Re-Imagining Scholarship in the Digital Age

Re-Imagining Scholarship in the Digital Age
Gaffield, Chad,
________________________________________
Abstract
Quite unexpectedly and often in surprising ways, Digital Humanities have been playing a central role in the larger re-imagining of scholarship in the early 21st century. This re-imagining is transforming teaching, research and, indeed, all aspects of academic life. Moreover, the established boundaries between, and relationships among, scholarly activities on campus and in the larger society are falling flat or being re-configured through networks, clusters and dynamic forms of engagement. The result is exhilarating and un-nerving, inspiring and challenging, energizing and exhausting, if judged by public debate on campus and beyond about the changing post-secondary landscape. But if we focus on the emergence and current trajectory of Digital Humanities, we can perceive with cautious optimism the ways in which a re-imagined scholarship is beginning to enhance learning, to help interpret the past and present, and to contribute to meaningful life in the 21st century.
Bio
Gaffield is Professor of History at the University of Ottawa and currently on leave while he serves as President of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Founding Director of the Institute of Canadian Studies, Gaffield has been since the 1970s at the forefront of computer-based analyses of long-term social change. He has played a leading role in, and produced award-winning publications from, database projects such as the Canadian Social History Project, the Vancouver Island Project, the Lower Manhattan Project, and the Canadian Families Project; as President of the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, he also championed the Data Liberation Initiative.
Among his many notable accomplishments, the prize is awarded to Gaffield for his role as Principal Investigator for the Canadian Century Research Infrastructure project (CCRI; www.ccri.uottawa.ca). CCRI has created a foundation for the study of social, economic, cultural, and political change at a national level, beginning with digital reconstruction of censuses that sit at the core of a pan-national research database consisting of pertinent contextual data drawn from newspapers, parliamentary proceedings, legislative records and beyond.