Gabriel’s Week One Reflection

“Digital Humanities… envisages the present era as one of exceptional promise for the
renewal of humanistic scholarship and sets out to demonstrate the contributions
of contemporary humanities scholarship to new modes of knowledge formation
enabled by networked, digital environments.”

– Burdick et al., Humanities to Digital Humanities, pg.  7

This quote stood out to me because I feel that it represents the concept of digital humanities perfectly. The humanities as an umbrella subject have always stood out to me, and I have loved learning about history, culture, government, art, and music my entire life. However, so much of modern education teaches the humanities through a classic frame. Even in modern education the humanities are taught via textbooks and lectures, with references to the humanities of the past; pre-digital landscape. However, it is important to adapt to changes in the modern world, and learn about the world as it evolves.

For that reason, the above quote stood out to me. Digital humanities acknowledges and uses the past as a “promise” for the adaptation of new teaching and learning. As technology changes the world around us, it should be used as a tool to teach. Digital humanities allows for “new modes of knowledge” to be shared and taught, but it is also important to appreciate the humanities of the past.

I have been lucky enough to have lived in a number of different countries and to have taken classes taught by professors of different languages and backgrounds. I love learning in different ways and experiencing the world through different approaches. For this reason I am excited to learn about the digital humanities and experience the humanities through a new light.

Similarly, I spend a lot of time on the internet and have seen that information and knowledge are shared in new ways all the time. However, while I spend alot of time on computers and on the internet I have very little knowledge about how the internet, or technology as a whole is run. I look forward to having an understanding on how to make websites, how to understand data, and to have a basic understanding of coding.

In a similar vein, I would like to pursue a career in the real estate industry, likely as a realtor. To do this I would like to have a strong background in data visualization to help my career and relationships with both future clients and companies. Similarly, understanding how to make websites would be very helpful for my career.

Overall, I am excited to learn more about digital humanities and its “new modes of knoweledge formation.” I believe that it will be helpful for my future career and give me a new way to experience learning.