DH Phi

While the digital humanities are all the rage in other humanistic disciplines, the situation for academic philosophy is quite different. Philosophers tend to be ignorant of the digital humanities and the research methods they have to offer. This situation is regrettable, for there are ways that philosophical research would benefit from digital tools. Similarly, there are ways that the digital humanities could benefit from the tools that philosophers bring.

I first conceived of DH Phi as a way to start to bridge this gap. The thought was to create a website which would serve as an explainer and introduction to digital humanities to philosophers. It could provide a sort of guide to present digital philosophical work, showcasing digital projects of interest to philosophers.

The structure of the site would, initially, be three-fold. First, a brief explanation of digital humanities written with a philosophical audience in mind. This would be supplemented by links to other introductions to DH, enabling interested visitors to dig deeper as they saw fit. Second, an annotated bibliography of digital projects which might be of interest to philosophers. Third, a guide to technical resources (with a heavy emphasis on free and/or open-source tools) which might be helpful in digital philosophical research. This last component would be geared primarily for the newcomer to DH, but will also include resources for more advanced users as well. A fourth component, a possible later addition to the site, would be a blog providing news of interest to DH-minded philosophers and other interested parties.

At this juncture, the site itself is still being developed. I have obtained a domain name, DHPhi.com, and a twitter handle. I have also created an early draft of a logo, which can be seen below. I plan to use the same technologies on DHPhi as I have for this site, employing Jekyll as a sort of content management system with the improved speed and security associated with a static, database-free site. I plan to try hosting using Amazon web services, which provides low-cost hosting for static sites of modest traffic. I have been collecting links for the list of relevant DH projects as well as for the list of digital resources for some time (well over a year). The timeline for the site to go live is a bit uncertain, but an early instance may be live this summer.

An early draft of the DH Phi logo.