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I am pleased to announce that the Executive Board has approved a new Special Interest Group on "Digital Humanities" at their mid-year board meeting last week.

During the past month, a small working group initiated this SIG:
• Greta Bahneman (University of Minnesota)
• Stephanie Beene (Lewis and Clark College)
• Trudy Jacoby (Princeton University)
• Mark Pompelia (Rhode Island School of Design)
• Jenni Rodda (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University)
• John Taormina (Duke University)
 
The mission statement of the SIG is as follows:
 
The purpose of the Special Interest Group on Digital Humanities will be to provide interested members the opportunity to engage in discussion, create an online reading group, develop an expanding bibliography, and perhaps periodically sponsor a session at the annual conference about Digital Humanities.
 
As inspiration we used the definition of Digital Humanities published in “The Promise of Digital Humanities: A White Paper” (March 1, 2009), co-authored by Todd Presner (Germanic Languages and Comparative Literature) and Chris Johanson (Classics and Digital Humanities), professors at UCLA:
 
Digital Humanities is an umbrella term for a wide array of practices for creating, applying, and interpreting new digital and information technologies. These practices are not limited to conventional humanities departments, but affect every humanistic field at the university including history, anthropology, arts and architecture, information studies, film and media studies, archaeology, geography, and the social sciences. At the same time, Digital Humanities is a natural outgrowth and expansion of the traditional scope of the Humanities, not a replacement or rejection of humanistic inquiry. In fact the role of the humanist is critical at this historic moment, as our cultural legacy migrates to digital formats and our relation to knowledge, cultural material, technology, and society is radically re-conceptualized.
 
I will serve as the first Coordinator of the Digital Humanities SIG. I anticipate that this SIG will grow to serve the needs of the Society as we further discussions about digital humanities issues and topics as they relate to our profession and workplace. We look forward to welcoming interested members now and at the annual conference in Pasadena in April. Feel free to contact me with any ideas you may have.
 
Thank you,
John