Digital technologies now permeate all aspects of culture and scholarship in the humanities. Digital humanities explores how digital tools can enhance research by analyzing large datasets and presenting information in novel ways. As digital culture evolves, technology is transforming how cultural heritage is created, shared, and preserved. Scholars are exploring how to establish digital research environments and use tools like 3D modeling, digitization, and visualization to process and disseminate cultural resources. This supports efforts to sustain cultural traditions and make heritage materials globally accessible.

1. Digital Culture and the Future of
Scholarship in the Humanities
Tunde Ope-Davies
Centre for Digital Humanities, University of Lagos
@New Heritage Symposium, Department of Creative
Arts, University of Lagos,
Wednesday November 23, 2022

2. Introduction
Digital Humanities
Digital Culture & Creative Scholarship
Technology & the Future of Scholarship
in the Humanities

3. https://www.freeppt7.com
The emergence of Digital
Humanities(DH) is a natural
reaction to the phenomenal
evolution and proliferation of
digital technologies and their
pervading impact on every facet
of our life and society.
It describes a disciplinary and
scholarly orientation that adopts
approaches in computer sciences
and digital technologies to
interrogate social and cultural
data

4.  Digital technologies now offer amazing and
productive tools to scholars in the human sciences
such as linguistics, literature, history, philosophy,
creative arts, music to re-examine traditional
humanities data for new insights and new scholarly
and social benefits.
 This new approach can enhance the capacity of
social technologies to produce innovative directions
in digital information processing and cultural [re-]
production and preservation.

5. Anda (2014) says “.. [w]ith
the rise of social media,
video games, etc. digital
humanities requires a
different toolbox and
approach to understand
digital culture.
Furthermore, the outcome
of doing digital humanities
differs from “conventional”
work in the humanities.
Design of these tools
necessitates a creative and
experimental approach.
https://medium.com/research-methods-in-digital-
humanities/digital-humanities-is-cc0a1ce6febb

6. Piker (2019) asserts that
Digital technologies have meditating stimulus on individuals’
social, professional and self-identity relations and more
comprehensively their social life. Smartphones, tablets, laptops
have become essential means to exist in cyber culture as the
artefacts of today’s social culture.
Immeasurable volumes of data that circulate on Internet
through immensely diversified blogs, websites and discussion
boards are products of cyber culture that arouses from virtual
communities and forms collective intelligence (Villares et. al.,
2008).

7. Digital Humanities engages
in research preoccupations
that span multilateral and
multisectoral fields of
endeavours in the human
sciences designed to
promote social
transformation and human
development
https://medium.com/research-methods-in-
digital-humanities/digital-humanities-is-
cc0a1ce6febb

8. http://3dfashionshow.org/digital-humanities/
 Digital Culture or Cultural
media studies and trend is
now aimed at better
describing, en/decoding and
understanding societal
systems/subsystems, but also
developing prospective
analytical capacities in the
light of digital technolgies.
 DH allows us to fully
understand the impact of
technologies on our societies,
researchers by interrogating
the varying components and
dimensions of everyday
culture

9. https://www.facebook.com/lnu.digital.huma
 DH now creates the
sphere where
appropriation and
application of digital
tools in everyday
habits through the
use of social media,
smartphone
technology now
achieves social
impact, etc ( Piker,
2019).
 It produces immense
and diverse sub-
disciplines and areas
of research and
opportunities in the
humanities

10. https://dhcommons.hypotheses.org/date/2021/04
 Data Collection / Curation
 Big Data
 Artificial Intelligence
 Digitisation
 Text Encoding
 Visualisation
 Data Extraction
 Data Processing, Interpretation and
Analysis
 Text Mining & Analysis
 Natural Language Processing
 Spatial and Temporal Analysis with
GIS
 3D Modelling
 Image Analysis
 Restorative Arts & Multimedia
 Cultural Heritage
 Extractive Online Practices
 Museum Management & Curatorship
 Immersive Virtual Reality
 Augmented Reality
 Digital Art
AREAS OF FOCUS IN DH

11.  The emerging and ongoing
digital culture has fostered a
world in which technologies
now permeate and pervade
every fibre of our social
configurations.
 New Technologies now enable
us to create a socio-virtual
world, a digital sphere “that
all may enter without privilege
or prejudice accorded by race,
economic power, military
force, or station of birth.
 Technologies now activate an
enormous process of
knowledge creation in digital
art and cultural transmission https://www.culturalpolicies.net/2020/07/13/digital-arts-
and-culture-transformation-or-transgression/

12. The activities on the
Cyberspace are
developing a new
technology-driven
culture that affects
social and research
engagements
Every day's human
cultures (e.g.
memory, habitual,
heritage cultural
data) are thus being
transformed and
impacted through
these technologies.

