Spot on! Loyola in Chicago has turned out to be a "happy accident" for me, since I came in definitely interested in medieval literature and have found faculty to nurture my burgeoning interest in digital media. The trick is to pay close attention to faculty interests and then communicate with them about shared interests.

Hello! Interesting post. Just like to point out that you can also come to University College London, UK, to do a phd in digital humanities, and we run a very comprehensive MA program in Electronic Communication and Publishing, which includes most aspects of "Digital Humanities".

I would also suggest that there is another route... it is possible, and desirable in many cases, to actually do a MSc or PHd in Computing or Engineering Science to complement an undergrad in humanities subjects. Its another potential (and better funded) route, and the resulting qualification means that you can contribute to understanding of the computational aspects of Digital Humanities. Granted, this route is not for everyone.... (but it stood me in good stead when getting a job after my doctorate). Something to think about.

I would certainly add Brown to the list. There are several grant projects in digital humanities going on, and the Scholarly Technology Group - http://www.stg.brown.edu/ - continues to rock my world.

Although Brown does not have a digital-new-manities program as such, it does have something like an independent major on a doctoral level: if you are already a student in one of the departments and none of the available programs (including the one you're in) suits your research needs, go ahead. Get a faculty committee together, write an extensive description of the program, go before the Graduate Council and hey, maybe they'll approve you. This is how I'm doing a PhD in Humanities Computing, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin is pursuing one in New Media.

Originally I came in to the Italian Studies Department, and it is there that I'm now project-directing the Virtual Humanities Lab for its two-year grant period. As for job prospects... well, we'll see next year, but it doesn't look too bleak. There's a lot of work to be done.

Matt, your post seems to take for granted that within literary studies, digital humanities are to be associated with English departments. That being a sore spot, I'll point out explicitly that one can do digital humanities in any humanities department, including other languages and literatures. In my time at Brown, I watched my university's English department gain standing while foreign-literature departments lost it.* I hope that the digital humanities crowd will not make the same mistake that U.S. universities have been making for decades and summarily dismiss literary studies' "little" guys. Because dismissal is the cultural default in the U.S., we've got to have an actively inclusionary attitude, and so here I am. :)

* A few years ago, under a prior [nightmare] administration, the German, Italian and Slavic depts. at Brown had their PhD programs more or less scrapped, in some cases to *possibly* be re-instituted after several years pending nebulous review. Part of the story was, we weren't financially feasible. A major research university with the best hors d'oeuvres in any Rhode Island institution told us that.

There was much fighting, there is now a new university president, and the programs are back. But do you see this ever happening to an English department in the U.S.? Yeah, me neither.

During the whole bruhaha, the man then in charge of library circulation wrote in a newspaper letter to the editor something like: "We don't *need* PhDs in Italian. If I want to learn Italian, I'll go to Italy." That tipped me off as to how deeply rooted this anglo-centric problem is, if a librarian goes around making statements like that.

At the time, I wrote a scaaathing, seething rebuttal that got published along with another one from a graduate student in French (whose program wasn't even in danger). We made our points, he wrote a response that didn't address those points, the conversation died: nobody was listening anyway, with the university in general administrative upheaval. Lo and behold, a couple of years later this person was sitting on the Graduate Council when my special-studies-PhD application went through. We had an interesting conversation after my hearing.

So, yeah. Digital humanities. Not digital literary studies, not digital history, not digital philosophy. But most especially not digital English-Language Disciplines.

Thanks for the comments everyone. As I said at the outset, my view is partial and idiosyncratic. Please keep further suggestions coming!

Having to complete coursework outside of my field has definitely not been a liability for me. Often I can find some way to do work for the course that is also relevant to my interests (like my paper for Theresa's medieval seminar), or else it's just a nice break and some practice in thinking about literature from a different direction. I'm still taking non-digital-studies courses now that I don't have to anymore.

I'd also suggest the community college for a good place to start for students with limited money and other resources but with deep aspirations in these areas. At my own institution in Connecticut writers, programmers, and designers in a developing new media program are ready to prepare students for transfer, and we'd love to send people to London, Iowa, or Maryland.