History of Digital Humanities

We'll use this timeline together in class on Monday 19 June and in our homework for Tuesday 20 June to organize important moments in the history of digital humanities. Each group should add three (3) dates to the timeline. 

Timeline

Chronological table

Displaying 1 - 35 of 35
Date Event Created by Associated Places
circa. 1748 to circa. 1832

Manuscript papers written by Jeremy Bentham

The audience of digital humanities has been created rather than just been a receiver of content. The aim of transcribe Bentham project is to engage the public in online transcrption of original and unstudied manuscripts.

Fatemeh Masoumi
circa. 1940 to circa. 1949

first index of items on computer

Roberto Busa indexed the works of Thomas Aquinis

April Patrick
1963

Foundation of the center for literary and linguistic Computing

Professor Roy Wisbey was a pioneer in the field of digital humanities 

 

Arianna Chendi
1963

Founding the Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing

Roy Wisbey founds the Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing at CU

Anna Biffi
1963 to 1963

foundation of the Center for Literary and Linguistic Computing

Roy Wisbey founds this department at Cambridge University

Anita Bernabovi
1965 to 1970

Black DH

Black studies and Black DH are born (late 60s) Nearly 20 years after the first appearance of this discipline, which was in 1940s.

Anita Bernabovi
circa. 1966 to circa. 1978

Computers and the humanities

Various professional organizations are founded and publications developed to assist scholars interested in the possibilities of using computers in the humanities. 

Caterina Boccalatte
1984

Audre Lorde’s speech

Audre Lorde spoke at the New York university's institute for the humanities conference in 1984, the name of her famous speech is "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house".

Arianna Chendi
1989

Series of joint conferences by the ACH and the ALLC

Series of conferences, hosted jointly by the Association for Computers and the Humanities and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing since 1989.

Yulia Delyaeva
1992

IATH: Transforming Digital Humanities Research

IATH is a research institute that combines technology and humanities to explore different aspects of human culture. They develop digital tools and projects to study history, literature, and art. IATH collaborates with scholars, technologists, and cultural institutions to create digital archives and analyze humanities data. Their work has led to influential projects like The William Blake Archive and The Walt Whitman Archive. IATH continues to drive innovation in digital humanities research.

http://www.iath.virginia.edu/

Fatemeh Masoumi
1992

Foundation of the IATH

The IATH, acronimus of Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, is founded at the University of Virginia.

It permits the development of  digital humanities projects, such as The William Blake Archive, The Rossetti Archive, TheValley of the Shadow Project, and The Walt Whitman Archive. They provides access to students and scholars to the mayority of pictorial and textual works along with a large contextual corpus of materials, increasing the education through internet. 

federica dal zotto
1998 to 1999

Formation of Queer Digital Cultures

Commissioned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Brandon (1998–99) by Shu Lea Cheang is a landmark art project that spans disciplinary boundaries. One of the most ambitious projects that the new media artist and activist had realized at that point in her career, the web artwork was inspired by the story of trans man Brandon Teena. The work explores “issues of gender fusion and the techno-body in both public space and cyberspace” through a meta-narrative structure defined by hyperlinks to a network of connected interfaces that begins with the splash page.

 

Sources

Aleksandra Glazkova
circa. 2000 to circa. 2010

Humanities computing is replaced by Digital Humanities

Digital humanities gains recognitiion through the American Counclin of Learnd Societies 

 

Giulia Randi
2000 to 2000

Distant reading

The term 'distant reading' is coined by Moretti. He is a provocative expert who has a different approach to literature studies.

Anita Bernabovi
2001

Definition of Digital Humanities

 The field was known as humanities computing

Alessia Costa
2001

Creation of the term "Digital Humanities"

Unsworth came up with the term "Digital Humanities" as the title of a book referring to the matter.

Anna Biffi
Apr 2001 to Nov 2001

The original term of Digital Humanities

The real origin of that term [digital humanities] was in conversation with Andrew McNeillie, the original acquiring editor for the Blackwell Companion to Digital Humanities. We started talking with him about that book project in 2001, in April,and by the end of November we’d lined up contributors and were discussing thetitle, for the contract. Ray [Siemens] wanted “A Companion to Humanities Computing” as that was the term commonly used at that point; the editorial and marketing folks at Blackwell wanted “Companion to Digitized Humanities.” I suggested “Companion to Digital Humanities” to shift the emphasis away from simple digitization.

Mahdi Zeinali
2004

Publication of the Blackwell 'Companion to Digital Humanities'

This collection represents a turning point in the field of Digital Humanities: it contains contributes and reflections of a wide range of therorists, disciplinary experts and library and information studies specialist about the Digital Humanities and its bond with traditional humanities studies.

