Chapter 2: Computing and Communicating Knowledge: Collaborative Approaches to Digital Humanities Projects
Reviewed by Heather Carpe
In the second chapter, Lisa Spiro discussed the stereotype of the lone working humanities scholar and contrasts that with the digital humanities scholar. She asserted that the digital humanities are more collaborative in nature and provided a number of case studies to support this claim. Spiro differentiated between participatory work and collaborative work (p. 50). She recognized "traditional solitary scholarship" in the humanities and the romantic ideal and asked the reader to think critically about why this is the tradition and why the humanities have not been more collaborative up until this point.
Spiro analyzed how digital collaboration may expand and fully engage the humanities in collaborative work. She wrote in a way that not only made the research and theories accessible to a wide range of readers and scholars, but she connected the major concepts back to examples of both the traditional humanities and more contemporary digital alternatives. The chapter stands as support for future collaborative humanities work and asked the reader to challenge long-held assumptions about research in the humanities.
