Oggi, 3 giugno 2026, prende avvio a Cagliari il XV Convegno annuale dell’Associazione per l’Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale, dedicato a Digitale e Public Engagement: pratiche e prospettive nelle Digital Humanities.
Saranno tre giornate di interventi, sessioni parallele, poster, momenti di confronto, occasioni di incontro e appuntamenti associativi. Per accompagnare al meglio la partecipazione al convegno, quest’anno sono disponibili anche nuovi strumenti pensati per facilitare l’orientamento tra programma, sessioni e comunicazioni in tempo reale.
Il convegno in numeri
AIUCD 2026 conferma la vitalità della comunità italiana e internazionale delle Digital Humanities. Alla call for papers sono arrivate 151 proposte; al termine del processo di valutazione sono stati accettati 134 contributi, con un acceptance rate dell’88,7%.
Le proposte coinvolgono 371 firme d’autore, con una media di 2,46 autori per contributo, e circa 163 enti di ricerca, tra atenei, istituti e centri coinvolti. Sono inoltre 50 le candidature al Premio Gigliozzi.
La distribuzione tematica restituisce un quadro articolato delle linee di ricerca oggi attive nella comunità AIUCD: DH e co-costruzione, archivi ed edizioni, memorie, storia e patrimonio, dati e rappresentazione, testualità digitali e altri contributi trasversali alle Digital Humanities.
Il punto di accesso principale è il sito del convegno:
Dal sito è possibile raggiungere il programma completo, la sessione poster, le informazioni locali, gli aggiornamenti e il Conference Companion.
Il Conference Companion
Una delle novità di AIUCD 2026 è il Conference Companion, una guida digitale pensata per orientarsi più facilmente tra programma, poster, sessioni, informazioni locali e strumenti utili.
Il Companion può essere consultato da browser e installato sul telefono come web app, così da avere il programma sempre a portata di mano durante il convegno, anche offline.
Attraverso il Companion è possibile seguire le sessioni, consultare la poster session, accedere alle informazioni locali e costruire più facilmente la propria agenda delle giornate.
Il broadcast Telegram del convegno
Tra le novità di quest’anno, vi invitiamo a entrare nel broadcast Telegram riservato ai soli partecipanti al convegno, che sarà utilizzato per comunicazioni in presa diretta, aggiornamenti istantanei, news e indicazioni operative prima e durante le giornate del convegno.
La Lectio Magistralis
Tra gli appuntamenti centrali del convegno ci sarà la Lectio Magistralis di Philip Crowe dell’University College Dublin.
Il suo intervento toccherà temi che intrecciano patrimonio, public engagement, strumenti digitali, sostenibilità, comunità e co-progettazione.
La Lectio sarà discussa e commentata da Francesca Tomasi (Università di Bologna) e Arianna Ciula (King’s College London).
La sessione poster
Anche quest’anno la sessione poster rappresenta uno spazio centrale del convegno: un momento di dialogo diretto tra ricercatrici, ricercatori, studiose, studiosi e professionisti del settore.
La pagina dedicata permette di consultare i contributi selezionati, gli autori e le autrici, e le aree tematiche di riferimento. La sessione poster sarà anche un’occasione importante per conoscere lavori in corso, progetti emergenti e prospettive di ricerca che attraversano le diverse anime delle Digital Humanities.
L’assemblea dei soci AIUCD
Nel corso del convegno si terrà anche l’assemblea dei soci AIUCD, momento centrale della vita associativa.
L’assemblea è prevista per giovedì 4 giugno alle ore 17.30, in Aula Capitini.
La partecipazione all’assemblea è particolarmente importante: sarà l’occasione per condividere aggiornamenti sulle attività dell’associazione, discutere le prossime linee di lavoro e confrontarsi sul futuro della comunità AIUCD.
Le informazioni locali
Sul sito e nel Companion sono disponibili anche le informazioni pratiche relative alla sede del convegno, agli spostamenti, alla città e ai luoghi utili per chi partecipa alle tre giornate cagliaritane.
Una sezione specifica è dedicata anche all’esplorazione di Cagliari, con luoghi selezionati e indicazioni pensate per accompagnare le pause tra una sessione e l’altra.
Buon convegno
AIUCD 2026 sarà un’occasione importante non solo per discutere ricerche, strumenti, pratiche e prospettive delle Digital Humanities, ma anche per ritrovarsi come comunità: nei panel, nelle sessioni poster, nei momenti informali e nell’assemblea annuale dell’associazione.
Auguriamo buon convegno a tutte e tutti, e invitiamo chi partecipa a seguire gli aggiornamenti attraverso il sito, il Companion, il broadcast Telegram e i canali AIUCD.
Il 24 marzo 2026, sulla mailing list AIUCD, è stata rilanciata una riflessione nata in occasione del convegno AIUCD2025 di Verona: come favorire una partecipazione più attiva delle socie e dei soci più giovani alla vita dell’associazione?
Per raccogliere proposte, osservazioni e bisogni in vista del convegno AIUCD2026 di Cagliari e della relativa assemblea, è stato aperto un breve sondaggio con un campo libero per i suggerimenti e con la possibilità, per chi rispondeva, di indicare se pubblicare o meno il proprio nome. Il 29 marzo 2026, dopo le prime risposte, la discussione è stata rilanciata in lista; proponiamo qui una prima restituzione dei contributi raccolti.
Le risposte arrivate finora mostrano che il tema non riguarda soltanto la vita interna dell’associazione: parlare di partecipazione giovanile significa interrogarsi anche sulle condizioni in cui si entra in una comunità scientifica, sulla possibilità di prendere parola, sul riconoscimento del lavoro interdisciplinare, sulla precarietà dei percorsi accademici e professionali, sui modi concreti in cui un’associazione può diventare uno spazio realmente accessibile.
Un primo elemento ricorrente riguarda la fiducia. Il coinvolgimento attivo può avvenire solo se chi si affaccia a un campo di studi sente di essere accolto e riconosciuto. Molte e molti giovani arrivano alle Digital Humanities dopo essersi formati in contesti disciplinari nei quali esporsi può apparire rischioso: fare una domanda, proporre un’idea, intervenire in un dibattito o prendere un’iniziativa possono essere percepiti come gesti da ponderare con estrema cautela.
Questa difficoltà non nasce necessariamente dentro AIUCD, che viene anzi descritta da più risposte come un ambiente accogliente e positivo. Nasce però nei percorsi formativi, nei settori disciplinari di provenienza, nelle gerarchie accademiche e nelle condizioni materiali del lavoro intellettuale. Per questo la domanda non è soltanto come “coinvolgere” i/le giovani, ma come costruire le condizioni perché possano sentirsi legittimati/e a prendere parola e a prendere parte. Una delle risposte al sondaggio insiste proprio su questo aspetto:
Personalmente, sono d’accordo con quanti hanno sollevato un problema “strutturale” educativo in Italia, che scoraggia l’esporsi con opinioni e idee proprie (e la capacità stessa di formularle) quando si ha a che fare con persone gerarchicamente in posizione di superiorità, attitudine che chi ha frequentato corsi in altri paesi anche europei ha potuto verificare essere molto diversa altrove.
