Digital Humanities is an extension of traditional knowledge skills and methods, not a replacement for them 

Burdick et al. “One: Humanities To Digital Humanities,” In Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 16.

I think this particular passage grabbed my attention because, so far, I think of Digital Humanities as an evolving subject that finds ways to preserve prior knowledge, while also applying prior knowledge to modern technologies. For example, today when we were 3D modeling, it felt very advanced and I would never consider something like that to be traditional. However, at its core, it contains ideas and skills that have been around for countless years, like geometry, engineering, etc. This quote and doing things like 3D modeling serve as a good reminder that traditional knowledge, skills, and methods will not disappear, and, in fact, the digitization of these things will help preserve them even better.

As an Econ major and stats and data science minor, I am particularly interested in the areas of Digital Humanities that include data analysis, data visualization, mapping, and modeling. These things can reveal relationships that might be difficult to recognize through traditional research alone. The readings’ discussion of Digital Humanities as an extension of existing methods suggests that these techniques do not have to replace traditional research; they can work alongside it.

This is what I am most interested in exploring this term. I want to learn how digital tools can take information that already exists and present it in ways that make it easier to understand or allow us to discover something new. I am especially interested in mapping and 3D modeling because they can turn information into something that is much more interactive and visually understandable. Rather than simply reading about a historical place or looking at a collection of data, these methods can allow someone to actually explore and interact with the information. I think this combination of traditional knowledge and modern technology is what makes Digital Humanities so interesting to me. It also connects well with the way I have approached my other coursework, where I enjoy using quantitative and technological tools but still need to interpret what the results actually mean.