DHO2012-EMC.pdf is my draft presentation for Digital Humanities Congress, Sheffield.
Category Archives: Digital Humanities
CFP: DH2013 University of Nebraska: Digital Humanities 2013 (“Freedom to Explore”)
http://dh2013.unl.edu/call-for-proposals/
Digital Humanities 2013 (“Freedom to Explore”) – Call for Papers
Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations
Hosted by the University of Nebraska
16-19 July 2013
http://dh2013.unl.edu/
Paper/Poster/Panel deadline: 1 November 2012
Workshop proposal deadline: 15 February 2013
HTML5 and touch screens
I will be giving a talk on Monday on playful touchscreen interfaces and although built in Flash, Li Wang’s touch screen taoist games may now also work in html 5, and across PC, touch screen PC and mobile touch screens! Great progress seems to have been made.
Some reference links for further exploring
- sketchpad online drawing app http://mudcu.be/sketchpad/
- tutorial http://www.html5rocks.com/en/mobile/cross-device/
- msdn and touchscreen http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/hh563503.aspx
- with flash http://www.2morodocs.com/2010/05/think-outside-the-computer-touchscreens-html5-flash/
- html 5 game examples http://html5games.com/category/iphoneipadmobile/
- html 5 drawing on an ipad http://tenderlovingcode.com/blog/web-apps/html5-canvas-drawing-on-ipad/
North and South American research centres in cultural heritage, digital heritage, virtual heritage
USA
- Virginia Scholar`s Lab http://www.scholarslab.org/ and Virtual World Heritage Laboratory http://vwhl.clas.virginia.edu/
- UCLA http://www.cdh.ucla.edu/ and ETC (http://etc.ucla.edu/) and related library project http://www.cni.org/topics/digital-preservation/laboratory-for-digital-cultural-heritage/
- Stanford (archaeology: https://www.stanford.edu/dept/archaeology/cgi-bin/drupal/about-stanford-archaeology-center) and many DH centres http://humanexperience.stanford.edu/digital
- Berkeley-Digital Heritage Egypt http://townsendlab.berkeley.edu/taxonomy/term/330 and courses such as http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/content/studio-multimedia-authoring-archaeology-investigating-past-through-new-media-technologies
- Indiana http://iri.informatics.iupui.edu/
- MSU http://chi.anthropology.msu.edu/
- MIT hyperstudio http://hyperstudio.mit.edu
- George Mason University Department of History and Art History, Center for History and New Media (CHNM)
CANADA
- Concordia http://digitalhistory.concordia.ca/ and http://storytelling.concordia.ca/ and http://storytelling.concordia.ca/oralhistory/projects/stories-matter2.jpg
- Simon Fraser Intellectual Property Issues http://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/
- nb virtual museum of Canada http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/index-eng.jsp and Canadian Heritage Information Network http://www.rcip-chin.gc.ca/sgc-cms/nouvelles-news/anglais-english/
- Western Ontario http://www.history.uwo.ca/gradstudies/publichistory/digitalhistory.html
- Lavel UNESCO chair in cultural heritage http://www.unesco.org/en/university-twinning-and-networking/access-by-region/europe-and-north-america/canada/unesco-chair-in-cultural-heritage-408/NB Issues by IMA http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/028.nsf/eng/00244.html
SOUTH AMERICA (more to be added)
- Brazil (research notes) http://webscience.org.br/wiki/images/d/d5/Dodebei.dantas.pdf
Australian and NZ research centres in cultural heritage, digital heritage, virtual heritage
Australian
- Deakin University Australia Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/chcap/ and courses at http://deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/chcap/ch-ms/postgrad-ch-ms.php
- Flinders Digital heritage and gaming and.. http://blogs.flinders.edu.au/flinders-news/2012/02/09/preserving-our-digital-heritage/
- Monash http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/about/priorities/cultural-heritage/
- Curtin http://humanities.curtin.edu.au/schools/BE/cultural_heritage.cfm and new digital humanities lab http://blogs.curtin.edu.au/humanities/2012/05/09/new-labs-nurture-digital-creativity-at-curtin/
- UNSW http://monash.edu/research/capabilities/leading/cultural.html
- University of Queensland has a course in digital heritage http://www.uq.edu.au/study/course.html?course_code=MUSM7011
- University of Canberra Cultural Heritage Research Cluster http://www.canberra.edu.au/faculties/arts-design/research/active-research-groups/cultural-heritage-research-cluster
- University of Sydney Arts eResearch http://sydney.edu.au/arts/eresearch/
New Zealand
- Portal http://humanitiesmachine.org.nz/
- Archives, personal memory and slow food http://www.slideshare.net/DigitalNZ/visual-explorations-of-new-zealands-digital-heritage
- NB not a research centre but originally a game company http://www.areograph.com/#!__heritage
- And unfortunately now past virtual heritage http://www.virtualheritage.net/news_blogs/1681.htm
European research centres in cultural heritage, digital heritage, virtual heritage
update: larger list at http://museum101.wetpaint.com/page/Courses+&+research
Nordic
- Gothenburg Heritage Academy http://www.science.gu.se/digitalAssets/1373/1373820_heritage-seminar-a–b.pdf and linked to http://www.varldskulturmuseerna.se/org. Myndighetens ledningskansli är också placerat i Göteborg.”