La proposta che segue è molto concreta:
Occorrerebbero strategie pratiche per disinnescare la percezione gerarchica nei gruppi di lavoro, promuovendo occasioni di confronto diretto. Un esempio potrebbe essere quello di includere una quota “giovani” all’interno degli organi direttivi e organizzativi, in modo che il confronto possa essere vicendevolmente fruttuoso (ovvero, invitare anche la “vecchia guardia” a confrontarsi fuori dall’ambito del cerchio delle conoscenze).
Il tema della partecipazione si intreccia poi con quello del riconoscimento istituzionale delle Digital Humanities. Una risposta osserva che le DH non sono ancora pienamente riconosciute né come settore autonomo né come metodologia trasversale applicata alle discipline:
Concordo anche sul problema delle DH, non riconosciute né come settore a sé (con proprio SSD), né valorizzata come metodologia trasversale, applicata alle discipline (i cui contributi devono essere valutati almeno come pienamente disciplinari). Questo è un problema che nelle valutazioni effettivamente penalizza.
La stessa risposta collega questo nodo alla questione più generale dell’interdisciplinarità:
È un problema più vasto che riguarda l’interdisciplinarità in sé, fortemente penalizzata in Italia. Ma senza scomodare massimi sistemi, credo che chi approcci alle DH abbia già in sé una vocazione a superare il settarismo, e quindi ribadisco che il problema maggiore rimane a mio avviso quello sollevato in prima battuta.
Accanto a questi problemi strutturali, dalle risposte emergono proposte operative e facilmente discutibili in sede associativa. La prima è la creazione di uno spazio specifico per le socie e i soci più giovani:
Creare un “gruppo giovani” che sia coinvolto nella programmazione e nella realizzazione delle attività di AIUCD.
Il punto decisivo, in questa prospettiva, è che la partecipazione non sia soltanto consultiva o simbolica. Un gruppo giovani potrebbe diventare uno spazio stabile di proposta, confronto e progettazione, ma dovrebbe essere collegato alla programmazione reale delle attività dell’associazione.
Un’altra risposta sposta l’attenzione sul riconoscimento concreto del lavoro:
Fare da tramite per incarichi piccoli ma pagati. Dare loro responsabilità nell’organizzazione di eventi.
Questa indicazione è importante perché evita di pensare la partecipazione soltanto come disponibilità volontaria. Per chi è nelle prime fasi della carriera, anche incarichi circoscritti possono produrre competenze, esperienza, visibilità e riconoscimento. Quando possibile, inoltre, il lavoro dovrebbe essere anche retribuito, proprio perché le condizioni materiali incidono sulla possibilità di partecipare.
Una risposta mette bene a fuoco un’altra esigenza: creare spazi in cui sia possibile esporsi anche senza avere già un risultato definitivo.
Riprendo volentieri questa riflessione, anche a partire dalla mia esperienza di dottoranda. Grazie ad AIUCD e alla mailing list ho avuto diverse occasioni di formazione e di confronto che sono state per me molto utili; in particolare, anche l’ultimo convegno di Verona è stato un momento ricco di stimoli, scambi e possibilità di crescita, che però rischiano poi di disperdersi nel tempo.
Il problema, qui, non è la mancanza di occasioni, ma la loro accessibilità effettiva:
Quello che percepisco, e che condivido, è che non si tratti solo di creare più occasioni di partecipazione, ma di renderle realmente accessibili, soprattutto per i/le più giovani che spesso non si sentono ancora (e mai) “abbastanza pront*”. Personalmente, una delle difficoltà maggiori è proprio quella di trovare spazi in cui sia legittimo esporsi anche con lavori non ancora definitivi.
Da qui nasce una proposta precisa:
In questo senso, potrebbe essere utile affiancare ai momenti più strutturati anche occasioni a “bassa soglia”: brevi interventi su lavori in corso, momenti di confronto meno formalizzati, che rendano più semplice iniziare a partecipare. Allo stesso tempo, credo che possano fare molto la differenza anche forme di scambio più diretto e informale: momenti di confronto tra pari, occasioni di feedback preliminare, ma anche forme di mentoring leggero e non gerarchico, che aiutino a orientarsi e a sentirsi meno “fuori posto”, soprattutto nelle prime fasi.
Questo passaggio suggerisce una direzione chiara: non tutti gli spazi dell’associazione devono avere la forma del convegno, della relazione compiuta o dell’articolo maturo. Possono esistere anche spazi per lavori in corso, dubbi metodologici, esperimenti, ipotesi iniziali, richieste di feedback. Per molte persone all’inizio del percorso, la possibilità di presentare qualcosa di non definitivo può essere il primo passo verso una partecipazione più stabile.
La stessa risposta insiste anche sulla continuità:
In questa direzione, penso possa servire pensare di rafforzare anche occasioni più continuative, come piccoli gruppi di lavoro, momenti di confronto informale o spazi di scambio regolari, che permettano di costruire relazioni nel tempo e rendano la partecipazione meno episodica, e quindi più sostenibile e produttiva.
Un ultimo nodo, molto netto, riguarda la precarietà. Una risposta invita a non leggere la partecipazione solo in termini di motivazione individuale:
A mio avviso, non si tratta tanto di una criticità interna ad AIUCD, che percepisco invece come un ambiente accogliente e positivo, quanto piuttosto di un problema legato al contesto lavorativo in cui molti giovani soci si trovano oggi a operare.
La difficoltà viene descritta come effetto di una condizione di urgenza permanente:
La precarietà costante, i lavori scanditi da consegne e la necessità di investire continuamente energie mentali e fisiche nella ricerca dell’incarico successivo producono una condizione di urgenza permanente. In questo quadro, il tempo e le risorse da dedicare a una partecipazione associativa attiva sono purtroppo molto limitati.
E la conclusione è altrettanto esplicita:
Pur essendo AIUCD una realtà inclusiva e stimolante, credo che le condizioni di incertezza e urgenza che caratterizzano molti percorsi professionali limitino la possibilità di un coinvolgimento costante.
Durante i giorni del convegno, e dopo la pubblicazione della prima versione di questo articolo (03.06.2026), è arrivata anche la seguente risposta, che insiste sulla creazione di occasioni di formazione ed eventi:
Organizzare attività di formazione, divulgazione ed eventi in cui i giovani soci possono mettersi in gioco scambiando non solo idee ma anche, e soprattutto, dubbi e criticità. Vorrei che queste occasioni siano uno spazio per aiutarsi concretamente e anche condividere competenze.
