The past decade has seen a profound shift in our collective understanding of the digital network. What was once understood to be a transcendent virtual reality is now experienced as a ubiquitous grid of data that we move through and interact with every day, raising new questions about the social, locative, embodied, and object-oriented nature of our experience in the networked world.
In The Emergence of the Digital Humanities, Steven E. Jones examines this shift in our relationship to digital technology and the ways that it has affected humanities scholarship and the academy more broadly. Based on the premise that the network is now everywhere rather than merely "out there," Jones links together seemingly disparate cultural events—the essential features of popular social media, the rise of motion-control gaming and mobile platforms, the controversy over the "gamification" of everyday life, the spatial turn, fabrication and 3D printing, and electronic publishing—and argues that cultural responses to changes in technology provide an essential context for understanding the emergence of the digital humanities as a new field of study in this millennium.
The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203093085, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Introduction. Chapter 1: Eversion. Chapter 2: Dimensions. Chapter 3: People. Chapter 4: Places. Chapter 5: Things. Chapter 6: Publications. Chapter 7: Practices. Selected Bibliography.
Biography
Steven E. Jones is DeBartolo Chair of Liberal Arts and Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of South Florida.
"Situated at the intersection of videogame studies, textual studies, and digital humanities research, The Emergence of the Digital Humanities is bold and exciting. Jones ties together disparate strands of digital culture in a coherent way, helping us to understand not only the present situation but also future technological change." —Mark Sample, George Mason University
"This engaging book brings us the humanities everted, rendered inside-out, attending critically to everyday life in a mixed reality. Digital and physical materials converge as Jones carefully unfolds the curious dimensions of games, maps, books, and other media. A must-have for anyone new to or already familiar with digital humanities." —Jentery Sayers, Department of English, University of Victoria
"An inspired, wide-ranging look at the current state of the digital humanities—essential reading for anyone interested in the past, present, and future of the field." —Matthew K. Gold, City Tech and CUNY Graduate Center, Editor of Debates in the Digital Humanities
"I believe [Steve] Jones’s The Emergence of the Digital Humanities to be a—perhaps the—fundamental text on DH. As someone who has been part of the digital humanities since my arrival as a Brittain Fellow at Georgia Tech in 2009, I can say that no other book has so—I’ll say it—uncannily explained my own experience and thinking to me. This book is a true gift, and anyone interested in or concerned about the digital humanities should read it." —Roger Whitson
"The book's resistance to meditate at length on the boundaries and definitions of DH, and instead focus on the near historical contexts from and around which DH emerged, is its greatest triumph." —Dr. James Baker, Reviews in History
"The Emergence of the Digital Humanities provocatively maps the larger trajectory of digital humanities research and more recent kinds of new digital humanities work. Jones maps the "eversion" that characterizes our everyday lives, exploring the metaphorical and material implications of the networks that surround us. His book brings new insights about the networks that make up our culture, our commerce, and our creativity." —Danny Anderson, Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Kansas
"Jones’s book is an insightful and useful introduction to the digital humanities. Jones explores the topic through a wide range of examples that those familiar with media and video game studies will recognize, but he also articulates his analysis through a number of relatable objects like virtual maps, CAPTCHAs, and social networks that thosewhoare new to media and technology studies can relate to. He writes withanacute attention to the intersections of technologyandculture, centering his analysis on the structural metaphors that have shaped human understanding and the incorporation of technology in our everyday lives." -Jessica Rudy, Indiana University, Bloomington
