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Oral History and the hidden histories project: towards histories of computing in the Humanities

Nyhan, J; Flinn, AD; Welsh, A; (2015) Oral History and the hidden histories project: towards histories of computing in the Humanities. Literary and Linguistic Computing: the journal of digital scholarship in the humanities. , 30 (1) pp. 71-85. 10.1093/llc/fqt044. Green open access

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Abstract

This article demonstrates that the history of computing in the humanities is an almost uncharted research topic. It argues that this oversight must be remedied as a matter of urgency so that the evolutionary model of progress that currently dominates the field can be countered. We describe the ‘Hidden Histories’ pilot project and explore the origins and practice of oral history; in the corresponding issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly, five oral history interviews that we carried out during the project are presented. We conclude that the selection of interviews presented here demonstrate that oral history is an important and productive methodology in such research. The five oral history interviews form primary sources, which can be used in the writing of a history of computing in the humanities; furthermore, they contain new information and interpretations, which cannot be gleaned from published scholarly articles, for example, information about the varied entry routes into the field that have existed and the interrelationship between myth and history in the narratives we create about the emergence of digital humanities.

Type: Article
Title: Oral History and the hidden histories project: towards histories of computing in the Humanities
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1093/llc/fqt044
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqt044
Language: English
Additional information: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Information Studies
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > SELCS
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1361044
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