At DHI², one of our primary goals is to understand the digital humanities as a relevant pursuit for scholars in the humanities, digital artists and producers, and those interested in utilizing digital resources in the classroom. In February of 2008, the DHI and the Technoscience, Arts and Culture Research Cluster hosted a conference at UC Davis. “Beyond the Book” aimed to show why digital media matters in humanities scholarship: how it is imagined, researched, and published. From e-Books to web-based multi-media essays, the full gamut of digital publication possbilities was considered by faculty, administrators, designers, and programmers to chart the limits and possibilities of new forms of scholarship. This conference and the continued support of the DHI set DHI² in motion. In 2008-2009, through a graduate student reading course, plans for a new undergraduate course, roundtable discussions, and grant writing, we examine under what conditions and contexts are disciplines and programs within the humanities enhanced by digital innovation.

Humanities Innovation Lab

This Lab is the current three-year initiative of the Digital Humanities Initiative to develop new digital tools and environments that grow directly from the research methodologies and challenges faced by humanities scholars. The Lab will foster a new institutional infrastructure for a more collaborative mode of producing, publishing, and distributing multimedia humanities research.

After receiving funding from the Office of Research in 2009 we began a three-year project, “ModLab” to create a protoype for massively modifyable collaborative authorship using multi media tools.