- Jyvaskyla 3D Bridge http://www.arthis.jyu.fi/bridge/index.php.html
- Media Arts, Aalto E.g. http://www.aalto.fi/en/current/news/view/2012-07-19/
- Lund VR lab http://www.design.lth.se/english/the_department/research_laboratories/virtual_reality_lab/
- HUMLAB virtual heritage seminar avatarising the past http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?p=3082
- Intermedia, Uni of Oslo http://www.uv.uio.no/intermedia/english/ OR http://www.uv.uio.no/intermedia/ eg CONTACT project http://www.uv.uio.no/intermedia/english/research/projects/contact/index.html
- Interactive institute Sweden http://www.tii.se/ (Director: Halina Gottlieb NODEM http://www.tii.se/people/halinagottlieb)
- Trondheim MUBIL – a digital laboratory http://www.ntnu.no/ub/omubit/bibliotekene/gunnerus-1/mubil
- Estonia Department of Cultural Heritage and Conservation http://www.artun.ee/index.php?lang=eng&main_id=365
UK and Ireland
- York http://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/research/research-themes/ (esp arch info science http://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/research/research-themes/arch-information-systems/ links to DARIAH CARARE ACE and CHIRON)
- Southampton Archaeological Computing Research Group http://www.southampton.ac.uk/archaeology/acrg/
- Newcastle International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/icchs/
- Trinity College Dublin- The Cultural Heritage Initiative at Trinity http://www.tcd.ie/catc/flagship-areas/cultural-heritage.php
- King’s College esp Visualization Lab http://www.kvl.cch.kcl.ac.uk/
- Leicester http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/research offer a digital heritage programme.
- Smartlab Ireland (phd programme http://smartlab-ie.com/about-2/)
Mainland Europe
- Cyprus http://www.cyi.ac.cy/index.php/starc.html
- MIRALAB Switzerland http://www.miralab.ch/
- http://www.v-must.net/ Virtual Museum Transnational Network also see http://v-must.net/schools
- Hamburg http://www.slm.uni-hamburg.de/ifg2/personal/jan-christoph-meister.html seems to lead http://www.hdh.uni-hamburg.de/
- Fraunhofer IGD (technical 3D graphics) http://www.v-must.net/sites/default/files/CALL4TRAINING-GERMAN-VHS-VIRTUALAUGMENTEDREALITY.pdf contact Holger Graf http://www.igd.fraunhofer.de/Institut/Abteilungen/Virtuelle-und-Erweiterte-Realit%C3%A4t-A4/Mitarbeiter/DiplMath-Techn-MSc-Holger-Graf
- Ename Ghent Belgium http://www.enamecenter.org/
- University of Amsterdam Cultural Heritage and Identity (research priority area ) http://www.hum.uva.nl/research/priority-areas.cfm/815F7F44-1321-B0BE-680E17177604014A
- Italy: Rome CNR Lab http://www.itabc.cnr.it/VHLab/
- Italy: Pisa Laboratory of Digital Culture http://www.thatcampflorence.org/organizers/laboratory-for-digital-culture-university-of-pisa-italy/ (or http://infouma.di.unipi.it/laurea/index.asp)
- Italy: Genoa (virtual tourism http://www.isaac-project.eu/)
- Italy: Bologna http://www.beniculturali.unibo.it/DISMEC/default.htm.
