Digital Humanities
Digital humanities (DH) is a discipline at the intersections of the humanities with computing. DH studies human culture – art, literature, history, geography, religion – through computational tools and methodologies; and, in turn, DH studies the digital through humanist lenses. Digital humanists analyze languages through digital text collections; build digital archives of forbidden books; construct video games to study literature; or resurrect historical cities through digital maps.
In introductory and advanced DH courses, students learn about the intellectual landscape of digital humanities scholarship. They learn how to build digital stories, exhibits, and maps; how to digitize rare books; how to analyze collections of data; how to construct digital models and 3D-print them; and how to manage major digital projects. By the end of the program, students conduct a major DH research project of their own or participate in the research of an established faculty project. Throughout the program, students gain a critical perspective on digital technologies, learning to consider the ways digital platforms shape, and are shaped by, the currents of wider social and cultural forces.
By providing this critical and technical skillset, the Digital Humanities Minor prepares students for future paths that range from graduate studies in literature, history, library science, education, or computer science, to careers as technical writers, data analysts and visualizers, project managers, or programmers.
Digital Humanities is an Open Enrolment program. Please note that it is not possible to complete this program in one year.
Program Enrolment & Completion Requirements
Program Enrolment Requirements:
Digital Humanities is an Open Enrolment program. Enrolment is open to students who have completed 4.0 FCEs.
Program enrolment instructions are posted on the Sidney Smith Commons website.
Program Completion Requirements:
The Faculty of Arts & Science Calendar contains a complete listing of all Arts & Science programs and courses, along with important dates, rules and regulations. Use the Program Search function on the calendar and enter Digital Humanities to find program completion requirements and course descriptions.
Current Digital Humanities students should regularly check Degree Explorer to ensure that they are on track to complete the program.
Course Offerings
Regular Courses:
DHU235H1: Introduction to Digital Humanities
DHU236H1: Virtual Worlds: Introduction to Spatial Digital Humanities
DHU334H1: Innovation Through a Digital Lens
DHU335H1: From Book to Map to Video Game: Texts and their Digital Transformations
DHU336H1: Research and Writing in Digital Humanities
DHU337H1: Historical Archives in the Digital Age
DHU339H1: Special Topics in Digital Humanities
DHU339Y0: Special Topics in Digital Humanities
DHU436H1: Advanced Topics in Digital Humanities
DHU437H1: Research Projects in Digital Humanities
Special Topics Courses – 2026-2027 Fall/Winter
DHU339H1S: Digital Feminisms
Digital Feminisms investigates the complex layering of identities in and through digital technology, tools, and data. Over the semester, we foreground queer, anti-colonial, anti-racist, and intersectional feminisms in course readings and discussion. We also emphasize joy, desire, play, and mess as critical feminist praxis. Theory and practice merge in this course, with half of each meeting devoted to experiential workshops on critical DIY, gen AI, audioscapes, videogames, zines, and feminist care. Assignments encourage us to put feminist methods into practice through critical creation and analysis of digital tools, designing an anti-racist/feminist/queer prototype, and creating our own zine.
DHU436H1S LEC0101: Artificial Intelligence, Literature and Culture
This class will examine literary representations and cultural impacts of artificial intelligence (AI), broadly conceived. The second half of the class will focus on the implications of Artificial Intelligence as both tools to assist, and rivals of, human writers. Through hands-on experience using AI tools, students will gain crucial media literacy skills while also thinking critically about AI’s actual and potential applications. Reading literary representations of and by AI will allow us to grapple with the ethical and aesthetic questions raised by such texts: are there unique human qualities and activities, or can/will AI replicate every facet of humanity? What ethical responsibilities do humans owe to AI? What do we want from AI? What does it mean when AI begins writing convincingly? By looking at the past and present representations and implications of AI while, also experimenting with contemporary AI tools, we consider if and how AI might be productively incorporated into our lives in a way that maintains our intellectual and creative autonomy.
DHU436H1S LEC0201: Decolonial Digital Humanities
Digital Humanities has contributed important conceptual and practical insights at the intersection of digital technologies and the humanities but hasn’t always sufficiently recognized the colonial implications of the technologies and tools they work with, nor with non-Western perspectives on and engagements with digital technologies. This course addresses this gap by examining the ways technology and digital media have perpetuated colonial ideologies and power structures as well as the ways Indigenous and decolonial approaches to digital technology and tools can inform digital projects that challenge colonial structures and support decolonization efforts of Indigenous cultures, communities, and nations. This seminar course will center flexible opportunities for student-led learning and discussion alongside work on creative digital projects that directly address course themes and concepts.