Living with Machines at Digital Humanities 2019

We are honoured to have had two panel proposals accepted for the Digital Humanities 2019 (DH2019) conference in Utrecht this year. One is ‘The Past, Present and Future of Digital Scholarship with Newspaper Collections‘:

Historical newspapers are of interest to many humanities scholars as sources of information and language closely tied to a particular time, social context and place. Digitised newspapers are also of interest to many data-driven researchers who seek large bodies of text on which they can try new methods and tools. Recently, large consortia projects applying data science and computational methods to historical newspapers at scale have emerged, including NewsEye, impresso, Oceanic Exchanges and Living with Machines.

This multi-paper panel draws on the work of a range of interdisciplinary newspaper-based digital humanities and/or data science projects, alongside ‘provocations’ from two senior scholars who will provide context for current ambitions. As a unique opportunity for stakeholders to engage in dialogue, for the DH2019 community to ask their own questions of newspaper-based projects, and for researchers to map methodological similarities between projects, it aims to have a significant impact on the field.

Mia Ridge¹, Giovanni Colavizza², Laurel Brake³, Maud Ehrmann⁴, Jean-Philippe Moreux⁶, Andrew Prescott⁵. ¹British Library; ²The Alan Turing Institute; ³Birkbeck, Univ of London; ⁴EPFL; ⁵University of Glasgow; ⁶Bibliothèque nationale de France

There’s a lot of activity around digitised newspapers, so I’m excited to learn more about other large newspaper projects such as NewsEye, impresso and Oceanic Exchanges.

If you’re interested in digital humanities work with newspapers, you’re invited to a casual meetup on Tuesday afternoon around the opening plenary and reception of the conference.

The other isn’t strictly about LwM, but it features three of the team and the work of the Turing Data Science and Digital Humanities special interest group: ‘Data Science & Digital Humanities: new collaborations, new opportunities and new complexities‘:

This panel highlights the emerging collaborations and opportunities between the fields of Digital Humanities (DH), Data Science (DS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). It charts the enthusiastic progress of a national-level research institute focussed on DS & AI, as it engages non-STEM disciplines. We discuss the exciting work and learnings from various new activities, across a number of high-profile institutions. As these initiatives push the intellectual and computational boundaries, the panel considers both the gains, benefits, and complexities encountered. The panel latterly turns towards the future of such interdisciplinary working, considering how DS & DH collaborations can grow, with a view towards a manifesto.

Beatrice Alex¹, Anne Alexander², David Beavan³, Eirini Goudarouli⁴, Leonardo Impett⁶, Barbara McGillivray², Nora McGregor⁵, Mia Ridge⁵. ¹University of Edinburgh; ²University of Cambridge; ³The Alan Turing Institute; ⁴The National Archives; ⁵British Library; ⁶Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History

Quite a few of the team are at DH2019, so keep an eye out for @mia_out @DavidBeavan @khetiwe24 @technocene @giorgiatolfo @giovanni1085 @vanstriendaniel @thobson88 Kaspar B and Claire A. Katie McDonough is on a panel on ‘Theorising the Spatial Humanities’ on Friday (2-3:30pm), and others are attending various workshops throughout the conference.