Emancipating humanities: communicating between the real and the virtual

Abstract

The article offers a summary of a number of approaches to contemporary humanities in which the main dynamics of research and methodology could be characterised as emancipation. The humanities is seen here not merely as an open discipline, but it is viewed as a method of research able of accepting its relational and indeterminate progress. The soft dimension of its analysis, which is also rooted in an individual biography of the researcher, results from a particular attention paid to other than human subjects. In particular, the humanities related to digital culture and virtual reality needs to redefine its research methods but also communicate with other sources of perception and experience. This relational nature of contemporary humanities in which it reflects the complexity of multiple subjects and perspectives challenges more traditional positions of analysis but simultaneously offers a chance of development.