Blog Post 1: Elias Hillman-Emelianoff

“This processing
activity takes advantage of the ability of computers to automate certain tasks useful
in answering the sorts of research questions that were initially being asked by hu-
manities scholars. In the first phase of digital activity, sorting, searching, calculating,
and matching were basic operations performed on texts or data.”

Burdick et al. “One: Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 17

This quote grabbed my attention because it feels like one of the origins of digital humanities. It makes sense to me that humanities scholars who are asking questions that simply take too much time to answer would turn to a tool that can answer those questions. In my opinion, this is also confirmed by the timeline of technology; a lot of the digital humanities tools we will use or have used already came way after computers could do processing tasks. It resonates with me specifically because it makes me think back and realize that processing information was probably one of the first ways I was taught to use technology with schoolwork, aside from looking things up on the internet. I distinctly remember using computers to sort information, create timelines from long lists and other tiresome tasks that we had to do by hand. For a project I did in high school we had to create a full timeline of all events that either were a factor that caused or were a part of World War 1. It was around 100 or so events, some of which just days apart. While completing this project we had two choices: do it by hand or use Google Sheets, I chose the latter, and it made the project so much easier. It took me just a few hours to collect the dates of all these events, and only 15 minutes to sort them. Those who chose to do it by hand had to finish it at home. I believe that the digital humanities did not start as people trying to do something they could never do before, but as a method to do what they had already done faster. In regards to the future in this term, I am most excited about using GIS mapping, 3d modeling and learning how to use the cPanel tool. I am excited about these aspects, as they are a mix of things that I am mildly familiar with but do not have a ton of knowledge on. I know that I already find these tools interesting from my slight past knowledge but I do not know enough to do anything with that interest. I feel that the last two especially, 3d modeling and the cPanel tool(or just website knowledge in general), will be helpful throughout my time at Carleton and possibly in my future career.