Digital Arts & Humanities

The arts, humanities, and education are fundamentally concerned with all aspects of what is meaningful to humans. The arts widen and sharpen our perception of the world and others; the humanities train us to understand complex interrelations; and education is concerned with preparing people to make independent decisions and develop a resilient character. Acting ethically requires the combination of all three aspects of precise perception, complex understandings, and independent decision making. The digital age poses many ethical concerns of enabling moral violations, invisibilizing ethical concerns, changing standards of behavior, and radicalizing minority views. The digital age also has transformed the arts, humanities, and education in many ways and extended their possibilities. For many centuries, the arts, humanities and education were aligned with the ethical concern of their age. The huge demand of our age is to match and realign the novel ethical concerns of the digital age with the transformed arts, humanities and education.

Digital Arts, Humanities and Education at IU

Indiana University is famous for its arts and humanities programs, including the world-renowned Jacobs School of Music. The university has launched digital arts and humanities programs on both Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses. It is also home to the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, the Consortium for the Study of Religion Ethics and Society (which hosts a workshop series on Ethics in the Information Age), the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions, and the Lake Institute in the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Keywords: digital arts and humanities, education, and research, digital tools for creating, capturing, sharing, and storing works; the role of arts and humanities in envisioning the future and understanding ethical challenges; respecting human diversity; relationships and empathy in a digital age; changes of culture; digital technologies in education and research; research ethics; online education; and tools for teaching character and ethics

Convener(s): Fritz Breithaupt, Sara Konrath