I will start this redefinition with the valuable elements from my previous foundation. Digital Humanities is a vast field that uses computational methods to answer humanities questions. Furthermore, these methods include digitization, datafication, text mining, mapping, and visualizations to expand on this foundation. Digital humanists engage in historical preservation, analytical work, and visualizing the past. This is where the repurposing of my initial definition concludes.
The field of Digital Humanities is a means of combating historical epistemicide. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge, and epistemicide is the destruction of conflicting bodies of knowledge. Domenico Fiormonte explores epistemicide in DH as it is connected to social injustice (Fiormonte et al.). To add to his analysis, I would broaden his use of epistemicide with time as the culprit in addition to Western countries. Time naturally erodes oral and written bodies of knowledge; however, Digital Humanities is a way to preserve this information. The discipline encourages recreation using what has been preserved. As technologies evolve, so does the toolkit of the digital humanist. Traditionally, a map is a visualization that communicates spatial relationships to the user (Schreibman, 247). The digital humanities subfield of mapping has repurposed cartography to communicate linguistic histories, cultural histories, and memory maps. Digital humanists have adapted the use of maps to imagine new worlds and reimagine old ones. Scholars have also used podcasts to disseminate information in a meaningful and accessible way (Cohen).
My initial definition should have nuanced the role of digital tools in the discipline more. I decided not to repurpose much of the definition to make space for an emphasis on how digital humanists use technology in meaningful ways.