Is Humanities Computing an Academic Discipline
Geoffrey Rockwell · 2016
Note from the Editors: During the late 1990s, a significant theme in the ‘What is Humanities Computing’ literature was whether the field could be defined and categorised as an academic discipline. Rockwell presented this paper, published in 1999, to a seminar held on this topic in the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia (other papers presented at this seminar by leading figures in humanities computing remain available1). In it he argues that the ontological questions of what the discipline ‘is’ may never be satisfactorily settled; therefore, he argues for the importance and value of considering this question from an administrative and institutional perspective. In order to do this he discusses at length his experience of setting up a ‘Combined Honours in Multimedia and Another Subject’ programme at McMaster University. He also explains the decision to use the term multimedia as opposed to that of humanities computing to describe the programme. In essence, the term multimedia could be used to communicate to prospective students and colleagues (especially those of the senior, administrative and budget-approving persuasion) what the programme would entail and the traditions it would draw on. However, the term humanities computing was, he argued ‘a liability and confusion’.