Le risposte raccolte indicano quindi alcune possibili linee di lavoro:
creare un gruppo giovani coinvolto nella programmazione e nella realizzazione delle attività;
affidare incarichi concreti, circoscritti e, quando possibile, retribuiti (è il caso, ad esempio, dell’affidamento dei lavori per il nuovo sito di AIUCD);
dare responsabilità organizzative reali in eventi, gruppi di lavoro, blog, comunicazione, formazione e documentazione;
prevedere spazi a bassa soglia per lavori in corso, idee preliminari e discussioni metodologiche;
favorire momenti di confronto tra pari;
sperimentare forme di mentoring leggero e non gerarchico;
rendere più continuativi i gruppi di lavoro e gli spazi informali di scambio;
discutere la possibilità di una presenza strutturata delle persone più giovani negli organi direttivi e organizzativi;
continuare a lavorare, anche sul piano pubblico e istituzionale, per il riconoscimento delle Digital Humanities e dell’interdisciplinarità.
Queste proposte saranno portate all’attenzione dell’assemblea di Cagliari (4 giugno 2026) per fare il punto e per capire quali idee possano essere tradotte in nuove azioni concrete.
AIUCD è una comunità giovane non solo perché molte dottorande e dottorandi, assegniste e assegnisti, ricercatrici e ricercatori nelle prime fasi della carriera partecipano alle sue attività, ma anche perché le Digital Humanities continuano a essere un campo in costruzione. Per questo la partecipazione delle persone più giovani non è un tema accessorio. È una condizione per il futuro dell’associazione e per la crescita delle DH in Italia.
Chi desidera contribuire può ancora farlo attraverso il sondaggio o intervenendo in lista. Ogni proposta, anche minima, può aiutare a costruire forme di partecipazione più accessibili, più continuative e più riconosciute.
This spring, six CDH Graduate Fellows arrived with their research in progress, asking six different questions across multiple disciplines ranging from History and Comparative Literature to Music and English. Their findings? Working with data and computational methods rarely unfolded the way they expected, and while oftentimes arduous, the labor uncovered “strange and beautiful” discoveries.
"We are receiving more competitive applications to the Graduate Fellowship than ever before," said Grant Wythoff, who directs CDH graduate student programs. "Some of these emerging scholars bring knowledge of data curation standards and machine learning methods. Others are tuned into the latest debates on AI's political and epistemological impacts. The mix of voices makes for an incredibly exciting group dynamic."
Cecelia Ramsey (French and Italian) came to the CDH with a question about literary afterlives: what makes a book experience a revival many years after its initial release? To study this at scale, she worked with BiblioBase, a database of the nineteenth-century Bibliographie de la France, tracking gaps between editions and reeditions and looking for patterns in a book's reintroduction.
The data was messy—inconsistent titles, variable spellings of authors' names—and rather than cleaning the inconsistencies away, Cecelia explored them as an opportunity to learn more about the nature of reeditions and the format of the Bibliographie itself. "Interacting with the messy data taught me how slippery the very name of a work can be," she reflected.
It was also her first substantial engagement with DH methods, and she described the fellowship's atmosphere as essential. When Grant Wythoff opened the semester by telling the cohort it was normal not to know things—that the DH world is so interdisciplinary that all scholars often feel that way—it changed what was possible. "This introduction made it a space where it's normal to ask questions, to learn, and to just be openly curious," Cecelia said. "What a gift."
A pedigree chart tracing the lineage of Ignez de Guiné, the matriarch of several prominent Portuguese families.
Amanda Pinheiro (History) has been working with a database developed over the last ten years, containing 115,545 baptismal, notarial, and judicial documents from ten villages in colonial Brazil. These records detail the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century lives of roughly 6,000 individuals who inhabited the south of Brazil and may have migrated through the frontier zone between the Spanish and Portuguese empires. The issue: that number is inflated by duplicate names, with varying spellings and characteristics across documents. Her fellowship project used Splink, a Python library for probabilistic record linkage, to calculate the statistical likelihood that two records refer to the same individual—generating a unique identifier for each person so she could cross-reference this database with her new archival findings.
I realized that automation necessarily requires diligent and continuous manual labor.
Amanda Pinheiro
What surprised her was how much human judgment, or as she describes it, laborious decision-making, the automation required. "I realized that automation necessarily requires diligent and continuous manual labor," Amanda reflected. "The two are interconnected and walk hand-in-hand in the digital realm." With Wouter Haverals’ (Associate Research Scholar, CDH; Perkins Fellow, Humanities Council) guidance, she completed Splink tests and generated an analytical report on the quality of her datasets—one she hopes to publish and add to her metadata in the future.
Amy Weng (English) asked whether a seventeenth-century English preacher's confessional affiliation—Anglican, Nonconformist, or Catholic—leaves a detectable fingerprint in their printed sermons. Her project, Godly and Learned Divines (GoLD), represented each of 809 preachers across 2,877 books as a 1,000-dimensional vector built from scripture citations, named references, topic modeling, and entity types, then trained a Random Forest classifier to predict denomination. The model achieved an F1-score (a machine learning metric used to evaluate the performance of a classification model) of 0.80 for Anglicans, 0.51 for Nonconformists, and 0.12 for Catholics.
Wikidata-Linkable Preachers in EEBO-TCP
Clustered based on the distribution of topics, named entities, and scriptural references in their sermons
The results were striking. Place of education turned out to be the least important feature—far less predictive than the types of sources a preacher reached for. "Bible versions matter more than the proportions of Bible divisions," Amy concluded, "and ancient entities once again outrank medieval and contemporary references. Generally, godly learnedness—patterns of referencing scripture—distinguishes preachers across confessional divides more than overall learnedness."
Amy credited Jacob Murel (Research Software Engineer, Classics) for sustained mentorship on using large language models for orthographic standardization, and Wouter Haverals for introducing her to Wikidata reconciliation.
Pierre Azou (French and Italian) examines the relationship between literature and political violence in his doctoral research and found himself drawn to the “digital sphere” as the space where the questions he studies in published books are being reconfigured. For his fellowship project investigating the link between "manliness" and insecurity in contemporary French public discourse, he turned to two foundational texts in the French debate on masculinity: Élisabeth Badinter's XY, de l'identité masculine (1992) and Éric Zemmour's Le Premier Sexe (2006). These works contain opposing premises, one theorizing a fragile masculinity, the other insisting it is strong but under siege, yet both binding manliness tightly to a language of threat and crisis.
Using keyness analysis and topic modeling in Python allowed Pierre to compare the density of each author's clusters of insecurity-related words (fear, violence, war, crisis, domination). He identified the author's statistically distinctive vocabulary and examined the semantic neighborhoods of shared terms. The most productive approach was contextual: looking at what words appear near a key shared term like virilité in each text. "It turns out the same word lives in completely different semantic environments in Badinter and Zemmour," Pierre noted.
A technical challenge gave him pause early on—preprocessing French text that contained English-language citations required combining stopword lists (words like “a,” “the,” “and” or “un,” “le,” “et”) and filtering bibliographic noise—but his more substantive reflection was on what data cleaning actually does. "It reminded me that cleaning decisions in DH are more than purely technical, as they also shape the findings."
