Introduction: Seizing the Methodological Moment: The Digital Humanities and Historiography in Rhetoric and Composition

• Published in: College English Vol. 76; no. 2; pp. 105 - 114
• Main Authors: Enoch, Jessica, Gold, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Urbana NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH 01.11.2013; National Council of Teachers of English
• Subjects: Archives; Archives & records; Attention; College English; Data mining; Digital humanities; Educational Technology; Feminism; Historians; Historical methodology; Historiography; History instruction; Innovation; Literacy; Metadata; R&D; Research & development; Research Methodology; Rhetoric; Royster, Jacqueline Jones; Scholars; Teaching Methods; Technological change; United States History; Womens education; Writing instruction; Written composition
• ISSN: 0010-0994; 2161-8178
• DOI: 10.58680/ce201324268

For many scholars in rhetoric and composition, the clarion call of the digital humanities might not resound with the urgency expressed in the authors opening epigraph. From the earliest studies on computer-assisted writing instruction over thirty years ago to the founding of the journals Computers and Composition (1983) and Kairos (1996) to notable CCCC chair's addresses by scholars such as Lester Faigley (1996), Cynthia Selfe (1998), and Kathleen Blake Yancey (2004), their field has been, in Selfe's words, "paying attention" to how digital technologies reshape and invigorate their thinking about literacy, rhetorical practice, and composing writ large. Recent innovations in the digital humanities have reframed conversations about the digital in ways that suggest there is much for historiographers in our field to pay attention to. These innovations have garnered the attention of humanists across the academy, but especially historians, and they might say that the digital humanities is breeding a new type of scholarship: digital historiography.