Digital Humanities Research and Study Opportunities

Thousands of study and academic opportunities in Digital Humanities are available internationally. Conferences and summer schools in Digital Humanities are organized regularly in the best academic centers of the world. The majority of universities and many foundations also offer BA, MA and PhD programs in Digital Humanities as wells as postdoctoral research grants, awards and fellowships. Below you will find the updated list of international opportunities available in Digital Humanities.

Digital Humanities Scholarships

Digital Humanities Fellowships

Digital Humanities Conferences

Digital Humanities relevant accounts on Twitter

What is Digital Humanities?

Digital Humanities takes the modern development of technologies and computation to the spheres of art, culture, history, and other important aspects of human life. Generally, it can be described as the classic study of humanities, developed and integrated into the modern data collecting and analyzing tools. Through digital humanities, scholars attempt to answer the old questions in a new way. Particularly, scholars continue to explore humans and their origin. However, the methods of exploration have completely gone digital.

The formation of the digital humanities as a phenomenon lay on two basic foundations. Firstly, around 40 years ago, the technological advancements which helped us store the physical materials came to the stage. People were able to create digital databases for the materials that traditionally served as the only source of examining human past and origin: texts, artworks, artifacts, cultural objects, etc. 

Later, computers were enriched with not only storage capacities but also with statistical and analytical programming tools. That was the origin of digital humanities when scholars not only saved but also used and analyzed the vast volumes of data about the past's cultural heritage. 

The current digital humanities are about making the texting data out of the massive pool of digitized information from sources like libraries and museums. Later, it's about data manipulation tools to find patterns in the data, analyze it and translate it into new theoretical knowledge. Also, digital humanities help us to create many innovations for current and future life. For example, the recent digital imaging advancements made it possible to produce high-quality reproductions of saved books and artworks. This, in turn, may transform the way people learn from these materials in the future. 

Digital Humanities Studies

Digital Humanities might not sound to you as a popular discipline, the way economics, business, management, and other similar do. However, this academic direction is intensively developing throughout recent years, and there are many universities where you can find DH educational programs. The scholarship list above might even help you study some of those programs at lower or no costs. 

A unique thing about digital humanities is that it is usually taught at the Master's level, and there are significantly fewer Bachelor's courses for it. 

You might guess that DH studies cover two main study areas: Humanities and Computer Science. Similarly, the basic skills of the mentioned two areas are the program's main admissions requirements. If you don't have a chance to study at Bachelor's of Digital Humanities, your chances to do it in Master's significantly increase if you hold the completion certificate of Bachelor's in Humanities or Bachelors in Computer Sciences. 

The course titles might differ in particular universities, but usually, the digital humanities program covers the following main subjects:

  • Coding for humanities: You'll learn the basics of the two most popular programming languages Python or R.
  • Collecting and analyzing data: You'll learn how to identify patterns in the raw data and extract valuable insights from it.
  • Humanities: You'll learn the basics of the main humanities subjects. 

During many DH programs, students can have a working period in places like museums, libraries, galleries, etc. It is a great way to utilize theoretical knowledge in practice and generally understand what direction of DH careers is closer to you. This practice is offered to students under the "Work Placement" course subject, and it would be a good idea to check its availability before applying to the university. 

The standard courses within the complete academic program of digital humanities have the following breakdown of course subjects:

  • Coding for Humanities
  • Database Design
  • Digital Humanities
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Collection
  • Data & Society
  • Digital Humanities Tools and Methods
  • Software and Data

Digital Humanities Careers

Before listing where you can utilize your digital humanities skills, let's go through the main skills you will acquire during the studies. Those include:

  • an ability to apply critical, theoretical, and technological approaches to societal issues
  • an understanding of how to use complex data of the real world
  • knowledge of powerful tools and methods for data analysis and interpretation
  • comprehensive knowledge in the IT-sphere

Aside from all these, students of digital humanities receive solid training for writing and presentation skills and creative problem-solving. Without the mentioned skills, all the genuinely massive analytical work with the data will remain useless. Students should be able to identify the logical cues between data hints and real-life questions. Also, they should be able to effectively communicate their findings within the team and collaborate for more fundamental findings. 

It sounds like the discipline will grant you the most up-to-date and competitive skills. Therefore, the range of career applications for DH is also high. It's worth mentioning that usually, pure humanity studies are considered a weak base for finding employment in the future. That's because classic studies of humanities are too theoretical, and students usually graduate with many soft skills. In this regard, Digital humanities add hard competitive skills to traditional humanities studies and significantly increase the qualification of the graduates. 

So, the leading career perspectives of DH majors include:

  • Digital Curator
  • Cultural Designer
  • Information Architect
  • Data Scientist
  • Metadata Analyst

Also, you can freely work in traditional IT jobs like Web Developers, Mobile Developers, UI/UX Developers, Data Managers, Metadata Managers, Digital Resources Specialists, etc. 

Digital Humanities is one of the most interesting disciplines, both in terms of the idea behind it and its main tools and methodologies. We hope this section of ARMACAD will open doors to try yourself in the sphere and gift society with new and amazing findings.