In recent years, interest in the history of the digital humanities has grown. The 9^th dhiha conference will connect to this growing interest. It will explore the overlooked history of digital history from different perspectives and emphasize the importance of understanding the field’s past by examining historical developments, methods, and research gaps. The aim is to highlight past achievements and offer a critical perspective on the evolution of digital history, challenging the rhetoric of novelty that often surrounds it.

 

Date: October 23-25, 2024

Place: German Historical Institute Paris/Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris (DHIP)

Program

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

14:00-17:45 Pre-Conference Workshops

14h00-16h00

• 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

16h00-16h15 Coffee break

16h15-17h45

• 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

18:30-20:00 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, October 24, 2024

9:00-10:30 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 Luxemburg) Facing the History Machine: Towards Histories of Digital History

10:30-11:00 Coffee break

11:00-12:00 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

12:00-13:30 Lunch break

13:30-14:30 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

14:30-15:30 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.

15:30-16:00 Coffee break

16:00-17:00 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 Luxemburg) 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?

Free evening

Friday, October 25, 2024

9:00-10:30 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

10:30-11:00 Coffee break

11:00-12:00 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

12:00-13:00 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

Organizers

• 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 Luxemburg).

With the financial support of: C²DH, DHIP, NFDI4Memory, School of Advanced Study, TU Darmstadt

Practicalities

Free entrance, please register under: https://t1p.de/uppfp 

Online participation available: https://t1p.de/i5i73

Travel Grants

NFDI4Memory, together with the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP), is awarding four travel grants for early career researchers to attend the conference.

Applications are open to Master’s students and doctoral candidates in the field of digital history or digital humanities.

In return, you commit to accompanying the conference in the media, e.g. in the form of a conference report, a blog post, a photo story on Instagram, postings on the official Mastodon or X-account of the DHIP, a podcast, mini-videos, etc. (but we are happy about any creative format!). You can choose the language in which you want to write!

Please apply by e-mail to DH@dhi-paris.fr with a letter of motivation (max. 2 pages) containing a brief outline of your ideas for media coverage of the conference and a short CV in tabular form (max. 1 page) in a merged PDF file

by 16 September 2024.

If your application is successful, you will receive a grant of up to 400 euros (from Germany/Europe) and up to 200 euros (from France) to cover travel and accommodation costs for the conference. The funds will be paid out after submission of receipts and after submission of your contribution to the media coverage of the conference.

Acceptances will be announced by e-mail by 20 September 2024.

All infos: https://dhdhi.hypotheses.org/10709.