13.  Immeasurable volumes of data
that circulate on Internet through
immensely diversified blogs,
websites and discussion boards
are products of cyber culture that
arouses from virtual communities
and forms collective intelligence
(Villares et. al., 2008).
 We are developing a socio-digital
culture that each of us can define
in our own way and what
embodies that world and how our
individual self is [re-]created,
expressed and projected-

14.  The development of web culture
is an attempt at reframing the
disruptive processes the Internet
posed on existing cultural and
social norms impacting
communication, knowledge
processing and social
development.
 Digital Culture may be seen
predominantly as the experience
of a culture of participation, of
sharing and of shifting the
individual from the position of
the consumer of online contents
to the potential creator or
producer of its content.
https://stedelijkstudies.com/journal/partnering
-through-collections-in-digital-humanities/

15. Digital Tools are now
available for the
development and
application of archives,
databases, digital
environments, software
and hardware.
Digital Culture also
consider the
production and
circulation of cultural
practices in new ways
by applying
theories and methods
from the humanities to
understand technology

16. https://www.campus.sg/arts-degrees-are-they-really-that-
useless/
 Digital technologies now
offer amazing tools to
scholars in the human
sciences especially those
working in linguistics and
discourse analysis, literature
history, social data, virtual
communication or cultural
memory data, creative
scholarship to engage in
adequate documentation of
web-based communication.

17. Voyant Tools is a web-based reading and analysis environment for digital texts
VOYANT TOOLS
FOR DIGITAL
EXPLORATION

18. Word cloud analytics with the use of R software

19. Visualisation Technique
in Literary Work

20.  The application and use of technology in contemporary
humanities scholarship is fast reconfiguring and redefining
our research and academic activities.
 Kirschenbaum (2010a) states that Digital Humanities is
equally a social enterprise. It avails network between
people who work jointly, research together, argue, compete,
and collaborate for long time.
 Digital Humanities is a game-changing, compact testimony
on the status of modern knowledge assembly (Burdick,
Drucker, Lunenfeld, Presner, & Schnapp, 2012).
DIGITAL HUMANITIES AND HUMANITIES SCHOLARSHIP

21.  DH impacts our activities in the humanities because it attempts to
address questions and debates surrounding the digital
transformation of our societies in all its various dimensions and
cultures together.
 The field has produced literature that explores a rich variety of
established and new ideas and readings that encapsulate how
these new technologies implicate research and studies that
intersect human, social, and computational sciences.
DIGITAL HUMANITIES AND DIGITAL CULTURES

22.  This new approach now enhances the capacity of scholars to use
social technologies and artificial intelligence helping to produce
innovative directions in digital information processing, social data
analysis and digitizing cultural heritage projects.
 New technologies are however helping scholars in the
humanities, creative arts, music etc to by pass traditional
methods of engaging their publics and product consumers

23. DH is said to explores interactions between
digital society and culture; ways in which
digital media and technologies impact
current culture and society.
It studies the cultural and social contexts and
futures of computational and other digital
technologies.
https://studiegids.universiteitleiden.nl/courses/105720/digital-media-culture-and-society

24. BENEFITS OF TECHNOLOGY IN CREATIVE AND CULTURAL
SCHOLARSHIP
DH has availed scholars and researchers in creative and cultural
memory sub-disciplines in the humanities to develop new strategies
and techniques to manage and [re-] produce cultural heritage and
digital culture
 For instance, the digitization of cultural resources, artefacts,
indigenous knowledge, folklores, historical narratives of pristine
societies and previous generations and communities now
contrbiute to global cultural heritage
 These new technology-driven approaches to exploring and
processing cultural resources now help to reshape the way art
and knowledge is provided to the new generations, by creating
new economies and new societies.

