Digital Humanities, Postfoundationalism, Postindustrial Culture

This article articulates a view of the digital humanities that hopes to advance the discipline across broad scholarly and administrative contexts. It will succeed in its aims if it is both comprehensible to newcomers and stimulating for experienced practitioners: a “bridging” effort, but one undertaken with serious intent. It proceeds by isolating a key debate for examination, describing two concepts that go a significant distance to solving issues raised by that debate (but not far enough), and exploring the theoretical writings of a selection of high profile digital humanists. The goal (a non-trivial undertaking) is to illustrate the utility of postfoundationalism as a conceptual tool, its interdependence with postindustrial culture, and the light it sheds on our understanding of what “DH” is. If successful the article, rather than making an essentialist claim that “Digital Humanities is defined by postfoundational method,” will constitute a contribution to the developing digital humanities “agenda.”