The Journal of American History has published an excellent discussion entitled ‘Interchange: The Promise of Digital History‘:
This “Interchange” discussion took place online over the course of several months in the winter of 2008. We wanted the “Interchange” to be free flowing; therefore we encouraged participants not only to respond to questions posed by the JAH but also to communicate with each other directly. What follows is an edited version of the very lively online conversation that resulted. We hope JAH readers find it of interest.
The participants:
Daniel J. Cohen is associate professor of history and director of the Center for History and New Media (chnm) at George Mason University.
Michael Frisch is professor of history and American studies and a senior research scholar at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.
Patrick Gallagher is a leader in the field of exhibit design. He is principal of Gallagher & Associates, a professional design services firm.
Steven Mintz is director of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Teaching Center at Columbia University.
Kirsten Sword is assistant professor of history at Indiana University.
Amy Murrell Taylor is associate professor of history and an affiliate faculty member in the documentary studies program at the State University of New York (suny)–Albany.
William G. Thomas III, professor of history at the University of Nebraska, holds the John and Catherine Angle Chair in the Humanities.
William J. Turkel is assistant professor of history at the University of Western Ontario and director of digital infrastructure for the Network in Canadian History and Environment.
Some of the questions tackled:
How might we define digital history?
What is the promise of digital history?
How do we teach graduate students about digital history?
What are the essential skills in training a generation of digital historians?
What institutional resources are needed to sustain digital history?
Do digital history and museum exhibitions have something in common?
Does digital presentation lend a depth that does something text and photographs in a book can’t do?
How has technology changed your research methods? How could it?
What would you like to see technology do in your own research?
What is the role of journals (or academic publishing more broadly) in these new projects? How might journals embrace such projects?
How might digital history change the publication and dissemination of scholarship?
Looking forward five or ten years, how will the profession be different? How will the discipline be different? What changes will institutions have to make?
Tags: digital history, digital humanities, history
