DSSRF 2025

What Does Digital Humanities Mean to Us?

Broadly, digital humanities encompasses both the use of digital tools to explore humanities issues and the examination of those tools through a humanities lens. We think of humanities as the exploration of the human experience through cultural analysis, history, literature, and art. We believe that undertaking work in the digital humanities requires the self-conscious and ethical application of technology to humanities topics. Inherent to digital humanities endeavors is a recognition that we should strive to use technology to develop new ways of thinking about and presenting humanities scholarship.

What are our Values?

• Accessibility: We care about ensuring our scholarship reaches beyond the ivory tower.
• Community-oriented: We’re focused on working collaboratively while building our projects, but also focusing on outreach after they’re completed.
• Consent: Now more than ever, it’s easier to utilize technology to create projects that lack attribution. The backbones of many of our projects are the perspectives, scholarship, and livelihood of other individuals. As such, we think it’s imperative we collect research mindfully. We recognize that people are more than data points or stories we can reference, but individuals with the willingness to refuse to participate in our work.
• Activism: We want to give a voice to underrepresented, marginalized communities that don’t fit the traditional narrative they’ve been assigned.
• Humility: We’re conducting our projects with the recognition that we aren’t better than our audience or the people we source our data from. 

What Do We Hope to Gain From This Program? 

Aura: “DSSRF is providing me an opportunity to engage meaningfully with digital humanities. I hope that through my project I can continue asserting a notion I began to believe when I declared my CS & Literature double-major–scholarship is its best when it’s multidisciplinary.”

Aaron: “Through this program and our research, I hope we can become more conscious of the issues people around the world face every day. This is our first step towards learning how to be active thinkers and makers with the intent of making a positive difference and change in the lives of people who need a voice.”
Deryn: “My hope for this summer is to progress in clarifying my own thinking on the social and environmental issues I consider essential for humanity to face. I also hope to progress in my ability to present information thoughtfully, honorably, and persuasively.”