Digital Humanities hosts an ongoing discussion about the relevance of this new field of studies in the history of philosophy and science, focusing on questions, tips, and practices to engage proactively with the many tools offered by the digital humanities.
Digital Research Objects: An Interview with Tehri Marttila
March 2023 – Terhi Marttila is a digital artist who programs works for the web browser. She works predominantly with voice and texts but also adds elements of play and playfulness to her works. Terhi’s work addresses topics such as migration, relationship to place, gendered beauty ideals and ageing. As I started a collaboration with her, I realized how insightful her ideas were about using digital means to express research questions. Here’s a sneak peek of a conversation we’d be delighted to continue with you!
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The Arabic and Latin Glossary and Corpus Projects: Medieval Philosophy Meets Digital Humanities, with Interviews with Prof. Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Andreas Büttner
February 2023 – Professor Dag Nikolaus Hasse and his team at the Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg (Germany) are among the major contributors to the development of digital humanities in the field of medieval philosophy with two (complementary) long-term projects: the “Arabic and Latin Glossary” (ALGloss), since 2005, and “Arabic and Latin Corpus” (ALCorpus), since 2016. The ALGloss, funded by the Deutsche Vorschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and previously by the Volkswagen Foundation (Hannover), is a freely accessible online lexicon of the vocabulary of medieval authors writing in Arabic and their medieval Latin translators. It is based on 42 sources and covers terminology from a variety of different sciences, including philosophy, theology, astronomy, medicine, botany, among others. The ALCorpus, funded by the DFG’s Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, is a digital collection of Arabic-Latin translations of the 10th to 14th centuries. It comprehends a total of 104 digital texts, in Arabic and in Latin, up until this date. Fifty more texts, many of which related to the field of magic and the occult sciences, will soon be made available.
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Games, the digital and the philosophical
January 2023 – Digital Humanities is a world of possibilities. The fact that it means something concrete (as using digital technologies to learn, teach and spread knowledge pertaining to the Humanities), nonetheless, also means that it could be anything. We are then left with the search for what matters about Digital Humanities, how is it different from “non-digital” Humanities, and why is it necessary for the Humanities? Different fields would answer with their particularities, but in general, the picture contains the following details: in academic research, automatic text analysis, AI, and large databases have become standard means of inquiry; in education, online classes and web resources have made it possible to overcome social distances. The availability of digital content and the proximity between people in online environments has already begun to change the Humanities in very positive ways. The digital is also a source of creativity. Having to adapt a very classical canon for doing things to a whole new system, a new language in some cases, is bringing the best out of theory and practice.
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Minimal Computing: Reseña de dos cursos
Diciembre 2022 – El curso brindado por las universidad de Maryland (UMD, EE.UU.) y del Salvador (USAL, Argentina) es parte de la iniciativa “Global Classrooms”, cuyo objetivo consistió en brindar todas las herramientas necesarias para “crear y evaluar sitios web desde una perspectiva crítica y centrada en las humanidades”. A partir de la filosofía del minimal computing, el curso privilegió “el uso de tecnologías abiertas, la propiedad de los datos y el código, la reducción de la infraestructura informática y, en consecuencia, el impacto ambiental”. El resultado esperado es que los participantes, al finalizar su formación, estén capacitados para realizar ediciones críticas o académicas de los textos fuentes, incorporar herramientas digitales a sus investigaciones, clases y publicaciones.
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Filologa e matematica. Il percorso formativo di Margherita Fantoli nelle Digital Humanities
November 2022 – This month, we interview Margherita Fantoli, who leads many projects in the Digital Humanities at KU Leuven. During the interview, she told us about her interests, occupation and current projects. Margherita gave us some insights about her work as a digital humanist and the tools she uses. The conversation also expanded on Margherita’s training from her beginnings as a philologist and mathematician to her professional development in the Digital Humanities. The short interview with Margherita will let you to know more about Margherita, her personal and academic story, the projects she is carrying and – of course – those which she would like to develop.
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A Review of “Digital Storytelling Pilot Course”
October 2022 – Building a narrative around a scientific concept, or around a corpus, for example, will change how your work is perceived; and the way you communicate it will also change how the public reacts to your message. Having the skills to adapt research language to simplified, unambiguous and, at the same time, captivating storytelling can do a lot for academic research and the communities it wants to impact. We have all seen some of that during Covid-19, with huge amounts of data visualization research supporting public action. Digital Storytelling is, to put it very simply, telling a story using digital tools. It is a figure of style, one could say, that makes use of digital media (image, sound, and movement) to captivate and entangle the user. Depending on the tool one choses, it can also imply the possibility for the user to interact and take part of the story. This means that there is a higher chance that the message and/or meaning of the story gets through to its viewers.
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Codificación de textos medievales con TEI. La experiencia de Nicolás Vaughan en las Humanidades Digitales
Septiembre 2022 – En esta ocasión entrevistamos a Nicolás Vaughan, quien nos cuenta su ingreso “accidental” a las Humanidades Digitales, y el modo en que estas nuevas herramientas han logrado vencer algunos de sus prejuicios sobre su uso en el trabajo académico. Nos habla también sobre cómo las utiliza durante sus clases y cuáles son los objetivos que persigue como docente, al momento de presentarlas a sus estudiantes. Nos ofrece, además, dos reflexiones finales. La primera tiene que ver con las bondades del uso de herramientas open source en investigación (publicación incluida). En la segunda, hace un análisis de la situación de las HDs en la región.
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Humanidades Digitales en contexto: Entrevista con Gimena del Río Riande sobre los desafíos y las oportunidades en América Latina
Julio 2022 – En esta entrevista repasamos los inicios de Gimena del Río Riande en el campo de las Humanidades Digitales, algunas reflexiones en torno a la tarea e identidad del humanista digital y, finalmente, nos comparte su visión sobre los desafíos y las oportunidades que las HDs comportan para Latinoamérica.
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The Road to SCTA: Scholastic Commentaries and Texts Archive – An Interview with Jeffrey Witt
June 2022 – In this interview we explore Jeffrey’s approach to the DHs, and the limitations he found when working and presenting medieval manuscripts. His interests in creating a double apparatus led him to the XML-TEI (and related tools) and the possibility of separating the semantic-data he was creating from how it was presented. He also gives some insights on the SCTA project he is leading, as well as what benefits can a scholar get when working in the Digital Humanities.
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IPM Monthly y las Humanidades Digitales
Mayo 2022 – La génesis de esta idea tiene que ver, debo confesarlo, con una deficiencia propia, como he reconocido en otra ocasión: “las Humanidades Digitales han permanecido completamente veladas para mí en toda mi formación, de grado hasta posgrado. No hubo una sola vez en que un docente, cualquiera, desde su escritorio haya articulado la voz Humanidades Digitales” (Lázaro, 2021, p. 50). Pero claro, esto puede responder –entre otras muchas cosas– a lo que muy bien señalan dos referentes de este entrecruzamiento de disciplinas. En primer lugar, Gimena del Río Riande, cuando escribe que “el desarrollo y la aplicación de las Humanidades Digitales en los programas universitarios y de investigación de los países de habla hispana resulta buen ejemplo de la dificultad de transposición de la disciplina (o línea de trabajo, método, campo o etiqueta), tal y como se construyó dentro de los English Departments. Historia, cultura, condicionamientos socioeconómicos, moldean de un modo completamente diferente, a un lado y al otro del océano, a las Humanidades Digitales hispánicas”.
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IPM Monthly 