- Italy: Florence? See conference at http://www.rinascimento-digitale.it/conference2012.phtml
Special issue on full domes in digital creativity
I am no expert in full domes but I was impressed with the articles on projected environments in full domes, in Digital Creativity Volume 23, Issue 1, 2012 . I feel quite fortunate that I get a free copy for reviewing articles, wish more journals were this generous to their editorial board members!
Nick Lambert, Mike Phillips and David McConville all write articles. My only criticism is that more European, Canadian and Asian-Australasian writers could also have featured. I have little or no knowledge of African and Middle Eastern full dome work, which is surprising (or maybe just reflects on me), given their incredible architectural heritage in domes.
Anyway, the references and background descriptions seem very useful as a reference material for a course.
URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ndcr20/current
ICT Expert,required for DIGHUMLAB, Denmark (in Copenhagen)
DIGHUMLAB (http://dighumlab.dk/) is a newly established research infrastructure with the goal of supporting digital humanities and social science research by providing common virtual access to relevant digital and digitised resources for the humanities and the social sciences.
We are looking for a computer scientist, software engineer, or a person with similar qualifications to work for a distributed common secretariat, headed by the project leader (based in Aarhus). Employment will be on a project basis for a 5-year period, and the workplace will be the University of Copenhagen, Centre for Language Technology (www.cst.ku.dk). You will report to the DIGHUMLAB project leader but both you and your personal line manager will be located at the University of Copenhagen. Because of the distributed nature of DIGHUMLAB, you will be required to travel to Odense, Aarhus, and Aalborg, and also to European partners and meetings.
For further information and to apply online, please visit the following website: http://tiny.cc/tkn2iw
The closing date for applications is 23:59 CET, 9 September 2012.
DIGHUMLAB launch Mon 10 September, 12.00-17.30 Aarhus Denmark
We are having a launch of DIGHUMLAB, on 10 September. Attendance is free but general public or student online registration is required as seats are limited.
Details: mandag 10 september 2012: 12.00 – 17.30
Location: Peter Bøgh Andersen Auditorium, Nygaard building, på hjørnet af (corner of) Finlandsgade og Helsingforsgade, Aarhus North.
Aarhus University, 8200 Aarhus Denmark
| Time | Event |
| 12.00 | Informal gathering and light food |
| 12.30 | Rector Lauritz B. Holm-Nielsen & Dean of Arts, Mette Thunø, Aarhus University |
| 12.45 | Danish Minister for Science, Innovation and Higher Education, Morten Østergaard |
| 13.00 | DIGHUMLAB 1: Professor Bente Maegaard: Language Tools and CLARIN |
| 13.15 | DIGHUMLAB 2: Professors Niels Ole Finnemann & Niels Brügger: NetLab |
| 13.30 | DIGHUMLAB 3: Professor Johannes Wagner: Interaction Labs |
| 13.45 | Sally Chambers, Secretary General, DARIAH-EU Coordination Office |
| 14.00 | Steven Krauwer, CLARIN ERIC Executive Director |
| 14.15 | Coffee break |
| 14.30 | Professor Patrik Svensson, HUMlab, Umeå University |
| 15.10 | Professor Lorna Hughes, University of Wales Chair in Digital collections, National Library of Wales |
| 15.50 | Coffee break |
| 16.00 | Associate Professor Palmyre Pierroux, InterMedia, University of Oslo |
| 16.30 | Professor Lily Díaz-Kommonen, Media Lab, Aalto University |
| 17.00 | Open Floor Discussion and questions |
| 17.30 | Light refreshments |
it will be a very busy August-September
- Friday 31 August: Flying Billund to Bergamo Italy
- Sunday 2 September VSMM 2012 conference Milan Italy (Milan Polytechnnic)
- Monday 3 September: Present 10.50AM for Li Wang, “Chinese Culture Approximated Through Touch” and chair 11.30 session Virtual documentation and 3D repositorieS
- Wednesday 5 September: Milan to London
- Thursday 6 September: Digital Humanities Congress Sheffield UK
- Saturday 8 September at session 18: 9.30 – 11.00 present talk “Research as Infrastructure” then fly Manchester to Copenhagen then train to Aarhus
- Monday 10 September: DIGHUMLAB Launch, Aarhus University, 12.00-17.30, Nygaard building, corner of Helsingforsgade and Finlandsgade, Aarhus
- Monday 17 September: Fly from Billund to OslO
- Tuesday 18 September: Nordunet conference Oslo (just day 1 for me)
- Wednesday 19 September: Fly from Oslo to Copenhagen and Train to Lund, give opening keynote at 6pm, u21 conference, Lund University
- Thursday 20 September: u21 conference, then evening train to Copenhagen then to Aarhus
- Friday 21 September: Deans meeting, Aarhus.
