The National Humanities Center’s Summer Institute in Digital Humanities convened for its first session the week of June 8, 2015. Led by renowned digital humanities pioneers Willard McCarty (King’s College London and University of Western Sydney) and Matthew Jockers (University of Nebraska and Apple, Inc.), this innovative program on Digital Textual Studies combined hands-on technical explorations with wide-ranging philosophical and theoretical discussions.
Fifteen scholars from around the globe are participating in the institute, which will reconvene at the Center for a second week in the summer of 2016. Participants represent a range of humanities disciplines, including classics, history, law, literary studies, philosophy, and sociology.
No prior expertise in coding or computational humanities was required for admission into the program. Instead, the institute was designed to help curious, ambitious scholars acquire new techniques for collecting, organizing, and interpreting cultural artifacts. With no restrictions on career stage or previous training in digital humanities, the institute welcomed scholars from all career stages: recent PhDs, mid-career academics, and senior researchers worked shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing insights and testing ideas.
These humanities scholars will spend the next twelve months honing their new skills and advancing individual or collaborative projects. Upon reconvening next summer, the institute will reformulate itself as a workshop where participants will further advance and refine individual and collaborative projects.
Follow the group’s activities at https://twitter.com/NHCDTS. For more information about the Institute, see the Center’s Digital Humanities page.