25. Digital culture initiatives are strategies being
deployed to maintain traditional museums and
cultural memory institutions as the infrastructural
deficits affect the creative knowledge production
industry.
Digital technologies now help to create new
heritage driven and sustained through digital
infrastructure

26.  “…Virtual reality, avatar technologies, virtual worlds,
holograms, gaming and gamification can offer creative
interactivity and unique experiences with low or no cost to
the global visitor and introduce new revenue streams
(Markopoulos et al, n.d.)
 In creating new heritage for scholars in music and
musicology the appropriation and reconstruction of popular
music through technology can help us to take something
new out of recorded music
 We can use digital music as memory culture tools to help
community reconnect their past with their present, and
communicate oral traditions, cultural practices, social
morality and mores, and indigenous knowledges to the new
generation

27. By building digital repositories to archive traditional music and
transmit them online as new product and new knowledge will help us
to achieve the following:
Reminding the communities and revitalizing their interest in the
music through reconstruction and reappropriation of the popular
music
Digitising music traditions, genres and resources can help online
users to gain new insights and more knowledge about the histories,
traditions, customs and practices that have been sustainably create
moral fiber and social cohesion in African societies
They prevent music tradition from going into extinction
Such digitized music traditions, old records can become part of the
national heritage

28.  Digital humanities economics can now turn museums and
libraries from cost centres to profit centres for the benefit
of the humanity and the society
 Physical infrastructures are no longer necessary to
showcase your works of art or oral-cultural performances
and broadcast that to the entire world.
 Digital resources, new media technologies, web-based
platforms are now available to drive our cultural and
creative projects

29. We can the music in digital forms to serve purposes other than entertainment and pleasure.
Their ubiquitous nature can make accessible and sharable thus providing a strong of therapeutic
mechanism, advocacy, mobilisation
Their new functions can be amplified through digital tools and social technologies.

30. Understanding digital
culture necessitates
fresh, innovative study
methods, and new
methodologies such as
the vast area of
technology studies,
cyber scripture, and
virtual ethnography
have evolved to help us
better understand
culture shaped by
technology.
https://cibalipostasi.com/w
writing-about-digital-
culture/

31. A digital culture is a term which
explains ways technological
advances are influencing our
human interactions. It’s about
how we act, think, and
communicate in society. A
digital culture is the outcome of
transformative technological
innovation and the continuous
persuasive technology that
surrounds us.
https://cibalipostasi.com/writing-about-digital-
culture/

32.  It can be applied to a variety of
topics, but it all boils down to
one central theme: the human-
technology interaction. We now
exist in a world that is vastly
different from what our
forefathers envisaged.
 Today’s world is a complicated
web of knowledge,
communication, and
transportation technology that
impact our lives and change our
perspectives.
 Through all the lens of
technology, artists are
increasingly attempting to
comprehend the present and
imagine the future.
A TYPICAL DIGITAL RESEARCH
ENVIRONMENT

33.  Markopoulos et al (n.d.) refer to cultural heritage as the
customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions and
values, music, folklore, literature and orature that are
passed down from generation to generation.
 They encode and express the histories, indigenous
knowledge systems, epistemes, philosophies, oral
traditions, dance and drama, cultural and religious
practices etc of a family, people or community, ethno-
linguistic group or even a nation.
 Technology has advanced how these cultural resources are
now created, interpreted, shared and preserved.
Cultural Heritage in the Age of Technology

34.  Digitalization and digitisation are an integral and foundation
platform through which we transform and convert information
and material into a digital format, and organize them into a
discrete form of binary data that modern devices process.
Digital Cultural heritage relies on the use of technology by taking
classical aspects of cultural materials and heritage, such as any
unique resource of human knowledge and expression, and
transforming them into a digital material such as texts, databases,
images and other digitalization aspects
We must put in place a viable digital research environment/digital
laboratory in our departments and centres
Processing Digital Cultural Heritage through
Digital Research Environment

35. Such digitalisation or digitisation process helps to improve
accessibility, transferability and preservability of the
digitize information benefits.
Digitized cultural heritage information allows people to
access it without the need of traveling around the world to
experience renowned artefacts and cultural landmarks. It
can further more allow access to cultural heritage from
inaccessible areas.
Digital cultural resources help to chronicle and glorify the
past

36. New Heritage and decolonisation of African traditional music will involve
 Reordering of the material
 Reconstruction of musical heritage
 Communal and Social impact
 The significance of the repatriation will encourage sustainability of the musical
tradition
 Appropriation and reconstruction of the musical tradition
 Communities must have access to the recordings collected from them
 Such digitised musical collections can trigger cultural collection
 Revitalisation, aesthetics
 Reappropriation of archival materials
 Reconnecting the new generation of musicians with th old songs
 Cultural Institutions
 Cultural Infrastructure

37. Digital Humanities projects have contributed in
presenting information in insightful and innovative
approaches (Nguyen, 2014).
However, Kathleen Fitzpatrick in her study suggests
that there is a dearth need of developing
sustainability practices and sound preservation
strategies for preserving the digital heritage assets
for the future use (as cited in Spiro, n.d.). ( Khan et
al, 2015 p.182)

