Thinkering

In October, I traveled to Prague for a workshop on the history of science and the Second World War. For the second time during my PhD, it was an opportunity to cross the imaginary iron curtain. The experiences during those days were undoubtedly insightful.

From 26 to 29 June 2019, I participated in a conference in Tallinn (Estonia) organised by the International Society for Cultural History (ISCH), where, in addition, I presented a paper on cultural policy in Luxembourg. This experience was part of a quest to better understand cultural history and my own research.

The C²DH has signed an agreement with the “European Capital of Culture Esch 2022” asbl (non-profit organisation) for the research project “Remixing Industrial Pasts in the Digital Age: Sounds, Images, Ecologies, Practices and Materialities in Space and Time”.

Professor Dr Sean Takats, an internationally renowned expert on digital history, will start his research work in Luxembourg in October 2019, backed by an FNR PEARL Chair from the Luxembourg National Research Fund. The PEARL programme, funded by the FNR, provides competitive funding to attract top researchers in strategic research areas for Luxembourg.

How can computer-assisted methods help us to solve problems that are fundamental to historical research? In a series of two blog posts we discuss a research pilot that aims to identify anti-modernist discourses on Europe in historical Swiss newspapers from the period 1939-1945.

In September 2019, C²DH will launch the DEMA project which will provide a systematic reflection on the methodological underpinnings of experimental media archaeology as a practical and sensorial approach to media historiography.

Lecture by Jakub Mlynář (Malach Center for Visual History, Charles University) followed by a workshop on sociological aspects of oral history.

On 19 and 20 March, the C²DH hosted a two-day hands-on workshop on the use of interactive digital storytelling for academic historians with Sandra Gaudenzi, one of the leading experts in interactive storytelling and a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster.

The European Commission has chosen Time Machine as one of the six proposals retained for preparing large scale research initiatives to be strategically developed in the next decade. The C²DH/University of Luxembourg is a member of the Time Machine consortium.

After launching the Ranke.2 teaching platform on digital source criticism in autumn 2018, I assumed that its appearance and form – short colourful animations and easy-to-digest chunks of information – would soon catch the attention of lecturers and encourage them to use it in their courses. But a recent meeting with colleagues made me realise that personal contact and hands-on experience with the material are key to making my target audience realise that the resource offers something they may need.

This report summarises a C²DH-hosted workshop concerning some undervalued and overlooked aspects of technology.

This entry briefly describes how we generated English subtitles (using digital tools) for the binaural radio play "Glanz und Elend der Kunstkopf-Stereophonie" we produced in 2017.

The new website gives an in-depth view of the DTU's activities and projects.

In Munich, from 19 to 21 September 2018, a group of speech technologists, social scientists, linguists, computer scientists, oral historians and information scientists convened to explore the integration of digital tools in the workflow of scholars who work with interviews.

Du 28 mai au 5 juillet 2018, j'ai eu le plaisir de participer à l'école d'été de l'histoire numérique à Grenoble (France). L’université Grenoble-Alpes en collaboration avec la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme -Alpes et l'UMR Litt&Arts a organisé la seconde édition de l'École D’été Édition Numérique et Humanités Numériques (EDEEN).

From 2 to 5 July 2018, I had the pleasure to participate in the Public History Summer School in Wroclaw (Poland). Not only was it an enriching experience for me, but it also pushed me to think more about the role of public history, its challenges and its opportunities.

More and more cultural institutions create virtual tours that allow visitors to explore the collections at home instead of actually visiting the institutions. In this blog post, I would like to provide some reflections on virtual tours, their usefulness and their limits.

Some time ago it suddenly hit us that it has been a while since we read an academic book or article in a physical format. This for the simple reason that we can retrace digital information much quicker — i.e. annotating a PDF, extracting highlighted text automatically with ZotFile or quickly looking up a specific word in a pdf document. A second realisation was that as PhD students in the field of digital history and hermeneutics these "small" digital aspects of a scholars life are almost never highlighted.

In the Hands-On History seminar on the 24th of May by Dr. Ludwig M. Vogl-Bienek and Karin Bienek from the University of Trier we were introduced to the history of the magic lantern. After a brief overview during the lecture, we got to experience a live performance of the magic lantern in our Digital History lab. We were also encouraged to experiment with some smaller but original magic lanterns.

Can digital public history help us to reach a historiography that is closer to life?