanities Since its inception, the digital humanities has been repeatedly attacked as a threat to the humanities: warnings from literary and cultural theorists of technology overtaking English departments and the mechanization of teaching have peppered popular media. Stephen Ramsay's On the Digital Humanities, a collection of essays spanning the personal to the polemic, is a spirited defense of the field of digital humanities. A founding figure in what was once known as "humanities computing," Ramsay has a well-known and contentious relationship with what is now called the digital humanities (DH). Here Ramsay collects and updates his most influential and notorious essays and speeches from the past fifteen years, considering DH from an array of practical and theoretical perspectives. The essays pursue a broad variety of themes, including the nature of data and its place in more conventional notions of text and interpretation, the relationship between the constraints of computation and the more open-ended nature of the humanities, the positioning of practical skills and infrastructures in both research and pedagogical contexts, the status of DH as a program for political and social action, and personal reflections on the author's journey into the field as both a theorist and a technologist. These wide-ranging essays all center around one idea: that DH not forsake its connection to the humanities. While "digital humanities" may sound like an entirely new form of engagement with the artifacts of human culture, Ramsay argues that the field well reveals what is most essential to humanistic inquiry.
Digital Humanities
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Where do the digital humanities really come from? Are they really news? What are the theoretical and technical influences that participate in this scientific field that arouses interest and questions? This book tries to show and explain the main theories and methods that have allowed their current constitution. The aim of the book is to propose a new way to understand the history of digital humanities in a broader perspective than the classic history with the project of Robert Busa. The short digital humanities perspective neglects lots of actors and disciplines. The book tries to show the importance of other fields than humanities computing like scientometry, infometry, econometry, mathematical linguistics, geography and documentation.
Digital Humanities
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As the twenty-first century unfolds, computers challenge the way in which we think about culture, society and what it is to be human: areas traditionally explored by the humanities. In a world of automation, Big Data, algorithms, Google searches, digital archives, real-time streams and social networks, our use of culture has been changing dramatically. The digital humanities give us powerful theories, methods and tools for exploring new ways of being in a digital age. Berry and Fagerjord provide a compelling guide, exploring the history, intellectual work, key arguments and ideas of this emerging discipline. They also offer an important critique, suggesting ways in which the humanities can be enriched through computing, but also how cultural critique can transform the digital humanities. Digital Humanities will be an essential book for students and researchers in this new field but also related areas, such as media and communications, digital media, sociology, informatics, and the humanities more broadly.
Doing More Digital Humanities
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As digital media, tools, and techniques continue to impact and advance the humanities, Doing More Digital Humanities provides practical information on how to do digital humanities work. This book offers: A comprehensive, practical guide to the digital humanities. Accessible introductions, which in turn provide the grounding for the more advanced chapters within the book. An overview of core competencies, to help research teams, administrators, and allied groups, make informed decisions about suitable collaborators, skills development, and workflow. Guidance for individuals, collaborative teams, and academic managers who support digital humanities researchers. Contextualized case studies, including examples of projects, tools, centres, labs, and research clusters. Resources for starting digital humanities projects, including links to further readings, training materials and exercises, and resources beyond. Additional augmented content that complements the guidance and case studies in Doing Digital Humanities (Routledge, 2016).
Interdisciplining Digital Humanities
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Interdisciplining Digital Humanities sorts through definitions and patterns of practice over roughly sixty-five years of work, providing an overview for specialists and a general audience alike. It is the only book that tests the widespread claim that Digital Humanities is interdisciplinary. By examining the boundary work of constructing, expanding, and sustaining a new field, it depicts both the ways this new field is being situated within individual domains and dynamic cross-fertilizations that are fostering new relationships across academic boundaries. It also accounts for digital reinvigorations of "public humanities" in cultural heritage institutions of museums, archives, libraries, and community forums.
A New Companion to Digital Humanities
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This highly-anticipated volume has been extensively revised to reflect changes in technology, digital humanities methods and practices, and institutional culture surrounding the valuation and publication of digital scholarship. A fully revised edition of a celebrated reference work, offering the most comprehensive and up-to-date collection of research currently available in this rapidly evolving discipline Includes new articles addressing topical and provocative issues and ideas such as retro computing, desktop fabrication, gender dynamics, and globalization Brings together a global team of authors who are pioneers of innovative research in the digital humanities Accessibly structured into five sections exploring infrastructures, creation, analysis, dissemination, and the future of digital humanities Surveys the past, present, and future of the field, offering essential research for anyone interested in better understanding the theory, methods, and application of the digital humanities
Introduction to Digital Humanities
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Introduction to Digital Humanities is designed for researchers, teachers, and learners in humanities subject areas who wish to align their work with the field of digital humanities. Many institutions are encouraging digital approaches to the humanities, and this book offers guidance for students and scholars wishing to make that move by reflecting on why and when digital humanities tools might usefully be applied to engage in the kind of inquiry that is the basis for study in humanities disciplines. In other words, this book puts the "humanities" before the "digital" and offers the reader a conceptual framework for how digital projects can advance research and study in the humanities. Both established and early career humanities scholars who wish to embrace digital possibilities in their research and teaching will find insights on current approaches to the digital humanities, as well as helpful studies of successful projects.