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Unboxing DH – how do we generate knowledge with digital methods and tools?

4th DH-Day of the University of Münster on December 5, 2022

Humanities work using digital methods is generating more and more data-based results of research. However, many DH research methods require tools that leave parts of the knowledge path in the dark. The results of unsupervised machine learning, for example, often come from a black box, a process that cannot be seen. These results become the basis for interpretation work in the humanities, and questioning the genesis processes of the computational results to be interpreted becomes difficult or even impossible. Last but not least, algorithmic operations can render invisible any biases underlying the data itself. In fact, unexplained presuppositions are the subject of criticism even in the application of traditional research methods. Are they―as is not infrequently assumed―removed from any comprehensible criticism as input into a black box? What is clear is that at least some of the DH subdisciplines generate strong epistemic frictions in the digital cognitive process. Already in the selection of what is put into the black box lie presuppositions that need to be exposed. Data are not given, but taken and made (Johanna Drucker speaks in this context, for example, of "capta" instead of "data"); the steps of interpretation should be disclosed at every stage. We need to ask how insights gained through non-reproducible procedures relate to the claims of intersubjective comprehensibility of research and FAIR principles for data. Which role do authorities and which do algorithms play in assessing the value of data and knowledge gained through them? On the Day of DH 2022 at the University of Münster, we want to come together against this background and discuss with each other how we generate knowledge by digital means and which gradations between the black box and the complete traceability and reproducibility of research results are imaginable.

Programme

9:45 Coming together
10:00

Welcome

Presentation

Greetings

10:30-11:30

New technologies – new humanities?!

Keynote Lecture by PD Dr. Frederike van Oorschot (in German)

The talk unfolds hermeneutical and epistemological questions triggered by the developing digital research in the humanities (Digital Humanities, DH). The focus is on sketching a philosophy of science related to DH based on the following guiding questions: what does the narrative of a "new" science mean? Who is the subject of DH? Where can new epistemic logics be found? What is the research policy setting of DH? And how does all this relate to the self-understanding of "classical" humanities? In doing so, the lecture aims at a "digital hermeneutics" in the humanities.

Documentation: Video | Presentation

11:30-11:40 Short changeover break
11:40-12:00 Presentations of the working groups of the DH circle at the University of Münster
Presentation
12:00-14:00

Lunch break

(13:00-14:00: membership meeting of the Center for Digital Humanities Münster)

14:00-14:30 Poster slam Documentation
14:30-15:30 Poster session
15:30-16:00 Coffee and tea break
16:00-16:45

Panel discussion "Unboxing DH"

with Daria Hartmann, Dr. Sascha HinkelPD Dr. Felicity Jensz, Prof. Dr. Silvia Reuvekamp, Prof. Dr. Jan Vahrenhold

Moderation: Dr. Jan Horstmann und Katrin Steiner

16:45-17:00 Farewell

hashtag for the 4th DH-Day: #unboxingDH

For a short report on the 4th DH-Day (in German), please refer to our blog.