38. 3D Modelling
3D modeling process produces a digital object capable of being
fully animated, making it an essential process for character
animation and special effects Maya.
Industry-standard 3D modelling software, (ii) ... ZBrush. Market-
leading sculpting software that's ideal for 3D printing. ... (iii)
Houdini. 3D modelling software used to create blockbuster VFX. ...
(iv) Cinema 4D. ... Autodesk 3ds Max. (v) ... Modo. ... (vi) Lightwave
3D.
DIGITAL RESEARCH RESOURCES

39. Digitisation and Music Making
 Digital music-making platforms are now available
With the guidance of online tutorials and user-friendly affordances of
software interfaces, the tools have democratised the making of
electronic music.
 Digitisation provides the inspiration of a world of music and the
means and knowledge of how to make it, allowing musical,
personal and collective subjectivities to be explored. Paul Chambers 2021

40. Khan et al (2015, p 188)
We now live in knowledge-based and knowledge-driven
societies where knowledge has become the currency and
social capital for socio-economic as well as cultural growth
 Knowledge-driven resources are valued and preserved at
different levels.
 Different cultures have some peculiarities and need to
retain the cultural richness and originality.
DIGITAL HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL HERITAGE RESOURCES

41. TECHNIQUES FOR
PROCESSING DIGITAL
CULTURE

42.  The main components of cultural assets including both tangible as well
as intangible forms represent important aspects of human civilizations.
 Accessibility to and preservation/ sustenance of such cultural
capitals/assets has been prioritized
 Plethora of cultural heritage preservation initiatives are being
undertaken at different levels to ensure that society benefits more
from these cultural resources
 Technological advancements, evolution of new media technologies,
virtual realties and use of more sophisticated digitization gadgets and
user-friendly tools such as 3D imaging have enhanced such cultural
preservation projects
 Recreation and repurposing of such digital or digitised cultural objects
can provide new knowledge and insights for modern societies

43. UNESCO Memory World programme is designed to promote the preservation of
these cultural resources
 Such cultural heritage in documented or digitised form reflects the diversity in
our today’s world in terms of people, languages and cultures.
 It is the reflection of the world and its reminiscence. But this memory is
delicate and fragile. Every day, exceptional portions of this memory vanish
forever (Deegan, 2013).
Efforts for safeguarding cultural heritage resources have witnessed a growing
trend over the past few years. Protecting traditional heritage is cultural,
economical, as well as historical process. Culture includes customs, beliefs,
inventions, language, arts, institutions, values and technology.

44. DH helps scholars and researchers to rethink and
master new digital literacies.
 Digital technologies now provide new methods of
studying, interpreting, and teaching social and
cultural trends
Digital culture is dynamic, interactive, multimedia
and multimodal, and proliferates at a scale and
speed that traditional scholarly methods are hard
pressed to keep up with.
https://carleton.ca/fass/story/from-code-to-culture-the-humanities-in-a-digital-age/

45. Khan et (2019)
 Libraries and cultural institutions have been proactive in adopting different
policies for preservation of culture.
 Growth in the number of cultural repositories and digital libraries
 They manage and make different forms of cultural assets (e.g. folklore,
custom documentaries, craft designs and patterns, architectural setups) more
accessible
 These new technology-driven techniques not only help them to preserve
valuable indigenous knowledge but explore the richness in the cultural values
of different nations.
 DH now promotes the merging of different forms of digitalized information
which combine print, voice, video, and graphics for educational and
recreational purposes.
 DH enhances the preservation, management and accessibility of cultural
resources ranging from curating online collections to data mining large
cultural data sets cannot be neglected

46. With the rapid growth in the amount of digital culture
available via social media, blog posts, websites etc.
researchers nowadays perceive multi-faceted representation
of the culture.
The application of technologies now enable researchers to
chronicle history and oral tradition and glorify the past more
DH tools also help to present information in written texts
and big data in insightful and innovative manner.

