Skip to main content

Suggested Readings: Intro to DH

This page provides a curated list of suggested readings for an introduction to DH.

See our DH Community Announcements – Publications page for recently published articles, chapters, digital resources, etc.

Articles and Chapters

For further suggestions, see the following external resources:

Surveys of the Field

Debates in the Digital Humanities

Debates in the Digital Humanities is a hybrid print/digital book series that brings together leading figures in the field to explore its theories, methods, and practices and to clarify its multiple possibilities and tensions. With general volumes that highlight current issues in the field, and special volumes on topics of pressing interest, Debates in the Digital Humanities tracks the field as it continues to grow.

From 2012 to the present, the following editions have been published:

Special Topic: Varieties of Digital Humanities, PMLA: Volume 135, Issue 1 (2020)

TAMU Libraries provides access to this issue through CambridgeCore.

Special Topic: Varieties of Digital Humanities by Alison Booth and Mariam Posner seeks to answer the question, "Where is Digital Humanities in 2020?" This issue brings together leading DH scholars to present the following articles:

Critical Code Studies, DHQ: Volume 17, Issue 2 (2023)

This issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ) by Mark C. Marino and Jeremy Douglass explores the field of Critical Code Studies, defined as "the application of the hermeneutics of the humanities to the interpretation of the extra-functional significance of computer source code." This issue brings together leading DH scholars to present the following articles:

Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Concepts, Models, and Experiments

Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities, hosted by the Modern Language Association and Humanities Commons, is a curated collection of reusable and re-mixable resources for teaching and research. Organized by keyword, the annotated artifacts can be saved in collections for future reference or sharing. Each keyword includes a curatorial statement and ten artifacts that exemplify that keyword.

Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities is edited by Rebecca Frost Davis, Matthew K. Gold, Katherine D. Harris, and Jentery Sayers.

DH Projects

The Endings Project

The Endings Project is a five-year project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) that is creating tools, principles, policies and recommendations for digital scholarship practitioners to create accessible, stable, long-lasting resources in the humanities.

Some of the questions The Endings Project attempts to answer include "How do and how should DH projects conclude?“, "How should we preserve projects to retain their dynamic features?”, and “Where should projects be archived?”.

Digital Humanities Awards: Highlighting Resources in Digital Humanities

Digital Humanities Awards are a set of annual awards where the public is able to nominate resources for the recognition of talent and expertise in the DH community. The resources are nominated and voted for entirely by the public based on the criteria of “Is it DH?”,  “Can voters see it?”, “Is it in the right category?”, and “Was it launched/published/majorly updated in that year?”.

These awards are intended as an awareness-raising activity, to help put interesting DH resources in the spotlight, and engage DH users (and general public) in the work of the community. Awards are not specific to geography, language, conference, organization or field of humanities that they benefit. Any suitable resource in any language or writing system may be nominated in any category.