A Course on the Digital Humanities for the Premodern World

Abstract

With the roots of digital humanities in text-centric disciplines, coursework has traditionally focused on instruction in skills of relevance for text-based resources, while digital methods for non-textual sources have remained in the minority. We describe a digital humanities course targeted at undergraduate computer science majors and graduate students in cultural heritage adjacent fields. The course foregrounds a specific blend of text-based and visual methods of relevance to practitioners in cultural heritage fields. Acknowledging that digital projects in the humanities are more often than not cross-disciplinary and collaborative, the course is designed to emphasize visual computing techniques while helping students develop experience in cross-disciplinary communication. The requirements for the two groups are different to ensure that all students are challenged. The course includes a substantial group project. Each group is composed of both humanities and computer science students and the project goal is defined by the humanities students. The purpose of the project is both to apply methods learned in the course and to learn collaboration in a team with individuals with different levels and types of expertise.