Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Studies in Digital History and Hermeneutics

Funded by: University of Luxembourg
Edited by: Andreas Fickers, Valérie Schafer, Sean Takats and Gerben Zaagsma

ISSN: 2629-4540

e-ISSN 2629-4559

Overview
Volumes

The series “Studies in Digital History and Hermeneutics” addresses key questions for historians in the digital age:

- how do digital infrastructures and technologies interfere in our practices of thinking, doing, and narrating history?

- what are the methodological and epistemological implications of using digital data and tools for historical interpretation and argumentation?

- what new historical questions can be asked when exploring the big data of the past?

In offering a platform for cutting edge scholarship in the emerging field of digital history and hermeneutics, the series aims at making a critical intervention in the field of digital humanities and introducing key debates and concepts of digital history to the historical community at large.

Topics

Book Open Access 2023

Zoomland

Exploring Scale in Digital History and Humanities

Florentina Armaselu, Andreas Fickers, University of Luxembourg

Volume 7 in this series

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Despite a variety of theoretical and practical undertakings, there is no coherent understanding of the concept of scale in digital history and humanities, and its potential is largely unexplored. A clearer picture of the whole spectrum is needed, from large to small, distant to close, global to local, general to specific, macro to micro, and the in-between levels.

The book addresses these issues and sketches out the territory of Zoomland, at scale. Four regions and sixteen chapters are conceptually and symbolically depicted through three perspectives: bird’s eye, overhead, and ground view. The variable-scale representation allows for exploratory paths covering areas such as: theoretical and applicative reflections on scale combining a digital dimension with research in history, media studies, cultural heritage, literature, text analysis, and map modelling; creative use of scale in new digital forms of analysis, data organisation, interfaces, and argumentative or artistic expressions.

Zoomland provides a systematic discussion on the epistemological dimensions, hermeneutic methods, empirical tools, and aesthetic logic pertaining to scale and its innovative possibilities residing in humanities-based approaches and digital technologies.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111317779
ISBN:: 9783111317779
ISBN:: 9783111317526
ISBN:: 9783111317915
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Digital History
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Open Access 2022

Digital History

Konzepte, Methoden und Kritiken Digitaler Geschichtswissenschaft

Karoline Dominika Döring, Stefan Haas, Mareike König, Jörg Wettlaufer, University of Luxembourg, Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris

Volume 6 in this series

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Research and teaching in history have undergone profound changes within the scope of digitalization. This volume asks questions such as: What changes is digitalization making possible in the way that historical research is carried out and communicated today? What new objects, methods, and tools are available to researchers today and what research findings do they produce?

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757101
ISBN:: 9783110757101
ISBN:: 9783110757149
ISBN:: 9783110756937
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Digital History
Subject:: Theories, Methods, and Auxiliary Sciences
Subject:: Methods
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Open Access 2022

Jewish Studies in the Digital Age

Gerben Zaagsma, Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, Miriam Rürup, Michelle Margolis, Amalia S. Levi, University of Luxembourg

Volume 5 in this series

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As in all fields and disciplines of the humanities, Jewish Studies scholars find themselves confronted with the rapidly increasing availability of digital resources (data), new technologies to　interrogate and analyze them (tools), and the question of how to critically engage with these developments. This volume discusses how the digital turn has affected the field of Jewish Studies. It explores the current state of the art and probes how digital developments can be harnessed to address the specific questions, challenges and problems that Jewish Studies scholars confront. In a field characterised by dispersed sources, and heterogeneous scripts and languages that speak to a multitude of cultures and histories, of abundance as well as loss, what is the promise of Digital Humanities methods--and what are the challenges and pitfalls?

The articles in this volume were originally presented at the international conference #DHJewish - Jewish Studies in the Digital Age, which was organised at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) at University of Luxembourg in January 2021. The first big international conference of its kind, it brought together more than sixty scholars and heritage practitioners to discuss how the digital turn affects the field of Jewish Studies.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110744828
ISBN:: 9783110744828
ISBN:: 9783110744880
ISBN:: 9783110744699
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Jewish History and Culture
Subject:: Digital History
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: General Jewish History
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Open Access 2021

Digital Roots

Historicizing Media and Communication Concepts of the Digital Age

Gabriele Balbi, Nelson Ribeiro, Valérie Schafer, Christian Schwarzenegger, University of Luxembourg

