Annual Conference of the Research Cluster digital_culture at the FernUniversität in Hagen

23./24. November 2023, Frankfurt am Main

Digitization has reached almost all areas of science and scholarship. And even in the cultural sciences and humanities, computers, databases and digital tools are increasingly important. Last year’s annual conference „Digital Hermeneutics: Machines, Procedures, Meaning“ of the research cluster digital_culture dealt with the theoretical and conceptual challenges inherent in hermeneutic methods, tools, and applications. The results of the conference supported understanding and meaning, when algorithms, programs, machines, and other technical procedures contribute to it[1]. Following up on these initial theoretical and conceptual results, we now want to address more technical aspects of methods, technologies, tools, and applications supporting Digital Hermeneutics under the title „Digital Hermeneutics II: Sources, Analysis, Interpretation, Annotation, Curation“ and take a look at digitally supported hermeneutic research processes and anticipate the future of digitized working practices in the cultural sciences and humanities.

Without such digital support systems, it will no longer be possible to index, find, annotate, and curate the ever-growing number of digitally available resources for research data. Digital systems are also already in use for analyzing, indexing, enriching, and annotating multimedia data. But what about systems that support the analysis, annotation, and interpretation of digital research data – thus: representation of hermeneutic methods – and their results as well as supporting machine learning, reasoning, and finally automating the documentation of annotation, interpretation, and understanding?

TOPICS OF INTEREST

In an exchange between humanities scholars and computer scientists, we want to explore the possibilities and limits of the vision of digitally supported hermeneutics. The following questions should be understood as suggestions for contributions:

• Digitization processes bear the risk of information loss or structural shifts and biases. How can these risks be dealt with?
• The transformation of sources to data involves coding and enables the enrichment with information. How does one deal with the loss of the original source characteristics? Do standardizations promote a focus on unifying features of different sources or can nuances and deviations also be mapped?
• Do the questions and epistemological interests of humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences change the availability, quality, and quantity of sources in the form of data?
• How can algorithms and tools support, possibly even expand, research questions and epistemological interests in the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences?
• Can computer science also benefit from the discussion of methods in the humanities, social sciences, and cultural studies?

The support of hermeneutic research processes by computer science can cover MultiMedia Indexing and Retrieval, Natural Language Processing (e.g. Named Entity Recognition), Knowledge Representation, Argumentation Mining, Machine Learning, Reliability, Explainability and Reproducibility. For the workshop, we are looking for contributions from both realms – computer science and humanities, also preferably in interdisciplinary tandem. Reports on current developments of digital support systems, experiences in dealing with such systems, as well as the problematization of technical and methodological challenges for the humanities and computer science are desired.

Workshop Details

The workshop will be held over two days covering the following panels:

23.11.2023 (12:00 – 21:00):

Panel 1: “From Source to Data”
Panel 2: “From Data to Scientific Questions for Digital Hermeneutics”
Panel 3: “From Data to Scientific Methods for Digital Hermeneutics”
Keynotes

24.11.2023 (9:00 – 13:30):

Panel 4: “Sustainable Data Management for Digital Hermeneutics”
Panel 5: “Costs and Benefits of Digital Hermeneutics”

Scientific and Organizational Committee:

Valentina Bachi, Photoconsortium
Swati Chandna, SRH Univ. of Heidelberg
Felix Engel, TIB – German National Library
Antonella Fresa, Promoter S.r.l.
Ingo Frommholz, Univ. of Wolverhampton
Matthias Hemmje, FernUniversität in Hagen
Helmut Hofbauer, FernUniversität in Hagen
Paul Mc Kevitt, Univ. of Ulster, Belfast
Almut Leh, FernUniversität in Hagen
Bianca Mix, FernUniversität in Hagen
Dennis Möbus, FernUniversität in Hagen
Christian Nawroth, FernUniversität in Hagen
Tom van Nuenen, Univ. of Cal. Berkeley
Uta Störl, FernUniversität in Hagen
Jan-Niklas Voigt-Antons, Univ. of Hamm-Lippstadt
Binh Vu, SRH Univ. Heidelberg
Joris van Zundert, Huygens Institute Amsterdam

Language

The workshop language is English. Abstracts can be submitted in English or German.

Post-proceedings and Publication

We are pleased to announce that we have been officially accepted by Springer: The papers will be published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS). A German translation in the series Digitale Kultur, published by Hagen University Press, is being considered. Authors should consult Springer’s Instructions for Authors of Proceedings and use either the LaTeX or the Word templates provided on the author’s page for the preparation of their papers. Springer encourages authors to include their ORCIDs in their papers. For accepted papers, in addition, the corresponding author of each paper, acting on behalf of all of the authors of that paper, must complete and sign a License-to-Publish form. The corresponding author signing the copyright form should match the corresponding author marked on the paper. Once the files have been sent to Springer, changes relating to the authorship of the papers cannot be made.

Submission and Deadlines

September 15^th 2023:            Abstract (Position Paper, max. 500 words, please submit to
dennis.moebus@fernuni-hagen.de)
September 30^th 2023:            Notification to authors (Accept/Revise/Reject)
October 30^th 2023:                Camera Ready Abstract
23./24. November 2023:        Workshop
December 15^th 2023:             Full Paper Submission
January 15^th 2024:                 Full Paper Review Feedback
February 15^th 2024:               CRV Full Paper

[1] https://hagen-up.de/publikationen/von-menschen-und-maschinen-mensch-maschine-interaktionen-in-digitalen-kulturen/