“The gradual transformation of early humanism into the disciplines that make up humanities today was profoundly shaped by the editorial practices involved in the recovery of the corpus of works…”
Burdick et al. “One: From Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 3.
This particular part grabbed my attention because for many fields, it can be hard to pinpoint the advancements in one particular component that would advance the field into the modern age, and this passage explains how advancements in our editorial and analysis abilities and practices have transformed the humanities in general throughout the years.
This stuck out to me because my neighbor in class today (Thursday 1/12/23) brought up the question: do we think that computers play an actual and vital part in general humanities projects? To this I say yes, and my reasoning is that while old editorial styles and practices are still used today, we usually always want to be using the most advanced tools at our disposal to find sources, process information, and present findings. When the printing press was invented, people didn’t ignore it and keep handwriting large amounts of data or passages. When parchment was invented 2,000 something years ago, people didn’t ignore it and keep documenting things on cave walls and tree bark. Why would the same concept not apply to today?
In the modern era, we have one editorial element that hasn’t been possible in any other form of documentation: quick, efficient and mass edits and upkeep. Yes, this could be possible to quickly alter some simple physical models or erase and rewrite something on paper, but as far as making mass copies of original ideas, quick and reversible edits, and storing mass information, the digital world has provided us with these possibilities on a scale never seen before.
One tool that we have now that was only potentially possible through the use of blueprints and floor plans is 3D modeling platforms. I am most eager to pursue 3D modeling and discovering what things have the potential to present interesting findings or thoughts as an interactive, digital model.
