I’ve been watching the current Theory Debate via Digital Humanities Now this past week or so with interest but have only just found the time to write down my reaction to it. It’s a topic that has been dear to my heart for some time now. It touches on the question of where the digital humanities stand in relation to the core tradition, and what direction it’s going to take as a practice (I’m not sure I’m keen for it to become a ‘discipline’ in the traditional sense of the term). I’ve often said that if DH is to be taken seriously by the analog humanities it will need to begin to engage with some core humanities practices, develop some kind of theoretical framework(s), identify some core methodologies, and generally produce some writing that has recognizable intellectual ‘grunt’.
The moral imperative of the digital humanities
I’ve been taken by the final report of the Comité des Sages (‘the reflection group on bringing Europe’s cultural heritage online’) , The New Renaissance (January 2011). It articulates a moral imperative that has long been a driving force of the digital humanities but is infrequently surfaced, perhaps for good reason given the dangers of mixing intellectual and cultural movements with claims that they coincide with the morally correct.