Our Journey into the Digital Humanities
“Started from the bottom, now we’re here.”
Drake, “Started from the Bottom,” track 3, Nothing Was the Same, Young Money Entertainment, 2013.
It seems like yesterday that we first met in our classroom on the 6th floor of the “Geiwi-Tower” at the University of Innsbruck. Five students, one professor — no one knew what to expect from each other. Prof. Beebe, a graduate and former research fellow at the University of Oxford, and, at the time, Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of North Texas[1], came to small Austria from Big America for a Fulbright Visiting Professorship. And whom did she meet? A group of history students with a broad range of knowledge, but conventional in their methodological approach and without a completely clear idea of what the “Digital Humanities,” the subject of our course[2], was, or, more importantly, what methodological opportunities existed for historians in the vast digital world. But where there is a will, there is a way. So, we rolled up our sleeves, and all together we accepted the challenge. Luckily, the first lesson showed us that not having a precise definition of what “DH” wasn’t a knowledge gap, but instead perfectly normal. The Digital Humanities cannot be defined exactly; there are many ways and perspectives through which they can be explained. It’s no coincidence that there is a website that gives a different definition every time it is refreshed.[3]
But to give it a try from our perspective, I would say that DH is an interdisciplinary field that uses digital tools, technologies, and methods to help historians analyze, interpret, and present humanistic data. Some of the tools useful for our research were the subject of the seminar for the coming weeks. Step by step, we got to know several fields and tools, reflected on them in weekly blog posts, and most importantly, got hands-on experience in mini workshops. Practical examples of DH projects, such as Virtual Angkor,[4] showed us what advanced techniques in DH can accomplish and how visualizations can be useful for historians and their research, as well as for teaching and Public History. But — advanced is the key word. While we got our first experience with HTML and JavaScript programming, discussed the spatial turn in history,[5] and explored GIS mapping, Big Data, and data visualization, and a lot more…
Representations of a few topics discussed in the course.
Eine Collage aus verschiedenen digitalen und historischen Themenbereichen. Im oberen Bereich steht „3D Modeling & Simulations“ mit einem Hintergrundbild einer gotischen Kathedrale und einer Szene von Vermessungsarbeiten auf einer Insel. Darunter finden sich Bilder, die sich mit der Entwicklung von Schrift und Druck befassen, darunter ein Screenshot von „Aldus PageMaker 2.0“ und eine historische Darstellung von Typografie. Im unteren rechten Bereich zeigt ein Workshop-Banner „GIS / Mapping Basics“ mit einer digitalen Kartenansicht von Jerusalem, kombiniert mit einer historischen Karte der Stadt. Die Collage verbindet moderne digitale Methoden mit historischen Darstellungen und wissenschaftlicher Visualisierung.
…we quickly realized that coming from almost zero practical skills in this field, aiming for our own large DH projects by the end of the semester would be too optimistic and might cause more frustration than stimulate the learning process.
So, our professor found a solution and introduced us to her own research project, which we are now a part of and which led you to our page. The process that brought us to this point took us through the sacred halls of digitalization at the University of Innsbruck, and we eventually worked with “Transkribus,” [6] an AI-supported transcription tool for historical manuscripts.[7] It was co-founded by our own University of Innsbruck. In the end, our “prayer book” project was completed, and you can now explore it in detail on this website. Pretty cool, huh?
In addition to all these practical approaches, we also delved into the theoretical questions and ethical implications that come with using digital tools. We discussed the opportunities and risks of DH, such as the use of artificial intelligence[8], networks[9], and digital (historical) archives [10], as well as how different each of these looked through the lens of gender analysis. These fruitful and sometimes controversial discussions led us to a number of interesting insights, like the idea that digital archives and the internet, in general, can be seen as one of the biggest democratization projects of all time, making knowledge available to nearly everyone. Also, AI, which is on everyone’s lips, could lead to the next economic boom, although there are also plenty of risks, such as the fact that we often don’t fully understand what is behind these AI tools. In every field we explored, there was both light and shadow.
One common thread across nearly all tools was the deficiency in the representation of more than one gender and of marginalized groups. The “Digital Humanities,” the digital world, and the tech industry are predominantly dominated by white, cisgender males. Therefore, the products and programs they create can lead to unequal representation because of the choices and focuses of the creators, due to their social background and status. For example, in video games, there is a lack of female protagonists. Similarly, in digital archives, the choices made about which sources get digitized can lead to patterns of discrimination, especially when historical sources relevant to the research of marginalized cultural groups are often given second priority. So, folks, always stay vigilant about what you see or read and question things critically.
The Digital Humanities is a growing field, and its rich repertoire of methods can benefit every academic discipline. Over the semester, we got a sense of what is possible if we develop our technical skills and use them purposefully. Let’s hope that we, and other historical scholars around the world, take this opportunity. Even though, as historians, we focus on the past due to our field of study, we should have the courage to make methodological use of the future.
Author: Rafael Kirchler
[1] “Kathryne Beebe,” Kathryne Beebe, accessed 16.01.2025, https://www.kathrynebeebe.org/.
[2] 645012 UE Historische Hilfswissenschaften und Medienkunde: Introduction to Gendered Digital History, University of Innsbruck, Winter Semester 2024-2025. Course Webpage accessed 16.01.2025, https://lfuonline.uibk.ac.at/public/lfuonline_lv.details?lvnr_id_in=645012&sem_id_in=24W.
[3] “What is Digital Humanities?,” Jason Heppler, accessed 16.01.2025, https://whatisdigitalhumanities.com/.
[4] “Virtual Angkor,” Monash University et al., accessed 16.01.2025, https://www.virtualangkor.com/.
[5] Jo Guldi, “What is the Spatial Turn?,” and “What is the Spatial Turn? – The Spatial Turn in History,” Spatial Humanities: A Project of the Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship (blog), accessed 16.01.2025, https://spatial.scholarslab.org/spatial-turn/ and https://spatial.scholarslab.org/spatial-turn/the-spatial-turn-in-history/index.html.
[6] See Transkribus at “Transkribus – Unlocking the Past with AI,” READ-COOP, accessed 16.01.2025, https://www.transkribus.org/.
[7] “Reading old handwriting with Transkribus,” University of Innsbruck Newsroom (blog), 27.09.2022, accessed 16.01.2025, https://www.uibk.ac.at/en/newsroom/2022/reading-old-handwriting-with-transkribus/.
[8] Sinead O’Connor and Helen Liu, “Gender bias perpetuation and mitigation in AI technologies: challenges and opportunities,” AI & Society 39 (2024): 2045–2057, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01675-4.
[9] Scott B.Weingart, “Demistifying Networks. Parts I & II”, Journal of Digital Humanities 1.1 (2011), accessed 16.01.2025, https://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-1/demystifying-networks-by-scott-weingart/.
10] Michelle Moravec, “Feminist Research Practices and Digital Archives,” Australian Feminist Studies 32 (91-92) (2017): 186–201, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08164649.2017.1357006.