Cleaning decisions in DH are more than purely technical, as they also shape the findings.
Pierre Azou
Nathaniel Gallant (Comparative Literature) studies the relationship between Buddhism and the history of dramatic and poetic theory across Japanese and Tibetan literary traditions. In his daily research, he relies on well-developed digital tools and databases built for pre-modern Japanese sources—resources that reflect years of philological groundwork by scholars who came before him. For Tibetan studies, that infrastructure is still being built. DH projects in the field are scattered across academic, non-profit, and private spheres, with no centralized view of what exists or where the gaps are.
Nathaniel’s fellowship project addressed that directly: he created a database cataloging existing DH projects in Tibetan studies, with visualizations mapping networks of funding sources, text archives, OCR and LLM development projects, and institutional stakeholders. The goal was to understand current patterns in project development and identify potential directions for future text-digitization projects, particularly in the history of Tibetan literature and poetry.
The hours of scanning documents, mental grappling...crystallized into something coherent, beautiful.
Rachel Glodo
Each issue of the Yearbook of the Imperial Theaters includes detailed lists (spiski) of creators and artists.
Rachel Glodo (Music) is reconstructing the world of the Imperial Ballet in the Russian Silver Age through eighteen volumes of the Yearbook of the Imperial Theaters (1890–1908)—elaborate annual retrospectives documenting productions, performers, choreographers, musicians, designers, and administrators across St. Petersburg and Moscow. The challenge was getting that data out of the page and into a form that a researcher could query. Rachel used optical text recognition (OTR) to convert nineteenth-century printed Cyrillic into machine-readable text, while Andy Janco (Digital Scholarship Specialist) developed custom Python scripts, based on her project design, to convert images of lists and tables into structured spreadsheets.
What Rachel hadn't anticipated was how much the project would begin with physical, analog labor. "The most challenging part of my project wasn't the implementation of DH methodologies," she said, "but the quotidian task of scanning and saving thousands of images spanning 18 volumes." She described it as "the strange and beautiful juxtaposition of 'distant' and 'close' readings that characterizes DH." And she was surprised by how much the technology itself shifted between her original proposal and the start of the fellowship—she ended up using an entirely different processing strategy than she had planned, with Christine Roughan (Postdoctoral Research Associate, CDH/MARBAS) and Andy as crucial partners in identifying her priorities and methods.
A eureka moment was had when they ran the Python scripts together for the first time. "All the hours of scanning documents, mental grappling, design, and redesign suddenly crystallized into something coherent, beautiful, and—almost miraculously—exactly what I needed," she recalled. "It was a glorious moment."
A record of all productions on the Imperial stages, including ballets and operas.
Throughout the semester, the cohort's monthly sessions became as important as the technical work itself. "The regular meetings provided me with more productive time and space to learn about digital tools than scheduling different consultations could have," Amanda said. For Cecelia, the cross-disciplinary exchange was its own kind of finding: "It's exciting to step outside your discipline and be invited into someone else's world while it's still in the making—while they're still experimenting and puzzling through the challenges."
Interested in applying for a Graduate Fellowship?Visit here, or head to theCDH Graduate Program page to see more opportunities for graduate students.
We are delighted to announce the recipients of the Fall 2026 CDH Graduate Fellowship. Grad Fellows are mentored by CDH staff to employ computational and data-driven methods in their research. As a cohort, fellows explore tools, methods, and best practices that will benefit them throughout their careers.
Please join us in congratulating this cohort:
Maximilian Diemer (History) is researching the origins of meritocratic practice in eighteenth-century France and Britain, with a focus on professionalisation in the army and royal service.
Aneka Kazlyna (History) examines the transmission and transformation of scientific knowledge between the Islamic world and early modern Europe, with a particular focus on Arabic and Latin astronomical/astrological and mathematical texts.
Shiqi Pan (East Asian Studies) studies the medieval history of the Huai River region in China, exploring it as an internal frontier shaped by environmental, political, and cultural change.
Benjamin Price (Art and Archaeology) studies art, anarchism, and histories of science in late-nineteenth century France.
Sun Shen (Politics) is studying presidential influence in the making of U.S. foreign policy.
Filippo Ugolini (East Asian Studies) examines the discourse of romance in mid-to-late Tang China (8th–9th century) at the intersection of literary analysis, gender studies, and socio-economic history.
Tirzah Anderson (History) is researching Afro-Indigenous worldmaking in Indian Territory and Oklahoma from the 1890s through the 1930s.
We look forward to working with this remarkable cohort and sharing more about their projects and fellowship outcomes as the year unfolds.
韩瑞亚 (Rania Huntington），威斯康辛大学麦迪逊分校亚洲语言文化系中国文学教授，武汉大学文学院兼职教授。博士毕业于美国哈佛大学东亚语言与文明系，曾于南京大学、南开大学进修。研究领域为明清小说，特别关注志怪文学、文学与记忆、文学与地理等。代表作有Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative （Harvard University Asia Center, 2004）(中译本《异类：狐狸与中华帝国晚期的叙事》， 中西书局，2019）， Ink and Tears: Memory, Mourning, and Writing in the Yu Family（《墨与泪：俞氏家族的记忆、哀悼与书写》, University of Hawaii Press，2021）等。
在这段规则代码中：PATTERN 是模式匹配关键词，后面跟着的列表["陕北", "陕甘宁"]表示需要匹配的文本模式，即当文本中出现这两个词中的任何一个时可能触发此规则。CONSTRAINT 是约束条件关键词，后面的逻辑表达式 year >= 1937 AND year <= 1947 表示此规则仅在文献时间处于1937—1947年间才会被激活，其中year是一个系统变量，表示从文献元数据或内容中提取的时间信息。ACTION 是动作关键词，MAP_TO("陕甘宁边区")表示当模式匹配且约束条件满足时，系统将把匹配到的文本映射到标准实体“陕甘宁边区”。
这里是代表时间上下文的时间特征向量；和是将时间和节点特征映射到同一向量空间的可学习参数矩阵；a是注意力机制中的参数向量，用于计算注意力能量；∥表示向量拼接操作,用于将不同来源的特征信息组合在一起；Leaky Re LU是一种改进的激活函数，允许较小的负值梯度通过，有助于缓解梯度消失问题；k是求和索引，代表节点i的所有邻居节点。
Sci Data. 2026 May 30. doi: 10.1038/s41597-026-07527-2. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
The automatic extraction of geographical entities and spatial relationships from historical texts is a fundamental task for Named Entity Recognition (NER) and relation extraction (RE), with important implications for historical geography and digital humanities. Classical Chinese documents describing ancient cities pose particular challenges due to archaic language, implicit spatial expressions, and complex entity hierarchies. In this study, we present a manually annotated dataset designed for joint geographical entity and spatial relationship extraction from texts related to Lin'an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. The dataset consists of 18 in-domain and 1 out-of-distribution historical documents comprising approximately one million Chinese characters, annotated with 24 categories of geographical entities and 34 types of spatial relationships. This dataset provides a valuable resource for advancing NER and spatial relation extraction in historical texts and supports future research in historical Geographic Information Systems (GIS), cultural geography, and digital heritage reconstruction.
The following interview was conducted by Sam Goven, a master’s student in Journalism at KU Leuven, with Luisa Ripoll-Alberola, team leader of the BiblioTech Hackathon project Captacats. Luisa is a PhD candidate at Leipzig University working on the Horizon Europe funded MECANO project. Luisa’s team, Captacats, worked with the travelogues collection. You can learn more about the team’s work by having a look at their project poster in the BiblioTech Zenodo community and by visiting their project website.
The BiblioTech Hackathon is a 10-day event organized by KU Leuven Libraries and the Faculty of Arts. Students, researchers, and staff members of KU Leuven worked in multidisciplinary teams with digitized collections from KU Leuven Libraries. The theme of the 2026 edition was travel, which was reflected in the selected datasets: historical postcards and historical travelogues. More information about the hackathon and its results can be found on the BiblioTech 2026 website.
Team captacats with their project poster during the closing event of the BiblioTech Hackathon.
Congratulations again on your team winning the prize for most original project! To start, could you tell us a bit about your background, what first interested you in the hackathon, and whether you had participated in one before?
I’m currently a PhD student in Digital Humanities, working on the MECANO project. I had never participated in a hackathon before, but I knew that I wanted to take part in one at some point. There’s a very large Digital Humanities hackathon in Helsinki every year, with five or six different datasets, but participating there can be quite expensive.
While I was doing a research stay here in Leuven, I learned about the BiblioTech Hackathon. It really felt like the stars were aligning, because it was the perfect situation. As I mentioned, I was already thinking about joining a hackathon, and having the opportunity not only to participate but also to be a team leader was exactly what I was looking for. It allowed me to take part in a Digital Humanities activity in a more informal setting, which I really liked.
Could you describe your project and your output in a nutshell?
We created a prototype web visualization called ShipAdvisor, which is loosely inspired by modern platforms like TripAdvisor, but focused on historical Mediterranean travel routes. Using travelogues from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the tool allows users to navigate different routes and see how travelers at the time rated places and journeys.
Through the visualization, users can explore which routes were most popular and how perceptions of safety and danger varied across regions. These perceptions were shaped not only by environmental factors such as weather, but also by historical phenomena like Mediterranean piracy. In terms of design and approach, we drew inspiration from digital humanities platforms such as ArcGIS StoryMaps and Itiner‑e.
You mentioned that you were the team leader in your group. What did that role involve, and was it in line with what you expected? Did you find it difficult to lead the team throughout the project?
I have to say it was actually super easy. I was very, very lucky with my team, they were all extremely motivated. Supporting them felt very natural and light. We had quite a lot of meetings during the process, but it never felt forced; everything just happened quite organically.
As a team leader, I didn’t want to take up too much space. I really wanted the group to feel horizontal and collaborative. However, in the first few days, when people were still a bit shy, I think it helped for the team leader to propose ideas, bring different ideas together, and guide things slightly in that sense. Beyond that, my role was more about offering support, often acting as a bridge between the participants and the experts. Before reaching out to the experts, I was there to help where I could.
Overall, it was, as I said, very easy, and it never felt like an artificial hierarchy or like I was in a superior position. It really felt like teamwork.
At the ‘Meet the Data, Meet the People’ event, you were introduced to the data for the first time. How did the brainstorming process go?
At the beginning, we had four or five main ideas. Our approach was to take some time after the first day to reflect on them individually, and then meet again the following Monday to make a decision. During that meeting, we decided to go with the idea of ShipAdvisor, mainly because it allowed us to integrate many different elements.
For example, we could look at which routes were more affected by piracy, which was a particular interest for some of the team members, while others wanted to work with illustrations. The concept really allowed for different approaches to come together within the same interface.
At first, it can feel a bit overwhelming, you think, I need to produce something, but I’m not yet sure what that will be. But because everyone in the team was so motivated, we ended up arriving at a solid idea quite naturally.
What kind of audience did you have in mind when working on your project and the website? Who should be able to use it?
We mainly had the general public in mind. We didn’t want the website to require any specific background knowledge, whether technical or academic. The idea was that anyone could use it, people who are simply curious and want to explore the corpus in a different way.
Did you run into any problems during the hackathon, and how did you tackle them?
File coordination was probably the trickiest part. At the beginning, we planned to use all the infrastructure the library was offering, such as the computing cluster. In the end, though, we didn’t really use it. One reason was that the team had different levels of technical expertise, and for some people the computing cluster felt like too much to handle. As a result, everyone ended up working in their own way and sharing files through the Teams group instead.
That approach worked, but it wasn’t always ideal. At times it felt a bit overwhelming to navigate, because we had many documents and different versions circulating. Sometimes people were working in parallel, and you had to wait for the latest version from a teammate before you could continue your own work. Our file‑sharing setup certainly wasn’t the most structured solution, but in the end it worked for us.
You mentioned that this was the first hackathon you participated in. Do you feel you picked up any new skills along the way, and how might you use them in future research?
As a PhD student in Digital Humanities, I mainly work with text analysis. My thesis focuses on the reception of ancient authors in academic prose and academic discourse, so my work is very text‑based. Before this hackathon, I had never really worked with geographical data.
That made this project especially interesting for me, because in my own research I don’t often have the opportunity to work with spatial data. The hackathon gave me the chance to explore that a bit, experiment with different tools, and see how geographical data could be integrated into a digital humanities project.
What kind of advice would you give to someone who might be hesitant to participate in their first hackathon?
I think one of the biggest insecurities people often have is feeling that they don’t have enough technical skills to participate. What I would say is that the support provided by the library and the pool of experts was truly incredible, you were never really on your own. You were always supported, both by the experts and by your teammates.
People with less technical experience found other important roles within the team. That could be doing more close reading, contributing to the final analysis, or working on the design of the poster. I would definitely encourage anyone who feels insecure about their technical background to take part. First of all, you learn a lot. Second, as I’ve said, you’re never alone, you’re very well supported by both the experts and the team. And finally, even if you don’t feel fully comfortable at first, you will definitely find meaningful ways to contribute to the group.
And what kind of advice would you give to a future team leader of a hackathon team?
I would say: don’t stress too much. I remember feeling quite insecure at times about our final outcome, but in the end, whatever you produce is going to be fine. In reality, the hackathon is meant to be fun, and not a competition.
What really matters is not the end product, but the process: working together, learning new things, and enjoying the experience. That’s what makes it valuable.