Volume 4 in this series

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As media environments and communication practices evolve over time, so do theoretical concepts. This book analyzes some of the most well-known and fiercely discussed concepts of the digital age from a historical perspective, showing how many of them have pre-digital roots and how they have changed and still are constantly changing in the digital era. Written by leading authors in media and communication studies, the chapters historicize 16 concepts that have become central in the digital media literature, focusing on three main areas. The first part, Technologies and Connections, historicises concepts like network, media convergence, multimedia, interactivity and artificial intelligence. The second one is related to Agency and Politics and explores global governance, datafication, fake news, echo chambers, digital media activism. The last one, Users and Practices, is finally devoted to telepresence, digital loneliness, amateurism, user generated content, fandom and authenticity. The book aims to shed light on how concepts emerge and are co-shaped, circulated, used and reappropriated in different contexts. It argues for the need for a conceptual media and communication history that will reveal new developments without concealing continuities and it demonstrates how the analogue/digital dichotomy is often a misleading one.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110740202
ISBN:: 9783110740202
ISBN:: 9783110740288
ISBN:: 9783110739886
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Digital History
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Open Access 2022

Digitised Newspapers – A New Eldorado for Historians?

Reflections on Tools, Methods and Epistemology

Estelle Bunout, Maud Ehrmann, Frédéric Clavert, University of Luxembourg

Volume 3 in this series

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The application of digital technologies to historical newspapers has changed the research landscape historians were used to. An Eldorado? Despite undeniable advantages, the new digital affordance of historical newspapers also transforms research practices and confronts historians with new challenges. Drawing on a growing community of practices, the impresso project invited scholars experienced with digitised newspaper collections with the aim of encouraging a discussion on heuristics, source criticism and interpretation of digitized newspapers.

This volume provides a snapshot of current research on the subject and offers three perspectives: how digitisation is transforming access to and exploration of historical newspaper collections; how automatic content processing allows for the creation of new layers of information; and, finally, what analyses this enhanced material opens up.

‘impresso - Media Monitoring of the Past’ is an interdisciplinary research project that applies text mining tools to digitised historical newspapers and integrates the resulting data into historical research workflows by means of a newly developed user interface. The question of how best to adapt text mining tools and their use by humanities researchers is at the heart of the impresso enterprise.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110729214
ISBN:: 9783110729214
ISBN:: 9783110729719
ISBN:: 9783110729269
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Digital History
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Open Access 2022

Digital History and Hermeneutics

Between Theory and Practice

Andreas Fickers, Juliane Tatarinov, University of Luxembourg, Fonds National de la Recherche

Volume 2 in this series

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As a result of rapid advancements in computer science during recent decades, there has been an increased use of digital tools, methodologies and sources in the field of digital humanities. While opening up new opportunities for scholarship, many digital methods and tools now used for humanities research have nevertheless been developed by computer or data sciences and thus require a critical understanding of their mode of operation and functionality.
The novel field of digital hermeneutics is meant to provide such a critical and reflexive frame for digital humanities research by acquiring digital literacy and skills. A new knowledge for the assessment of digital data, research infrastructures, analytical tools, and interpretative methods is needed, providing the humanities scholar with the necessary munition for doing critical research. The Doctoral Training Unit "Digital History and Hermeneutics" at the University of Luxembourg applies this analytical frame to 13 PhD projects. By combining a hermeneutic reflection on the new digital practices of humanities scholarship with hands-on experimentation with digital tools and methods, new approaches and opportunities as well as limitations and flaws can be addressed.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110723991
ISBN:: 9783110723991
ISBN:: 9783110724073
ISBN:: 9783110723878
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Digital History
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Open Access 2021

Trading Zones of Digital History

Max Kemman, University of Luxembourg

Volume 1 in this series

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Digital history is commonly argued to be positioned between the traditionally historical and the computational or digital. By studying digital history collaborations and the establishment of the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, Kemman examines how digital history will impact historical scholarship. His analysis shows that digital history does not occupy a singular position between the digital and the historical. Instead, historians continuously move across this dimension, choosing or finding themselves in different positions as they construct different trading zones through cross-disciplinary engagement, negotiation of research goals and individual interests.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110682106
ISBN:: 9783110682106
ISBN:: 9783111259055
ISBN:: 9783110681963
ISBN:: 9783110682250
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Digital History
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg