Understanding Digital Humanities (david M. Berry) / quote 1 of 16
From humanities computing to digital humanities
The digital humanities themselves have had a rather interesting history. Originally called ‘computing in the humanities’, or ‘humanities computing’, in the early days they were often seen as a technical support to the work of the ‘real’ humanities scholars, who would drive the projects. This involved the application of the computer to the disciplines of the humanities, something that has been described as treating the ‘machine’s efficiency as a servant’ rather than ‘its participant enabling of criticism’ (McCarty 2009). As Hayles explains, changing to the term ‘ “digital humanities” was meant to signal that the field had emerged from the low-prestige status of a support service into a genuinely intellectual endeavour with its own professional practices, rigorous standards, and exciting theoretical explorations’ (Hayles 2012).