Introduction to Digital Arts and Humanities

  • Spring 2026 (21284)
  • Number of credits: 4 (14 weeks)
  • Instructor: David Wrisley (djw12@)
  • Pre-requisites or co-requisites: none
  • Cross-listing: This course counts an IM elective.

This course is the foundation course for the forthcoming minor in Digital Arts and Humanities. It is taught in person in Abu Dhabi, but is open to registration by study away students. Capacity will be limited to 15.

BRIEF COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Introduction to Digital Arts and Humanities examines different intersections between digital culture and objects of the digitized human record in the context of the rapidly evolving world of platforms and data. The course examines how the digital and the computational can provide new ways to explore and to study the arts and humanities. Key components of the course include varieties of data in the arts and humanities, the synergies of thinking and doing, collaborative and project-based work, intersections of human and machine intelligence, as well as global disparities of cultural data. Methods introduced in the course may vary slightly from term to term, but could include web publishing or text editing, digital textual analysis, data modeling and visualization, algorithmic study of images, sound computing, social network analysis or digital mapping. The course assumes no prior technical skills, but a willingness to explore new technologies is essential for success.

Element Day Timing Location
Lab Tu 3:20PM-6:00PM A5 Social Sciences Room 002
Class Th 3:20PM-4:35PM A2 Computational Research Room 020
Office hours 😊 TBA TBA and by appt A6 L01 1151
Ramadan in person OH TBA TBA TBA

During Ramadan the Tuesday session will be slightly shorter to accommodate preparation before Iftar.

To see an archive of previous versions of this course, see here