A Higher Form of Hermeneutics?: The Digital Humanities in Political Historiography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18352/bmgn-lchr.9349Keywords:
digital history, digital humanities, e-humanties, Rens BodAbstract
Rens Bod’s optimism with regard to digital research tools also seems to be justified for the field of political history. In particular, these tools will enable us to ask questions that were hitherto unthinkable, and try to answer them on an unenvisaged scale. Unlike that which Bod suggests, however, this development will not bring us closer to revealing some alleged universal patterns in history and therefore herald a new era of Positivism.
On the contrary, the digital research tools will show us manifold differences, both diachronic and synchronic, in the way (groups of) political actors identified themselves and gave meaning to the world surrounding them. Moreover, they will enable us to relate these differences to a broad range of social variables. If we really want to test the validity of these relationships however, we will have to actually interpret the texts and read them hermeneutically in their precise historical contexts.
This article is part of the forum 'The End of the Humanities 1.0'.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
c) Authors are permitted to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.
Authors are explicitly encouraged to deposit their published article in their institutional repository.
How to Cite
