As schoolchildren, we are being taught that studies related to human society and culture are coined as Humanities or arts whereas the study related to the natural world is termed as Science. The second thing taught is that these two disciplines are completely different like the two different poles. This leads to inequalities when it comes to development career opportunities. Currently, in most of the universities, there are different campuses for humanities courses and centers for STEM, separating the two disciplines. It is not just the infrastructural issue but science and arts are separated academically as well. Scientists don’t intersect with linguistic professors or sociologists or historians. Though a lot has been done to bridge the gap between the two disciplines but still apprehension exists between the two cultures.
Also, it cannot be denied that rapid technological advancement has led to the predominance of scientific inventions in a modern society. This has highlighted the glorification of STEM fields such as engineering, medicine, and computer science. Be it America or Asia or Europe, parents pridefully boast that their child is studying engineering or mathematics, whereas, on the other hand students opting arts or humanities are bombarded with the questions like, “what are you going to do with that degree?”
The other potential reason could be the traditional research methods used in the humanities by the researchers who are from non-technical background, lacking the awareness of potential contribution of Human Language Technologies. On the other hand, researchers from HLT background are least likely familiar with the research methodologies employed by humanities researchers.
By introducing science to art and art to science, we can bring benefits to both disciplines, and society at large.Living in an interdisciplinary world, multifaceted problems in digital humanities need interdisciplinary solutions. The two disciplines should get along well with others to pursue a better experience of living. In pursuit of collaboration of both science and humanities, individuals must abandon their preconceived notions of one another and should understand one another’s point of view.
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