THATCamp New England and the Rise of Digital Humanities
Posted June 2, 2014 by L. Kelly Fitzpatrick
Coffee was stirred, bagels were nibbled, and discussion had begun filling the twittersphere. This past weekend I attended my first professional conference – THATCamp New England. Between May 30th and 31st, individuals gathered to the Boston College General Studies campus to talk about one thing: digital humanities. Digital humanities, otherwise known at DH, has been creeping across institutions and campuses in recent years and leaving untold innovations in it’s wake. While there is no single static definition of DH, it can can be described as the interdisciplinary meeting ground between technology and the humanities.
Unlike other events on the conference circuit, THATCamp is structured around the idea of a “not-conference”. Traditionally, conferences often follow a strictly structured format. THATCamp has diverged on a few key elements to follow a different approach through fluidity, collaboration, and engagement. In all realness, I’ve never considered myself to be an at-the-last-minute kind of person. Especially one who would sit down and organize an informal panel with a recent graduate from my alma mater aiming to open dialogues about stimulating interdisciplinary undergraduate activity in DH. Between two days, I attended talks and workshops which created an approachable environment where folks met to share ideas, new technologies, and of course – twitter handles. For an overview of what events were offered, check out the information linked below.
Stepping out of the cloud of metadata and discourse which had accumulated after the two day conference, THATCamp had me hooked. A cordial, constructive, and not to mention free interdisciplinary conference opportunity with much crossover in LIS, I’m looking forward to seeing you there in 2015!
About THATCamp: http://thatcamp.org/about/
Event Schedule: http://newengland2014.thatcamp.org/schedule/
Twitter Feed: https://twitter.com/hashtag/thatcampne?src=hash
DH Overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities