This conference aims to address the often-overlooked genealogies of digital history and the recurring issue of »blind spots« within the field regarding its own past. Many of the epistemological and methodological questions we face today were already explored by previous generations. These explorations were often accompanied by rhetoric emphasizing the new, revolutionary, and disruptive nature of digital history. Researchers still find it difficult to assess their own achievements from a historical perspective. Our conference seeks to bring together digital historians from diverse contexts and regions to shed light on the history of digital history. While certainly not exhaustive, the conference will focus on the importance of historicizing developments, methods, and practices in digital history, identifying existing research gaps, and highlighting past achievements.
Date: 23-25 October 2024
Place: German Historical Institute Paris/Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris (DHIP), 8, rue du Parc-Royal, 75003 Paris http://www.dhi-paris.fr
Organised by: Mareike König (DHIP), Julianne Nyhan (TU Darmstadt/University College London), Sébastien Poublanc (CNRS, FRAMESPA), Jane Winters (School of Advanced Study, University of London), Gerben Zaagsma (Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg).
With the financial support of: the C²DH, DHIP, NFDI4Memory, School of Advanced Study, University of London, TU Darmstadt.
Free entrance, please register under: https://t1p.de/uppfp
Online participation available: https://t1p.de/i5i73
Programme
Wednesday, 23 October 2024
| 14.00 - 17.45 |
Pre-Conference Workshops |
| 14.00 |
Andrew Flinn (University College London) An Oral History Approach to the History of Digital History – Critical Questions and Practices |
| Pauline Spychala (DHIP) How to Get Started with Handwritten Text Recognition – Using eScriptorium in Historical Research |
|
| 16.00 |
Coffee break |
| 16.15 |
Torsten Hiltmann (Humboldt University of Berlin), Mareike König (DHIP) Integrating AI in Historical Sciences Education: Experience Exchange on Teaching (with) ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence |
| 18.00 |
Welcome and Introduction by the organisers |
| 18.30 |
Keynote Hannah Ishmael (King’s College, London) Resisting Borders: Archives as Technology from Analogue to Digital Engaging the frameworks of ‘technology’ and ‘space’ this talk discusses the role of colonial administration and archives in creating and maintaining physical and intellectual borders. However, whilst the colonial archive marks the starting point of this talk, I will focus on how Black communities (with a focus on Britain) have contested and negotiated these borders already in the Analogue and continue to do so in the Digital. Dr. Hannah Ishmael is Lecturer in Digital Culture and Race at Kings College London, and previously she was the Collections and Research Manager at Black Cultural Archives. Hannah’s PhD research focussed on the development of Black-led archives in London and her current research looks at the relationship between archives, borders and technologies. |
| 20.00 | Reception. Followed by dinner for conference participants at the IHA. |
Thursday, 24 October 2024
| 09.00 |
Panel 1: Perspectives on the History of Digital History |
| Opening Roundtable: Stéphane Lamassé (Univ. Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Helle Strandgaard Jensen (Aarhus University), Jörg Hörnschemeyer (German Historical Institute Rome), Astrid Menz (Orient-Institut Istanbul), moderated by Julianne Nyhan (TU Darmstadt/University College London), and Jane Winters (School of Advanced Study, University of London) |
|
| Gerben Zaagsma (Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg) Facing the History Machine: Towards Histories of Digital History |
|
| 10.30 |
Coffee break |
| 11.00 |
Panel 2: Historicising Digital History: Geographic Views Chair: Mareike König (DHIP) |
| Sébastien Poublanc (CNRS, FRAMESPA) “Tomorrow’s Historian Will Either Be a Programmer or He Won’t Be”: The Historiography of French Digital History |
|
| Lik Hang Tsui (City University of Hong Kong) Digital Humanities in Traditional Chinese Scholarship: Early Digitisation Efforts and Their Impacts on Digital History, 1980-2009 |
|
| 12.00 |
Lunch break |
| 13.30 |
Continuation of Panel 2 Chair: Torsten Hiltmann (Humboldt University of Berlin) |
| Judith Zimmermann (University of Salzburg) On the Inside of German and Austrian Universities: Pioneering Pathways in Digital History Research and Teaching in the period 2000-2021 |
|
| Jörg Wettlaufer (Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony, Göttingen) Digital History and Digital Humanities in the German Speaking Areas. Twenty Years of Cooperation und Segregation, 2004–2024 |
|
| 14.30 |
Panel 3: Digital Editions Chair: Helle Strandgaard Jensen (Aarhus University) |
| Kajsa Weber (Lund University) From Edited Volumes to Digitised Documents: Historical Research and Reviews of Remediated Primary Sources, 1881–2023 |
|
| Alexander Isacsson (Lund University) The Precursor of Mass Digitisation? Historical Source Editing and Media Transfer Prior to the Digital Age |
|
| 15.30 |
Coffee break |
| 16.00 |
Panel 4: Outreach and Teaching in Digital History Chair: Jane Winters (School of Advanced Study, University of London) |
| Sofia Papastamkou (Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg) Teaching Historians “the ways of the machine”: Proto-debates, Actors, and Practices on Code Literacy in the Humanities, 1966-1987 |
|
| Katharina Hering (German Historical Institute Washington), Elizabeth Brown (Library of Congress, Washington D.C.) Communicating the History of Digital History to the Public: What Can We Learn from American Memory? |
|
| 17.00 | Free evening |
Friday, 25 October 2024
| 09.00 |
Panel 5: Historicising Digital Methods Chair: Pauline Spychala (DHIP) |
| Katrin Moeller (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg) The Long Road to the Digital, Standardised Classification of Historical Professions: 1568 to 2024! A Contribution to the Methodological and Digital Development of Vocabularies |
|
| Jascha Merijn Schmitz (Humboldt University of Berlin) Are Simulations History? Reappraising an Old Digital History Method through the Context and History of its Usage and Discourse |
|
| Werner Scheltjens (University of Bamberg) The Maritime Dimension of Digital History |
|
| 10.30 |
Coffee break |
| 11.00 |
Continuation of Panel 5 Chair: Hélène Noizet (Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Edgar Lejeune (Université Paris Cité) ‘Open’ or ‘Close’ Research Instruments? Conflicting Rationales in the Organization of Early Digital Medieval History in Europe, 1960-1990 |
|
| Michael Piotrowski (Université de Lausanne) Looking Back to Look Ahead: Bachelard’s Phenomenotechnique and Gardin’s Logicist Approach in Digital History |
|
| 12.00 |
General Discussion Chair: Vadim Popov (Max Weber Network Eastern Europe) Mareike König (DHIP), Concluding Remarks |
| 13.00 | End of the conference and snack to round off |
Programme Committee
- Olivier le Deuff (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)
- Torsten Hiltmann (Humboldt University of Berlin)
- Mareike König (IHA Paris)
- Stéphane Lamassé (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
- Hélène Noizet (Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
- Julianne Nyhan (TU Darmstadt)
- Alexandra Ortolja-Baird (University of Portsmouth)
- Sébastien Poublanc (Université Toulouse)
- Martin Schmitt (univ. Paderborn)
- Pauline Spychala (IHA Paris)
- Helle Strandgaard Jensen (Aarhus University)
- Jane Winters (School of Advanced Study, University of London)
- Gerben Zaagsma (Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg)