회원 가입 : https://kacle.jams.or.kr/co/main/jmMain.kci
연회비 : 3만 원
평생회비 : 30만 원(평생회비 납부 회원은 연회비 납부 면제)
입금 계좌 : 토스뱅크 1001-6993-9125 (예금주: 구현아)
※ 입금 시 입금자명을 “홍길동 연회비” 형식으로 기재해 주시기 바랍니다.
■ 수업 방식 : Zoom을 활용한 온라인 실시간 강의
※ 접속 주소는 참가 신청자에 한해 추후 안내 예정
이번 특강은 한국외국어대학교 박정원 교수님을 모시고 「AI 역량 집중 프로그램 – 중국어 교육의 미래를 설계하다」를 주제로 진행됩니다. 2026년 6월 27일(토)과 28일(일) 양일간 운영되며, 급변하는 교육 환경 속에서 중국어 교육의 새로운 방향을 모색하고 교수 역량을 한층 높일 수 있는 뜻깊은 시간이 될 것으로 기대합니다.
특강은 Zoom을 활용한 온라인 방식으로 진행되오니, 여름방학 기간 중에도 회원 여러분의 많은 관심과 적극적인 참여를 부탁드립니다.
[신청 안내]
■ 신청 기간 : 2026년 6월 4일(목) ~ 10일(수)
■ 신청 방법 : 첨부된 참가신청서를 작성하여 chinedu@hanmail.net으로 제출
바로: 참가를 원하시는 분은 참가 신청서 양식을 위 메일로 직접 요청해주시기 바랍니다.
기타 문의사항은 chinedu@hanmail.net으로 연락해 주시면 성심껏 안내해 드리겠습니다.
회원 여러분의 건강과 학문적 성취를 기원하며, 이번 특강에서 뜻깊은 배움과 교류의 시간을 함께 나누기를 기대합니다.
Am 25. Februar 2026 fand im Rahmen der jährlichen Digital-Humanities-Konferenz (DHd) ein Panel der AG Digital Humanities Theorie statt, das eine zentrale Frage in den Mittelpunkt stellte: Wie werden digitale Forschungspraktiken selbst zum Ausgangspunkt theoretischer Reflexion? Die Diskussion, an der sich Laura Untner (Freie Universität Berlin) und Alexa Lucke (Universität Siegen) aus den Computational Literary Studies (CLS), Silke Schwandt (Universität Bielefeld) und Christian Wachter (Universität Münster) aus der Digital History und Philipp Hegel (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz) aus der Digitalen Editorik beteiligten, zeigte, dass Theoriearbeit in den Digital Humanities (DH) nicht nur als externes Gerüst verstanden werden kann, sondern vielmehr auch aus der Praxis selbst erwächst. Im Folgenden werden einige Aspekte der Debatte zusammengefasst und es wird dazu eingeladen, über die Verflechtung von Theorie und Praxis sowie Theorie und Empirie in den DH wieder nachzudenken.
Was ist Theorie in den Digital Humanities?
In den Geisteswissenschaften war Theorie lange Zeit eng mit textbasierter Argumentation verbunden – dem Lesen, Interpretieren und Schreiben. In den DH verschiebt sich dieser Fokus: Hier entsteht Wissen nicht nur in klassischen Publikationen, sondern auch in Datenmodellen, Code-Zeilen oder Visualisierungen. Theorie und Theoriebildung hängen zunehmend von technischen Bedingungen ab, wodurch ihre impliziten Annahmen und Voraussetzungen nicht immer sichtbar werden. Zugleich wurde betont, dass Theoriearbeit in den DH drei zentrale Dimensionen umfasst: die methodologische (Wie operationalisieren wir Begriffe wie ‚Genre‘ oder ‚Autor*innenschaft‘?), die epistemologische (Welche Erkenntnisbedingungen liegen unseren Datenmodellen zugrunde?) und die technische (Wie prägen Infrastrukturen wie APIs oder Datenbanken unser Verständnis von Forschungsobjekten?). Theorie muss in diesem Zusammenhang nicht als Hindernis, sondern kann als Produktivitäts- und Transparenzwerkzeug verstanden werden – gerade dann, wenn sie explizit gemacht wird.
Praktiken des Theoretisierens in den Teilfeldern
Für die Computational Literary Studies (CLS) lag der epistemologische Schwerpunkt des Panels auf der Frage, wie Modellierungsprozesse theoretische Annahmen sichtbar machen (können). So wurden Text- und (Meta-)Datenmodelle wie Genre-Taxonomien oder Autorschaftskonzepte nicht als neutrale Perspektiven auf literaturgeschichtliche Kategorien wahrgenommen, sondern vielmehr hinsichtlich ihres Status zwischen (häufig normativen) theoretischen Konstrukten und empirischen Befunden diskutiert. Die digitale Hermeneutik (Möbus et al. 2025) etwa versuche, (latente) Vorannahmen in Daten und Datensätzen zu entschlüsseln und auf diese Weise den Mythos der ‚rohen Daten‘ (Gitelman 2013) zu entkräften. Ein Extrembeispiel für theoretische Reflexion stellt das WEMI-Modell (Work-Expression-Manifestation-Item) dar, das durch seine relationale Struktur zeigt, wie stark unser Verständnis von ‚Text‘ von theoretischen Vorannahmen geprägt ist. Besonders hervorgehoben wurde die Rolle der Formalisierung: Dabei wurde kritisch gefragt, warum bestimmte Literaturtheorien (wie Strukturalismus und Formalismus) formalisierbarer seien als andere und ob der Fokus in den CLS nicht stärker auf der Prozesshaftigkeit von Theoriebildung liegen sollte.
Im Hinblick auf die Digital History zeigte sich, dass das Digitale nicht einfach nur neue Methoden, sondern einen reflexiven turn (König 2021) auslöste. Traditionelle Praktiken wie Quellenkritik oder narrative Darstellungen erhalten durch digitale Werkzeuge eine neue Dimension: Erstere muss etwa Unsicherheiten in Datenmodellen reflektieren, während Visualisierungen wie Netzwerkanalysen zu ‚produktiven Irritationen‘ führen, die etablierte Erzählungen herausfordern. Ein Schlüsselmoment ist die Erkenntnis, dass Digital History nicht ‚Geschichte in Bits‘ ist, sondern eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Bedingungen, unter denen historisches Wissen heute entsteht. Besonders kontrovers diskutiert wurde, ob der Übergang von analogen zu digitalen Medien lediglich ein Medientransfer oder eine tiefgreifende Transformation darstelle.
