Digital Humanities at UT

Digital humanities at the University of Tennessee is located at the intersections of computing science and humanities concerns. It spans disciplines and types of projects, with projects ranging from digitization of archival materials so that they can be more easily accessed outside of museums or libraries, to cultural analytics, to 3D mapping of archeological sites, to educational technology applications, to digital film studies, to game studies and gamification of learning. It includes data analysis as well as artificial reality technologies.

DH brings the humanities into conversation with the digital world of computing science and opens new ways of doing humanities research.

As a world leader in computing science, with ties to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee offers unique opportunities to develop DH research. The UT Humanities Center oversees a number of DH initiatives at the Knoxville campus:

• Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities
• A one-semester faculty fellowship in Digital Humanities. Funded by the UT Libraries, this fellowship offers one-semester free of teaching and service to a UT faculty member working centrally on a digital humanities project. Learn more here.
• Oversight of the “Illuminate” Community of Scholars
  Supported by the UT Office of Research, this group serves to inspire interdisciplinary collaboration, spark cross-campus creativity, build a community of practice, help faculty to share research topics and methods, and raise the profile of digital scholarship in the arts and humanities. Fostering collaboration, networking, visiting lectures, hands-on training, and cross-pollination among faculty, librarians, artists, and technologists, the core work of this group is to advance arts and humanities research into new digital realms. Learn more about UT’s Community of Scholars programs and email us to join the Digital Humanities Community of Scholars.
• Graduate-student Internships in humanities media and communication
• The “Dialogues” lecture series, which is a mini-series within the UTHC Distinguished Lecture Series. This series has brought notable DH researchers to campus, such as Marisa Parham, Paul Jaskot, Michael Witmore, Vinton Cerf, and Julian C. Chambliss.

In addition, the UTHC is working on funding and supporting a number of initiatives that will advance DH research and teaching at our UT Knoxville campus:

• Creation of new humanities computing undergraduate classes, based on NEH grant funding and other funding sources.
• Funding for external postdoctoral researchers who can work with faculty on instructional design as well as oversee an annual “digital bootcamp” offering training in software and design for UT faculty and advanced graduate students.