Digital Humanities: mission accomplished? A scholarly literature analysis

Digital Humanities have been evolving throughout the parallel evolution of computers, software and networking techniques, as well as the different attitudes of the interested scholars. Since the earliest historical phases of this research field, scholars have been debating on whether it can be considered to be a new academic discipline and whether it is revolutionary in nature. About twenty years ago, the early denotation of Humanities Computing evolved to the present one, and deep changes intervened in digital information technologies, as well as in their humanities applications. This paper accounts for the relevant scholarly debate, distinguishing between the early period and the most recent years, then tries to frame this process in a model of scientific revolution.