Für die Digitale Editorik wurde besonders deutlich, wie technische Entwicklungen theoretische Fragen erst ermöglichen. Digitale Editionen entstanden etwa durch die Verschmelzung heterogener Bausteine, deren Zweck nicht primär die Erstellung digitaler Editionen war: von der Mikroelektronik (integrierter Schaltkreis, 1958) über Codierungsstandards auf der Grundlage von SGML (ab etwa 1987) bis hin zu webbasierten Präsentationsformen (HTTP, 1991) und vermutlich Transformermodellen (2017). Jede dieser Technologien brachte implizite Modell-Entscheidungen mit sich – etwa die Frage, wo die Grenze zwischen ‚Text‘ und ‚Apparat‘ verläuft oder wie Faksimiles die Entstehungsgeschichte eines Dokuments sichtbar machen. Eine zentrale These war, dass digitale Editionen nicht länger nur als ‚Ergebnisse‘, sondern als dynamische Forschungsumgebungen verstanden werden können, in denen Theorie und Praxis untrennbar miteinander verbunden sind.
Diskursive Synthesen
Über alle beteiligten Felder hinweg zeigte sich in der Diskussion, dass ‚Theorie‘ in den DH oft implizit in Infrastrukturen, Datenmodellen/Schemata oder Code/Algorithmen u. v. m. eingebettet ist, wodurch sie erst in Test- und Grenzsituationen sichtbar wird. So entstehen theoretische Reflexionen etwa dann, wenn Historiker*innen mit Informatiker*innen über Datenmodelle diskutieren oder wenn Literaturwissenschaftler*innen feststellen, dass ihre Operationalisierungen rechnerisch nicht nutz- oder ausführbar sind.
Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt war die Pluralität theoretischer Ansätze in Verbindung mit der Frage nach Formalisierbarkeit: Trotz (Quasi-)Standards wie den Richtlinien der TEI zeigt sich, dass fast jedes Projekt eigene Modellanpassungen vornimmt und dadurch die Standardisierungsidee aufspreizt. Einig waren sich die Panelist*innen vor allem darin, dass Kollaboration, gerade in interdisziplinären Teams, einen Raum für theoretische Reflexion schaffe, der in traditionellen Einzeldisziplinen oft fehle – was auch einem gewissen Zwang geschuldet sein könnte, in der Sache zusammenzukommen (Stichwort ‚Interoperabilität‘).
Besonders hervorgehoben wurde auch die Rolle von Visualisierungen: Tabellen, Netzwerke oder interaktive Karten machen nicht nur Daten sichtbar, sondern auch die Modell-Entscheidungen, die hinter ihnen stecken. So wird etwa durch die Darstellung von Textvarianten in digitalen Editionen deutlich, wie stark unser Verständnis von ‚Varianten‘ von technischen Repräsentationsmöglichkeiten abhängt. Gleichzeitig sei angemerkt, dass Visualisierungen auch mit Verdeckungseffekten einhergehen.
Ausblick: Theorie als Aufgabe der Community
Die Diskussion mündete in den Appell, Theoriearbeit in den DH systematischer zu verankern. Dazu gehören konkrete Schritte wie die noch stärkere Einbindung theoretischer Reflexionen in Projektbeschreibungen, die Förderung von Methodenpluralismus in Drittmittelanträgen oder die Entwicklung von Schulungsformaten, die Historiker*innen und Literaturwissenschaftler*innen in theorie- und datengetriebene Denkweisen einführen. Ein vielversprechender Ansatz ist die Idee, kritische Datenpraxis als Standard zu etablieren, also die kontinuierliche Reflexion darüber, wie Algorithmen, Interfaces und Infrastrukturen unser Wissen formen und dabei selbst Ausdruck unseres Wissens sind.
Wenn Theorie als integraler Bestandteil von Forschungspraxen verstanden wird, können die DH eine noch tragfähigere Brücke zwischen geisteswissenschaftlicher ‚Tiefe‘ und technischer Innovation schlagen. Der Schlüssel liegt darin, die unsichtbare Arbeit des Theoretisierens – im Labor, im Code, in den Datenmodellen – bewusster zu machen. Denn erst dann wird klar: Theorie ist nicht das Gegenteil von Praxis, sondern ihre treibende Kraft (wie auch Praxis die treibende Kraft von Theorie ist).
Die AG Digital Humanities Theorie bedankt sich beim Organisationsteam der DHd-Konferenz sowie bei allen Diskutant*innen im Plenum für Fragen, Anregungen und Kommentare. Die AG wird das Thema weiter bearbeiten und lädt daher alle Interessierten, vor allem auch aus weiteren Bereichen der DH, um die Debatte über CLS, Digitale Editorik und Digital History hinaus zu erweitern, zur Mitarbeit ein. Schreiben Sie dazu sehr gerne eine Mail an die Convenor der AG Jonathan D. Geiger (jonathan.geiger@adwmainz.de), Rabea Kleymann (rabea.kleymann@phil.tu-chemnitz.de) und Alexa Lucke (Alexa.Lucke@uni-siegen.de).
König, Mareike (2021). „Die digitale Transformation als reflexiver turn: Einführende Literatur zur digitalen Geschichte im Überblick“. Neue Politische Literatur 66, Nr. 1: 37–60. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42520-020-00322-2.
Möbus, Dennis et al. (Hrsg.) (2025). Digital Hermeneutics II: Sources, Analysis, Interpretation, Annotation, and Curation. (Special Issue, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS, vol. 14566), Heidelberg u.a.: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-08697-6.
Ciencia abierta en el Instituto Catalán de Arqueología Clásica (ICAC): logros, aprendizajes y el futuro que imaginamos
9 de junio de 2026 – 19:00 (GMT+2)
Lydia Gil
Institut Català d’Arqueologia Clàssica
Resumen de la intervención
La Ciencia Abierta está redefiniendo la investigación: ya no basta con publicar en abierto, sino que es clave compartir datos siguiendo los principios FAIR (Encontrables, Accesibles, Interoperables y Reutilizables). Este cambio, impulsado por programas como Horizonte Europa y la Ley de Ciencia española, exige nuevas formas de trabajar.
El objetivo de esta charla es compartir la experiencia del Instituto Catalán de Arqueología Clásica (ICAC) en su camino hacia la ciencia abierta (éxitos, lecciones aprendidas y retos de futuro) y abordar algunos aspectos prácticos como la elección de repositorios de datos, buenas prácticas, herramientas y recursos disponibles.
Biografía
Lydia Gil es documentalista y responsable del Centro de documentación, Biblioteca y Ciencia Abierta del Instituto Catalán de Arqueología Clásica en Tarragona. Está muy interesada en el ámbito de la comunicación y divulgación de la ciencia desde diferentes vertientes. Es autora del blog «Social Media en Investigación» y de proyectos como “Mujeres Divulgadoras”, “Ones de Ciència” y “Todo a Pulmón”, entre otros.
Ha sido colaboradora de Radio Cambrils e imparte cursos de formación en diferentes instituciones científicas y educativas. También, ha sido vicepresidenta de la Asociación de Divulgación Científica del Camp de Tarragona y secretaria de la Asociación Española de Afectados de Cáncer de Pulmón.
These events are only open to KU Leuven researchers and staff
Whether you’re new to AI coding assistants or have been using them for a while, you can join this workshop to explore the wide range of these tools available, discuss best practices for using them in your projects, and discover when and how to use them to maximize your productivity. You will not need any more than a basic understanding of programming. Plus, if you’re already comfortable with AI tools, this is a great opportunity to share your experiences and insights with others!