Other source: https://eadh.org/publications/blackwells-companion-digital-humanities

Annachiara Marchese
2005

Companion to Digital Humanities by Blackwell’s has been published

This is a crucial pubblication for the develop of the studies in DH

federica dal zotto
circa. 2005 to circa. 2005

The creation

Digital Humanities organization ( alliance) had been created.

vanessa manzoni
2006 to 2006

Digital Humanities Initiative

Launch led by the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH)

Annachiara Marchese
circa. 2006

The launch of the Digital Humanities Initiative by the National Endowment

The launch in 2006 of the Digital Humanities Initiative by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), then under the chairmanship of Bruce Cole and with leadership provided by Brett Bobley, a charismatic and imaginative individual who doubles as the agency’s CIO. 

vanessa manzoni
2006

Launch of the Digital Humanities Initiative

By 2005 Blackwell’s Companion to Digital Humanities had been published, and theAlliance for Digital Humanities Organizations had been established. There’s one more key event to relate, and that's the launch in 2006 of the Digital Humanities Initiative by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), then under the chairmanshipof Bruce Cole and with leadership provided by Brett Bobley, a charismatic andimaginative individual who doubles as the agency’s CIO.

Lidiia Mikhailova
2007 to 2012

The Queer Technologies Project

The artist Zach Blas addressed queerness directly throughcritical making with his Queer Technologies project.

“For us,” writes Blas with his collaborator cárdenas in an article outlining the work ofQueer Technologies, “Turing is a crucial historical figure for thinking the politics ofdigital technologies from queer and feminist perspectives”

Mahdi Zeinali
2007 to 2012

Queer Technologies Project

Queer Technology is an organization that produces products for queer technologies agency, intervention and social intervention. The project is consituted of a series of installations, art objects and a suite of creations that explore the relationship between queerness and technology. 

Caterina Boccalatte
2008

Digital Humanities Initiative became the Office of Digital humanities

The field now coìan be seen as something permanent.

Anna Biffi
circa. 2008

The Office of Digital Humanities born

In 2008 the Digital Humanities Initiative became the Office of Digital Humanities, the designation of “office” assigning the program (and its budget line) a permanent place within the agency.

vanessa manzoni
2008

Publication of the "Companion to Digital Literary Studies"

Blackwell Publishing presents a volume dealing with the influence of new technologies on literary studies.

Federica Filippi
circa. 2009

"Big news"

During the 2009 MLA convention as " The next big thing " to appear in the humanities and literary studies in  a long time.

vanessa manzoni
2009

Digital Humanities 2009 conference

 Amanda French ran the numbers and concluded thatnearly half (48 percent) of attendees at the Digital Humanities 2009 conference weretweeting the sessions. By contrast, only 3 percent of MLA convention attendeestweeted; according to French’s data, out of about 7,800 attendees at the MLAconvention only 256 tweeted. Of these, the vast majority were people already associated with digital humanities through their existing networks of followers.

Lidiia Mikhailova
2010

The humanistic disciplines

There is a specific history of the term digital humanities, detailed by my friend (and English scholar) Matthew Kirschenbaum in a 2010 article in the Association of Departments of English Bulletin

Alessia Costa
circa. 2016 to circa. 2016

Debates in the Digital humanities by Roopika Risam

 Roopika Risam in her edition of Debates in the Digital Humanities introduced the field of digital humanities to Black feminism. 

Giulia Randi
circa. 2017

A letter "I can’t breathe" by Jarrett Drake

I have watched white co-workers and colleagues in this profession stay complicity silent as state agents slaughter Black people in the streets. I cried when Mike got killed.When Tamir got killed. When Freddie got killed. When Sandra got killed. When Korryn got killed. I cried again when, in each case, the state held no one accountable.  I want to cry right now as I process that yet another Black person, Philando Castile, was taken by the state yet his killer walks free. Another mother buries a son, a partner buries a partner, a daughter buries a father. State assaults on Black boys and men often have a ripple effect of impacting 3x as many Black women and girls, as is the case with Philando. The silence suffocates me in the open air; at work, at conferences, orany where large number of professional archivists congregate.

Paras Chavre
2017

Jarret Drake's statement letter

 Former digital archivist at Princeton Jarret Drake writes a letter addressing his white co-workers for not standing up in front of the violence black people had and still have to face up with, even in his profession.

Anna Biffi
The middle of the month Summer 2023

DH

Black Digital Humanities (DH) is an emerging field that focuses on the intersection of Black studies and digital technologies. It seeks to address the historical marginalization and underrepresentation of Black people and Black culture in the digital realm.

The concept of "queer OS" refers to a mindset and approach that challenges normative boundaries within digital environments. It involves thinking and acting with, about, through, among, and sometimes even in spite of new media technologies and other forms of mediation.

By incorporating the lenses of sexuality and race into DH, researchers aim to uncover and address issues such as algorithmic bias, discriminatory practices, and unequal access to digital resources.

Sonia Rezapourahangar