Center for Digital Scholarship

The Doctoral Certificate Program in Digital Humanities offers an opportunity to currently enrolled Ph.D. students interested in adding expertise in digital methodologies and techniques to their research portfolio.

Digital Humanities is a vibrant and wide-ranging research domain. The field uses digital methodologies and formats to answer humanities and humanistic social science research questions, produce and share knowledge, and teach.

It encompasses critical studies of digital environments (for example, bias in algorithms or the ethics of data), innovative modes of research and advancing arguments (such as new methodologies for constituting archives, analyzing texts and images, and visualizing data) new forms of scholarly and general publications, and aspects of digital pedagogy.

Brown University Library’s Center for Digital Scholarship and the Cogut Institute for the Humanities are pleased to partner together to offer the doctoral certificate, which will provide students with a foundation in digital methods and skills for their research, as well as an understanding of the broader theoretical questions that digital approaches to scholarship offer.

The certificate is aimed at Ph.D. students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences though Ph.D. students from all disciplines are welcome to apply.

Upon completion of the certificate, students will:

• Have a foundational understanding of digital humanities as a broad scholarly field, including basic theory and debates.
• Develop deeper familiarity with specific areas of digital scholarship (e.g. mapping or text mining) of relevance to their own research and teaching.
• Know how to evaluate and critique digital scholarship.
• Be able to design and execute a research project using digital humanities research techniques grounded in a theoretical articulation of the stakes of that project.
• Be empowered to explore this fast-moving domain of practice and research further.

Program Requirements

• Introduction to Digital Humanities (HMAN 2300). This course, which is open to all graduate students, will provide an overview of the field and introduce students to the wide range of methodologies and theoretical underpinnings in the digital humanities.
• The curriculum for the doctoral certificate in digital humanities, mixing theory and practice, requires completion of four components, with all courses taken for credit (letter grade or pass/fail).
• An elective at the 1000 or 2000 level, selected from the approved course list in consultation with the CDS faculty director.
• Digital Tools and Methods. This requirement may be fulfilled through completion of a programming course, the CDS Summer Workshop in Digital Humanities/Digital Scholarship, or seven or more workshops in the CDS academic-year workshop series selected from the approved workshop list in consultation with the CDS Director.
• Digital Humanities Capstone Seminar (HMAN 2301). This seminar will provide students with hands-on experience working on their own Digital Humanities project and/or contributing to a Digital Humanities project as part of a team. Students will present their capstone project in the Digital Humanities Salon. Admission into the course is conditional upon admission into the certificate. Students are encouraged to take Intro to Digital Humanities prior to the Digital Humanities Capstone Seminar. Students can apply to enroll in the certificate at any stage in their coursework. 

Steering Committee

The certificate’s steering committee is composed of the CDS faculty director, the CDS director, a member of the Cogut Institute, and three faculty members.

Laurel Bestock, Associate Professor of Archaeology and the Ancient World and Egyptology and Assyriology, Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture

Ashley Champagne, Director of the Center for Digital Scholarship, Lecturer in Humanities

Linford D. Fisher, Interim Faculty Director of the Center for Digital Scholarship, Associate Professor of History, Director of Data Science

Kim Gallon, Associated Professor of Africana Studies

Damien Mahiet, Associate Director of the Cogut Institute, Lecturer in Humanities

Ellie Pavlick, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Linguistics

Application

Please apply to the Digital Humanities Doctoral Certificate Program using UFunds.  To access the application, log in to UFunds, and select Doctoral Certificates, then Digital Humanities. Applications are accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis throughout the year. (Deadlines in UFunds are administrative: a new application cycle will open as soon as the previous one comes to end.)   

The applicant’s home department DGS approval is required. Please note that the program is open only to Ph.D. students currently enrolled at Brown University. For more information, please contact Professor Linford D. Fisher.