upcoming CFPs
| START | *DUE* | CONFERENCE | THEME | LOCATION |
| 15-nov-12 | 20-jul-12 | media architecture biennale | Media architecture Biennale 2012 | Aarhus Denmark |
| 08-nov-12 | 31-jul-12 | Digital engagement in archaeology | Digital Engagement in Archaeology Conference | London UK |
| 14-okt-12 | 13-aug-12 | Nordic CHI | Making sense through design WORKSHOPS | Copenhagen DK |
| 15-maj-13 | 01-sep-12 | CAADRIA | CAADRIA | Singapore |
| 17-apr-13 | 15-sep-12 | Crafting the future | Crafting the future-designer´s practice knowledge | Gothenburg Sweden |
| 28-jan-13 | 15-sep-12 | LMMGS | Learning in museums through mobile games and stories | Vercors, French Alps |
| 13-nov-12 | 17-sep-12 | ambient gaming | Second International Workshop on Ambient Gaming (AmGam’12) AND AESTHETICS (13) | Pisa Italy |
| 27-apr-13 | 19-sep-12 | CHI2013 | Paris France | |
| 14-maj-13 | 10-dec-12 | FDG 2012 | Foundations of Digital Games | Crete |
| 02-sep-13 | 08-jan-13 | interact 2013 | designing for diversity | Capetown South Africa |
| 01-jul-13 | 01-feb-13 | CAADFUTURES2013 | Global Design & Local Materialization | Shanghai China |
| 11-dec-12 | ? | Cultural heritage online | CULTURAL HERITAGE on line – Trusted Digital Repositories & Trusted Professionals | Florence italy |
| 26-mar-13 | ? | CAA2013 | Across Time and Space:Computer Applications in Archeology (sessions and workshops) | Perth Australia |
| ? | Digital Humanities 2013 | University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA (2013) | Nebraska USA |
Aliens and carpentry, philosophers, books, and mediation
I wrote the below post to the blog Words in Space by Shannon Christine Mattern.
I don´t know if it will be posted or replied to but maybe I should not have written it, my comment is a fishing hook in the ocean of a vast and surging question.
I have not read the book yet so this comment is ah floating, but in response to “philosophical works generally do not perpetrate their philosophical positions through their form as books” (93).”
I guess I wonder if he means the form has to create most of the content, or that it shapes some of the content as impact on the reader, or that it has to have a significant effect on the impact.
Also, philosophical works are not necessarily books as such (as he would know, being an Ancient Greek scholar), so if I take the sentence to mean philosophers don’t really consider the shape or form of their book, a couple of counter examples come to mind (if we can extend to writers who write philosophically)
-Steppenwolf by Hesse (the starting sentence is actually part of a look with the ending sentence)
-Kafka
-Philosophical investigations by Wittgenstein
-Kierkegaard
-and I would like to say Nietzsche but that is perhaps controversial.
It is a good thing to think about anyway, thanks for the interesting post.
(I am not sure if the fourfold notions in Heidegger´s philosophy of art, i.e. the silversmith, were inspiration, but they may be of interest to some, especially designers.)
Call for Papers for Liverpool TAG 2012
Call for Papers for Liverpool TAG 2012.
Call for Papers for a TAG session, proposed by Don Henson, Director, Centre for Audio Visual Study and Practice in Archaeology (CASPAR), Dr Monty Dobson, archaeologist, filmaker and TV presenter, Drury University, and Lorna Richardson, PhD Candidate, UCL Centre for Digital Humanities
Session title: Archaeology & Media – Entertainment or Edutainment?
This proposed session will explore both the educational and entertainment value of archaeological information in the media, from traditional television programming, archaeology on the Internet, online broadcasting, and the radio.
This session will ask what value does archaeology hold for the media? How has archaeology been presented to a media-hungry public to date, and what future does it have in the digital age? Does archaeology have brand-awareness? Should rigorous archaeological scholarship take a backseat to popular entertainment, and how can archaeological programming and information online provide narrative and information that is both entertaining and factual?
