The Use of Digital Humanities to Disseminate and Simplify Scholarly Articles to Non-Scholars

Abstract

Kirschenbaum (2015) suggests that digital humanities today is about a scholarship (and a pedagogy) that is publicly visible in ways to which we are generally unaccustomed. Although essential to their work, practitioners abstain from reading research and scholarly articles due to the jargons and technical details that dominate those papers (Spiro, 2017). On the other hand, scholars and researchers are always committed to a set of highly crafted standards that govern academic publications. This session explores the role of digital humanities as a liaison between the complexity of scholarly publications and the simplicity of reception that characterizes the mentality of the non-scholarly audience. Based on Draxler's (2009) concept of openness of digital humanities in disseminating knowledge among the public, the presentation aims at exploring and then providing scholars and researchers with digital tools that will allow them to reach larger audiences than the few who read academic journals, participate in public exchanges, and become more visible to non-scholars. Ultimately, openness promotes the larger goal of the humanities to democratize knowledge to reach out to  public, share academic discoveries and invite an array of audiences to participate in knowledge production (Spiro, 2017)