The disciplinary impact of the digital: DH and " the Others "
Résumé
In the past few years the Digital Humanities have developed within two main institutional contexts: within dedicated research centers and within more traditional discipline-based faculties. While the DHers in the former case are in danger of closing themselves within ivory towers of a think-alike community, in the latter case the “lone wolves” are most likely to have suffered isolation and lack of real confrontations with their peers. However both these experiences are now converging and, slowly but steadily, DH has raised its profile and its impact within the Humanities, with external and internal pressure on other fields now mounting, as demonstrated by the intensification of newspapers articles, manifestos and positions being advertised. We are now at a turning point: will the experience of DH feed back and enrich disciplines such as English, Spanish, History, and so on, or will brand new disciplines stem from it, as has happened for Computational Linguistics as a clearly separated entity with respect to Linguistics?