47. • One of the strengths of DH tools is that they can be utilised for a
range of digitisation and analytical procedures in language and
literature.
• These tools enable researchers to search, identify, and discuss
patterns in large data empirically and objectively
• Make data to become more concrete and representative of reality
• Make analysis more exciting and research result more explanatory
• They can be used to recreate and retell stories about the original
content of a creative writing and oral performances
DH TOOLS: TRANSDISCIPLINARY BENEFITS

48. ManžuchIsto et al (2005:37) refers to the digitization of
cultural heritage as the dynamic and evolving
interdisciplinary domain that encompasses philosophical,
social, cultural, economic and managerial aspects and
consequences of management of cultural heritage in the
technological environment.
 A digitization initiative is a set of activities that requires long-term
institutional commitment and significant investments of financial,
human and material sources.
 Strategic planning of digitization involves producing necessary
decisions in order to develop sustainable projects that meet user
demands.
Digitization of cultural heritage. Available from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233729034_Digitization_of_cultural_heritage [accessed Nov 18
Strategic planning of digitization
initiatives

49. ManžuchIsto et al (2005:45) assert further that:
 Strategic planning of digitization initiatives involve
from 2 important inseparable components
 i) development of an idea and
ii)producing a plan for creation and long-term
management of digitized cultural heritage sources.
 Development of an idea involves analysis of the
external environment from the political, economic,
cultural, social and technological point of view.

50. DIGITAL EXPLORATION OF LITERARY TEXT
We created a self-collected corpus titled Corpus of Nigerian
Literary Discourse(CNLD)
It involved transforming the electronic copy of Achebe’s Things Fall
Apart(1958) into a txt file.
A close reading of the text was done to gain additional insight for
qualitative analysis
Use of aspect of stylometric analysis: the study used a range of
digital and computer software packages to digitally explore the
character of Okonkwo and instances of clash of cultures via number
of mentions, word clouds, concordancing, and Key Word In
Context(KWIC) analyses.
Use of digital tools such as SketchEngine and AntConc to extract

51.  The project relies on the application of a number of technologies to
explore the city as conceptualised and portrayed in the selected
literary text.
 I present the results of the application of a digital tool (AntConc3.4)
in exploring the ‘mention’ of ‘Lagos’ in one of the literary texts
(Chinua Achebe’s No Longer At Ease, 1970) being used for the
project. Notice the key words in context highlighted with different
colours in the screencast.
LITTECH: LAGOS: A Digital exploration of the City of Lagos in Fiction

53. The ongoing efforts to incorporate Information and
Communication Technologies(ICTs) and digital technologies
into humanistic inquiry will define the future of scholarship in
the humanities.
 With the phenomenal impact of new technologies on the
academic and other sectors in the society, those scholars who
realise the need to incorporate the use of new technologies into
their works may be able to retain their relevance
TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF SCHOLARSHIP IN
THE HUMANITIES

54. digital technologies provide the most critical approach to
transform our research and learning in the humanities
these new technologies can be used to reposition research and
scholarship in creative and cultural scholarship and enhance our
individual and corporate productive ventures in the humanities .

55. The following are four critical areas in which DH can transform research and scholarship in the humanities.
(A)Research: By deploying DH approach our universities can set up academic units or centres that focus
on this new discipline. They can: (i) explore and apply computer-based approaches and digital tools for
research and teaching in the humanities;
(B)Capacity Building/Mentoring: DH has been credited with having the potential to build the capacity of
established scholars and researchers as well as provide the platform and resources to develop junior
researchers and doctoral students
(C)Policy. Beyond the academia, DH has a wider relevance and application. For example, DH centres can
(i) initiate and promote national debate on the relevance of science and technology in the humanities
thus helping to shape government policies;
(D) Community Engagement: DH & DC have provided the most vibrant platforms through which
humanities scholars can positively and impactfully engage the public and consumers of our research
products through cultural and creative scholarship projects

56.  Khan and his colleagues (2015) identify the struggle for identity by Digital
Humanities.
 They equally counsel that further research needs to be carried in order to
understand broad applicability of this concept in different facets of human
life including creation, preservation and dissemination of cultural records
at broader level.
 More involvement of different stake holders including faculty members,
researchers, students, archivists, etc. and promotion of collaborative
projects in order to explore and identify various research issues concerning
the concept needs to be prioritized at global level. This scenario can result
in more organised and nascent research and development activities in the
area. (p.190)
 Infrastructural Deficits, lack of institutional support, unwillingness of
individuals and communities to surrender cultural heritage, absence of
clear policy on digitising cultural heritage among others continue to
hamper the work of scholars in this field.
CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL CULTURE

57. REFERENCES
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59. Professor Tunde Ope-Davies, PhD
Professor of English and Digital Linguistics
Visiting Professor & Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation, Germany
Director, Centre for Digital Humanities, University of
Lagos
Email: bopeibi@unilag.edu.ng