About DHI²

DHI² supports the ongoing evolution of the digital humanities at UC Davis, providing resources and research opportunities for scholars in the humanities and humanistic social scientists, artists, designers, media producers, and course instructors interested in utilizing advanced digital resources in the humanities classroom. DHI² focuses not only on the innovative scholarship of UC Davis faculty and graduate students, but also on the far-reaching and increasingly complex effects of digital, multimedia scholarship on the humanities at large.

“DHI²” signals the strong connection between “the digital” and “the humanities” at UC Davis. The Digital Humanities Initiative resides, both physically and intellectually, at the UC Davis Humanities Institute.

The Launch of DHI²

In February of 2008, the DHI and the Technoscience, Arts and Culture Research Cluster hosted a conference at UC Davis called “Beyond the Book”. This conference aimed to show why digital media matters for humanities scholarship, taking stock of how research in the digital humanities has been developing over the past decades, and how it is currently 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.

Over the following years, through support of the UC Davis Office of Research, DHI² has grown in many different directions, sponsoring research groups, courses, workshops, and conferences, as well as the UC Davis Humanities Innovation Lab.