Digital Humanities

About Digital Humanities

The Digital Humanities (DH) specialization aims to better prepare interested students for jobs that require both a familiarity with technology and sound communication skills. The DH specialization prepares students to create and analyze digital texts and to be better and more critically informed digital citizens.

As digital technologies continue to shape and inform nearly all of our experiences both in and out of the classroom, this area of specialization emphasizes student training in Digital Humanities methods, theory, aesthetics, and in the production of new media forms. These forms include but are not limited to social media platforms, modes of digital participation, digital archives, and online communities and interaction. Our approach to studying new technologies is always informed by our dedication, as humanists, to building on the core skill set emphasized in the major as a whole—skills that foster clear and persuasive oral and written communication, dynamic critical thinking, creativity, and the ability to closely examine a variety of texts and tools in cultural context.

As with all English department specializations, this specialization is open to students from all majors.

Requirements (5 courses)

• 1 Course in culture or theory
• 1 Course in digital production*
• 3 Electives

*Production = courses where a significant focus of the class involves using coding or specialized software to create or analyze texts, including but not limited to websites, videos, podcasts, multimodal texts, data visualizations, or digital storytelling of various kinds.

Electives that have been pre-approved:

• English 257H: Interactive Fiction honors (only open to first year CHC students)
• English 300: Picture This: Lives in Graphic Form
• English 301: History of the Book
• English 302: Studies in Textuality and New Media
• English 381: Advanced Technical Writing (production) (prereq Engl 380)
• English 389: The Major and Beyond: Career Exploration for English Majors
• English 391C: Intro to Web Design (production) (prereq Engl 379 or instructor permission)
• English 391D: Writing and Emerging Technologies (production)
• English 391S: Doing Digital (production)
• English 494CI: Codes, Ciphers, Hackers, and Crackers (production)
• English 491DS: Data Science for the Humanities

Questions? Contact acting faculty advisor Sarah Patterson (slp@umass.edu@umass.edu).