Robinson Crusoe and the Robinsonades are a major part of digital humanities scholarship, particularly in the fields of English, Education, History, Religion, and the Fine Arts. Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719 by Daniel Defoe and has remained a popular adventure and colonialist text to this day. The University of Florida’s Digital Collections (Baldwin Library) has a subset collection on Robinson Crusoe – ufdc.ufl.edu/defoe – that allows scholars to compare the numerous editions of the text since its first printing.
I would like to have a discussion about how Robinson Crusoe is used by digital scholars. In particular, I would like the discussion to emphasize how Robinson Crusoe is used in the public sphere and the classroom to create new interpretations of digital information and metadata.