The Humanist’s Operating System

Posted on December 18, 2012 by guzzettg

I was immediately intrigued by the idea of the humanist’s operating system when I read it in the website of ThatCamp NE 2012 (I wrote a summary of the camp from what I could find online):

An operating system is the most basic software on a computer, which allows the computer run higher order applications. Scholars also need an ‘operating system’—a set of basic tools that work together reliably to handle the low level tasks of scholarship so scholars can concentrate on higher order thinking.

I was not able to go the Camp, but I read what Lincoln Mullen wrote before and after, and some of the reactions. I am not able to do the same workshop (described in a Word Doc here), but it would be nice to have a conversation about the ways in which different tasks are done and what digital tools are used by humanists, using the idea proposed by Mullen to create a comprehensive and useful “operating system” for humanists.

Anyone interested? Comments?

 

Categories: Digital Literacy, Session Proposals |

About guzzettg

I started my academic work in Comparative Literature and Italian Studies, but a few years ago I started to be involved in Digital Humanities and I am currently working on a interdisciplinary project focused on Italian culture. I am newcomer in computing, although I used them for many years. Before I started working on DH my only experience in programming is an assignment at a secondary school, a program in BASIC (and, believe it or not, I actually wrote an electronic poem on a APPLE IIc screen. It was sometimes in the 1980s). After that I had to wait another 25 years to get back to programming.