Papers are invited that discuss how archaeological sites and images are reused in popular culture; the longtail of archaeological edutainment; popular respresentations of archaeologists and archaeology in the media; is there an archaeological stereotype that we play to?; the importance of the presenter as the face of archaeology on television; how does media commissioning works with archaeological information and how do archaeologists work with the media?; how and why is archaeological information subverted, changed or ‘sexed up’ to pull in audiences?; should archaeologists share archaeological authority through media?; pseudoarchaeology as popular TV entertainment. Other related topics are welcome.
Submission deadlines for proposed papers is Friday 22nd June 2012.
For further information, or to submit a paper proposal, please contact Don Henson or Lorna Richardson
cfp: MEDIA ARCHITECTURE
http://www.mediaarchitecture.org/wp-content/uploads/MAB_2012-Call_for_papers.pdf MEDIA ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2012
November 15-17, 2012
Aarhus, Denmark
Building on the successful event in Vienna 2010, Media Architecture Biennale 2012 brings together artists, practitioners and researchers from academia and industry in the ongoing exploration of the meeting between architecture and digital media. The 2012 Biennale comprises an academic conference track, exhibitions, and industry sessions, as well as a full day of workshops. Our vision is to provide an excellent forum for debate and knowledge exchange; to offer a unique opportunity that brings together the best minds and organizations; and to highlight state-of-the-art and experimental research in media architecture.
Important Dates for Papers
Papers submission deadline: July 20, 2012
Notification of acceptance: Sept 5
Camera-ready submission: Sept 25
Conference: Nov 15-17 2012
CFP: Conference on Digital Engagement in Archaeology: Strategies & Evaluation Methods
http://digipubarch.org/2012/05/29/call-for-papers-conference-on-digital-engagement-in-archaeology-strategies-evaluation-methods/
8th – 9th November at UCL Institute of Archaeology, London UK
Organisers:
Chiara Bonacchi (UCL Institute of Archaeology) & Daniel Pett (The British Museum)
Under the auspices of: the Archaeology and Communication Research Network (ACRN) and the Centre for Audio-Visual Study and Practice in Archaeology (CASPAR).
The organisers invite 2 types of papers:
a) Papers presenting frameworks for understanding, promoting and evaluating digital participation in archaeology by non-specialist audiences
b) Papers presenting tested strategies through which archaeologists working in different areas of the sector may engage non-specialist audiences.
Contributions of this type can be on:
– strategies for archaeological museums and sites
– strategies for university departments
– strategies for commercial archaeology
Papers of type b will be case-study based and present models of digital public engagement which have margins of repeatability and can be pointed out as exemplars. The models that are presented should be supported with evidence of their effectiveness for the institutions/researchers/archaeologists who apply them and for the public. Therefore, they should be grounded in audience research and include:
i) presentation of the context for using the model
ii) presentation of the case study through which the model has been tested (beneficial results obtained with what resources and in what conditions)
iii) limitations and repeatability.
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSION: 31 JULY 2012
If you are interested, please email a title and a 200 words abstract to Chiara Bonacchi and Daniel Pett by 31 July 2012.
Digital Humanities in the Southern Hemisphere
What is happening in the Digital Humanities in the Southern Hemisphere?
http://www.nectar.org.au/humanities-networked-infrastructure-huni-virtual-laboratory in Melbourne Australia
http://dh.canterbury.ac.nz/ A portal in NZ, Christchurch, University of Canterbury.
personography
I am becoming very interested in personography deriving from prosopography I think it could link virtual environments and text, especially ancient manuscripts. Merely planting textual information in VEs and VRs and Social Worlds (Active Worlds, Second Life) as alpha facing billboards is a cognitive challenge, aesthetically unpleasant and takes up valuable screen space.
But how? Partially via a more phenomenological treatment of place, virtual place, and spatial and locative audio and visual and haptic hermeneutic analysis of text. Also via text to sound or via avatars or projection (streaming video textures etc).
I have been invited to dinner by a colleague, a phenomenologist and philosopher of technology, he lent me a very interesting book.
http://www.amazon.com/American-Philosophy-Technology-Empirical-Turn/dp/0253214491 American Philosophy of Technology: The Empirical Turn [Paperback] Hans Achterhuis (Editor)
Sadly it is not very place related, but what is interesting in how it reveals no matter how carefully one attempts to discuss culture, society and technology, how difficult and temperamental it becomes. The chapters on Hubert Dreyfus and Andrew Feenberg are particularly interesting to me. It does discuss the notion of situated from Dreyfus (but not the memetic flood that arose from Dourish onwards), I just wish they would examine a little bit more closely what situated really entails.
