Digital
Humanities have become fashionable. Projects on both sides of the
Atlantic are
emerging, offering new tools and environments to scholars and the
public at
large. These projects often show their history in their current
configuration.
Thus, we can roughly divide them into the following categories:
Content,
Access, Circulation and Infrastructure. Some projects have emerged from
what is
essentially a Search Engine like model (ARTFL is a good example here),
while
others grew out of the perceived need to provide access to critical
content.
While such efforts are essential, I would like to argue for a form of
Digital
Humanism that is essentially a reflection of how the environments as
well as
the tools we are developing shape and influence our methods. A first
step
consists in examining the current Social Web and the manner in which it
is
being imported into Digital Humanities from such a perspective.