Responsible Computing and the Climate Crisis: Tools, Principles, and Actions (DHSI 2026)

Description

This course surveys several important tools and approaches to understand how digital research impacts the climate, and what we can do to think through and make responsible decisions as DH researchers. The course will broadly follow the organisation of the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition’s Toolkit (https://sas-dhrh.github.io/dhcc-toolkit/), a collaborative project which I have coordinated since its release in 2022 and on which I have subsequently taught several workshops. The toolkit provides advice on minimal computing, maximal computing, institutional change, working practices, grant writing, and teaching.

The intended audience for the course is broad: it can accommodate graduate students, academics, librarians and archivists, and academic administrators. Given that digital tools (hardware and software) are now ubiquitous and have environmental consequences, we all have to think carefully about the tools we choose and the ways we consider responsible practices within our professional contexts.

This course will offer a blend of hands-on computational work with theoretical reflections and pragmatic suggestions for change, while also showing how responsible environmental decisions connect to social justice issues. It will rely on accessible hardware and software (e.g., laptops and particularly open-source tools).

Instructor(s)

Christopher Ohge is Senior Lecturer in Digital Approaches to Literature at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, where he teaches in the MA programme in the History of the Book. He has been the lead coordinator of the toolkit that the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition released in 2022 and has participated in several events and workshops to highlight the environmental impacts of digital technologies. He is also the author of the book Publishing Scholarly Editions: Archives, Computing, and Experience (2021) and other writings on nineteenth-century literature, textual editing, and digital humanities.