Texturing the Digital Humanities: A Manifesto

Abstract

The digital humanities is today overwhelmingly visual. Even as DH has increased access to the humanities at an astonishing rate, it has also inadvertently narrowed our sensory access to information. It is time to add new dimensions to a field structured predominately by the flat screen. Emphasizing touch, we call for a textured digital that challenges the logic governing many notions of access—that is, the unproblematic translatability of information between the senses. As an epistemological intervention, texturing DH promises new ways to approach sensorial history and to engage diverse sensory abilities and experiences—past, present, and future. As an ethical intervention, it emphasizes our responsibility to evaluate carefully the structures of digital accessibility and to increase access for all. (SA and DW)