I’m proposing a discussion-y session on the role of the physical in the digital humanities. I’m coming at this as someone with an interest in the material history of books and texts and who works mostly with physical library collections. But I’d love to have a broad conversation about the physical structures/formats that we use to do digital work [ie. hardware, work spaces, etc.] and the way we account for and represent the physical attributes of objects when we create digital surrogates. We could also talk about physical computing and get theoretical about possibilities like what Gary Frost calls the “interdependence of paper and screen,” digital metaphors of physicality, and more. I’d love comments/additions/ideas!

A couple jumping-off points:

Trettien and Elish. “Acts of Translation: Digital Humanities and the Archive Interface.” MIT 6 Conference, 2009

“It’s time to bridge the gap between the physical and the virtual—time to use more than just your fingers to interact with your computer. Step outside of the confines of the basic computer and into the broader world of computing.”
— Tom Igoe, Physical Computing