William Pannapacker´s comments on DH2011 conference
http://chronicle.com/article/Big-Tent-Digital-Humanities-a/129036/
We speak with each other primarily through scholarly channels—which is essential to our work—but that creates a void in public discourse about what we do. How can we justify putting money into seemingly impractical fields when college costs more than an average house?
From my perspective, as part of a generation that went through graduate school in the 1990s, the “DH” field is a response to a feeling of disenfranchisement and alienation from traditional academic culture in the context of a radically changed system of employment.Digital humanities cultivates scholarly collaboration as well as individual exploration, technological innovation alongside methodological rigor. It redefines the nature of academic careers while dealing with longstanding disciplinary conversations. And it engages in complex, theoretical heavy lifting while building projects that are often based on the Internet, available to the public, and indisputably useful. (Consider the various projects of the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, and Hamilton College’s Digital Humanities Initiative.)
Interesting, not just for the article, but for the comments debate. How is DH related to the humanities, and not just to all academics? Precisely because it is new to humanities scholars (the issue of defining new media all over again).
Micah Vandegrift [http://micahvandegrift.wordpress.com/) wrote in the comments:
“Now I’d like to turn to the larger problems facing the field, such as the reality that most people don’t know all that much about it…We speak with each other primarily through scholarly channels—which is essential to our work—but that creates a void in public discourse about what we do.´
I think this is exactly the point of the “digital” aspect of digital humanities. The scholarly channels are now exactly public, and engaged with in the public sphere, through the nature of digital technologies. As Sandy Thatcher mentions below, the correlation between digital and openness, in this case opening up scholarship to a public audience, is a key component that delineates traditional humanities from digital humanities.”
VSMM conference 2-5 September 2012
OK, Neil Wang and I wrote a paper on Neil’s final project (not the prototype) entitled “Chinese Culture Approached Through Touch”, it has been accepted for the 18th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM2012), to be held in Milan, Italy, from Sept. 2nd to 5th, 2012. I think that is 10 or 11 years since I first attended VSMM in Montreal, a lot of virtual heritage has gone under the bridge since then! Anyway, VSMM ends one day before the Digital Humanities Congress 2012 conference starts in Sheffield. Nice timing, and I think airlines like Ryanair connect between Denmark, Venice [well it is close-ish to Milan], Milan and various UK cities. I wish I could say it was planned that way 🙂
abstract for “Digital Humanities Congress 2012” @ Sheffield UK accepted
I wrote the below abstract for Digital Humanities Congress 2012 at the University of Sheffield, 6th – 8th September 2012
http://www.shef.ac.uk/hri/dhc2012
Title: Research As Infrastructure
Abstract:
In the edited book Debates in the Digital Humanities, edited by Matthew Gold, the chapter “The Digital Humanities or a Digital Humanism” by Dave Parry raised the controversial question as to whether Digital Humanities should be the application of computing, or an inquiry as to how digital media has irrevocably changed the Humanities. While this may appear to be a very theoretical issue, the debate has major practical consequences. For example, I have been entrusted with managing the development of a national research infrastructure for the Digital Humanities. This task may seem to involve logistics, technical details, and general funding issues. However, before we even get to that stage we have major fundamental, political and theoretical challenges.
We currently have four universities as partners, the national library (or libraries) should be joining soon, and hopefully the major museums will follow. Our government has asked that we include as many as possible, a noble goal, but in practice we have hit a major roadblock. How does one create a national focus while allowing academics and other researchers to pursue their own specific goals? This also raises a deeper question, what are the boundaries of the Digital Humanities pertinent to our researchers, beyond which we should not tread? Having discovered our niche, or niches, how can we focus on key research areas important to our country in particular, without becoming cut off from international networks?
Of course there are perennial questions such as how can one develop an infrastructure five years ahead, based on catering for technology that we are not yet using? How can a distributed network allow for unified identity and individual planning? This leads us to a more pragmatic issue of which resources are best managed centrally, and which are best distributed. These more technical issues do however return us to a central problem: how one create a centre for something that has no physical centre, unifying traditionally disparate and sceptical disciplines, without restricting them or discriminating between them?
So now my task is to solve the problems so I can deliver the paper!
Ear Zow Digital