UNC Receives Digital Humanities Grant

The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill has received a nearly 1.4-million-dollar grant to expand digital humanities research.

Asma Khalid: If you're like me, you might be wondering what exactly is digital humanities research.

Well, once upon a time, academics researched without computers, they physically had to go to an archive. These days, there's a hyper-abundance of information online.

Robert Allen: Huge quantities of data, more data than any one scholar can possibly go through in a lifetime

Robert Allen is an American Studies Professor at UNC and one of the people responsible for securing this grant money.  He says digital humanities helps people sift through all that online info.

Robert Allen: So how do we change the way that we work in the humanities? How do we change the questions that we ask? How do we change the relationship with our public at a public university as a result of these new opportunities?

The grant money will also help hire new faculty and train additional grad students.