The increasing integration of human society into the digital world affects every aspect of individual and collective life. This shift presents both a challenge and an opportunity for the humanities to engage critically and thoughtfully with the philosophical, ethical, and computational challenges facing human society and knowledge in the coming decades.

At the forefront of this engagement stands the field of Digital Humanities. In recent years, Digital Humanities has undergone a significant transformation—from a technical, methodological adjunct to traditional disciplines into an independent field of research. Today, it both draws from and challenges the conventional knowledge domains and investigative methods of the humanities, while redefining the subject and scope of humanistic inquiry—whether that subject is a text, map, archaeological find, manuscript, language corpus, sound, or image.

The Digital Humanities specialization is the first of its kind in Israeli academia. It is designed to introduce all graduate students to this dynamic and rapidly evolving field. The program combines a master’s degree in an existing department or discipline with a specialization in Digital Humanities, creating close and continuous integration with the faculty’s graduate programs while enriching and expanding the training of master’s students in the humanities.

 

Program Objectives and Distinctive Features

This specialization introduces master’s students to a range of theoretical approaches in Digital Humanities, with an emphasis on the intersections between digital methods and the traditional fields of study within the humanities.

It encourages critical reflection on the use of digital tools in the study of classic humanistic subjects, as well as on the widespread use of computational tools in shaping both human and machine knowledge (artificial intelligence).

The program trains students to engage thoughtfully and critically with the computational tools that form the foundation of digital humanities research. It supports their academic development and fosters meaningful, productive dialogue between scholars of the humanities and researchers from other disciplines who play a significant role in shaping the current landscape of human and machine knowledge.

Students also gain digital literacy and essential computational skills that will support them in both academic research and careers beyond the university.

This specialization is open to all master’s students in the Faculty of Humanities—in both research and non-research tracks, and across all departments. It is an integral part of the Faculty’s Center for Digital Humanities Research, and is fully embedded within the Faculty of Humanities’ master’s degree programs.

 

Admission Requirements

Admission requirements are identical to those for all departments within the Faculty of Humanities:

• Research Track A final undergraduate grade average (GPA) of 90 or above in the discipline chosen for graduate study. For students in a qualifying year for the master’s program: a final undergraduate GPA of 90 or above, and an average of 90 or above in at least 16 credits of prerequisite courses.
• Non-Research Track A final undergraduate GPA of at least 80 in the field of intended graduate study.

Additional Requirement for Both Tracks An interview with the head of the Digital Humanities specialization, Dr. Renana Keydar.

 

Program Scope

The Digital Humanities specialization is part of the existing master’s degree programs in the Faculty of Humanities and consists of 12–16 credits. It is open to students in both research and non-research tracks.

Students enrolled in this specialization must fulfill the general master’s program requirements for their track (typically 20–24 credits), in addition to completing the specialization’s core and elective courses. The curriculum includes core and elective courses

in the student’s chosen discipline (20–24 credits), along with courses in the Digital Humanities specialization (12–16 credits).

Required Courses (6 credits):

• Humanistic Research in the Digital Age – Renana Keydar (2 credits)
• Computational Methods in the Humanities: From Theory to Research Project – Barak Sober (2 credits)
• Introduction to Programming for Humanists – Python – Ofer Elior, Programming Instruction Unit (2 credits)

Exemption may be granted to students with prior programming experience or to those who completed an equivalent course during their undergraduate studies.

Mandatory Elective Courses (4–6 credits):

• Textual Research Lab in the Humanities – Renana Keydar (2 credits)
• Audio-Visual Processing Lab – Barak Sober (2 credits + 2 credits for practical workshop)
• Quantitative Research Methods – Elena Makarevich (2 credits)

Elective Courses (2–6 credits):

• Introduction to Geo-Informatics – Yair Grinberger, Department of Geography (3 credits)
• Introduction to NLP: Computation and Meaning – Omri Abend, Department of Cognitive Science and School of Computer Science (3 credits)
• Corpus Linguistics – Elena Makarevich or Einat Rubinstein, Department of Linguistics (2 credits)
• The Extra Dimension: 3D Computational Archaeology – Ortal Harush, Institute of Archaeology (2 credits)
• Digital Research in the Humanities: From Idea to Product – Orly Lewis, Department of Classical Studies (2 credits)
• Building and Analyzing Databases – Yael Netzer (2 credits)
• Advanced Seminar on Applications in Digital Humanities – Taught by visiting international scholars
• One-Week Research Seminar – Required for all students in the specialization track

Progression from year to year in the research track is subject to the general progression requirements of the Faculty of Humanities.

 

For more information, please contact the head of the program, Dr. Renana Keydar.