Practicalities
When: June 15, 2026 from 09:30 to 13:30
Where: Collaborative space Geometrica (QDV 01.180) of Quadrivium – Celestijnenlaan 200H, Heverlee. This is an in-person workshop and will not be recorded.
For who: This event is open to KU Leuven staff with a basic understanding of programming
Price and registration: Free but mandatory. You can register here.
The following interview was conducted by Sam Goven, a master’s student in Journalism at KU Leuven, with Dawn Zhuang, BiblioTech Hackathon participant. Dawnis currently the project manager and data coordinator for the research project RegInfra (Regionalizing Infrastructures in Chinese History). Dawn’s team, W@nder, worked with the travelogues collection. You can learn more about the team’s work by having a look at their project poster in the BiblioTech Zenodo community and by visiting their project website.
The BiblioTech Hackathon is a 10-day event organized by KU Leuven Libraries and the Faculty of Arts. Students, researchers, and staff members of KU Leuven worked in multidisciplinary teams with digitized collections from KU Leuven Libraries. The theme of the 2026 edition was travel, which was reflected in the selected datasets: historical postcards and historical travelogues. More information about the hackathon and its results can be found on the BiblioTech 2026 website.
members of team w@nder with their project poster during the closing event of the BiblioTech Hackathon.
To start off, could you tell us a bit about your academic background? Had you participated in a hackathon before, and what drew you to this one?
I’m currently working as a project manager and data specialist in the research group Regionalizing Infrastructures in Chinese History (RegInfra). My role combines digital methods with humanities research. I graduated from the Master in Digital Humanities three years ago, and that’s when I participated in the first edition of the BiblioTech Hackathon, in 2023.
That experience was a lot of fun, and I learned many new skills. It helped me see how the digital methods I learned during the program could be applied in a real project setting. On top of that, I made new friends throughout the hackathon, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to participate again this time.
On a more personal note, during the previous hackathon I worked with the postcard collection, and I noticed that the dataset was reused this year. I was curious to see how other groups would approach it. This time, I chose to work with the travelogue dataset, since it relates to the same overall theme. In a way, it felt like a continuation of an ongoing project.
Your team won the prize for best visualisation. Could you briefly describe your project?
We chose a small‑data approach and built an interactive map based on it. Starting from the travelogues dataset, we selected a small part of the larger corpus, specifically three volumes of The Book and the Land. We then visualized and mapped the routes described in those texts, as well as the stories that unfold along the way.
The result is an interactive map where users can click on nodes and routes to explore the journeys. Through this interface, they can see extracted illustrations along with their contextual information, which helps connect the visual material to the narratives in the travelogues.
As you mentioned, you had already participated in the first edition of the BiblioTech Hackathon. What were your expectations at the start of this one, and did you feel well equipped for the project?
Because techniques and AI have developed so much in recent years, I expected to learn even more this time, especially since the methodologies have evolved as well. I was also working with a different dataset, so overall I was really looking forward to trying out new approaches and learning new things with a different group of teammates.
At the same time, I did feel well equipped. During the first hackathon, I was still a student and everything felt very new to me. Now I already have some working experience with digital projects, and I can really see how my skill set has grown. I felt more confident this time and was happy to realize that I was able to take on more complex tasks.
At the ‘Meet the Data, Meet the People’ event, you were introduced to the data for the first time. What was the brainstorming process like? Did you feel overwhelmed with ideas, or was it clear early on which direction you wanted to take?
I’d say that during brainstorming you always get little sparks of ideas here and there. In our team, we had people from very different backgrounds, linguists, historians, and AI experts, and everyone just shared what they were thinking. At our first meeting, we didn’t go through the entire dataset yet, and some of the initial ideas turned out to be a bit too ambitious or not very practical in the end.
Still, I think the general direction was already quite clear early on. During the brainstorming phase, we decided fairly quickly that we wanted to work with an interactive map, and in the end that’s exactly what we managed to accomplish. After the weekend and one of the training sessions, we had an in‑person discussion where we exchanged our observations about the dataset and then pinned down a more practical pipeline and timeline to work with.
What’s interesting is that during the brainstorming itself, none of us really knew yet how we were going to do it. And somehow, through discussion and experimentation, it all came together. It’s a bit of a magical experience.
Could you describe your role in the project? Was it in line with what you were expecting?
I’d say it pretty much aligned with my expectations. I see myself as a digital humanities enthusiast, and through my experience I’ve become familiar with a range of tools and platforms that can help achieve different kinds of results. Within the team, I mainly took on a supportive role, contributing from the early exploration of the dataset to deciding which direction we should take.
I also have some experience with web design, so I ended up putting most of my effort into building the final webpage. Overall, I like working on different aspects of a project: trying out new techniques, moving between tasks, and supporting my teammates wherever needed.
Did you face any problems or roadblocks that you had to overcome during the project?
I think the most challenging part was moving from the initial idea to something concrete and practical. Before this project, none of us had experience linking data to a map and making it fully interactive. So while the concept was clear, the question was how we could actually realize it, what tools or platforms we could use, and how to build everything within the limited time we had.
We spent quite a bit of time and energy figuring out how to translate our idea into a realistic workflow and deciding what was feasible within the time constraints. I’d say that phase, moving from the blueprint to an actual work plan, was definitely the toughest part of the project.
Did you face any technical problems along the way, situations where things didn’t work as you had expected?
Initially, we wanted to retrieve the dataset directly from the ManGO platform. I tried running the code within the HPC environment, but I ran into a few issues. I then posted my question to the expert pool in MS Teams, and I received a lot of help.
The support was also very timely, I posted my question in the morning, and by the afternoon there was already a working solution. The expert team really provided solid support, which made a big difference in helping us move forward.
You already mentioned that during your first hackathon you picked up a lot of new skills. Did you have the same experience this time, and how might you use those skills in future projects?
Yes, definitely. I learned a lot from this project as well. For me, working with geo‑referencing and data conversion was completely new, and it’s actually quite relevant to my current work. I can definitely see myself using these skills in future research projects or for creating other visualizations.
Although our project didn’t ultimately rely on the HPC environment, I did participate in the training sessions and did some exploration on my own. I really appreciated the opportunity to work within that environment, especially because future projects I’m involved in will likely have some connection with the HPC. So for me, it was very good practice and a valuable learning experience.
What kind of advice would you give someone who is participating in their first hackathon?
I would say: think bold. There’s a lot of support available, and you’re surrounded by a great team of experts who are there to help you. If you allow yourself to think ambitiously and take a few risks, you’ll be surprised by how much you can accomplish by the end.
Lastly, how would you describe your overall experience?
For me, it was truly inspiring and very enjoyable. And something I didn’t mention earlier is that I really made good friends through the hackathon and learned a great deal from my teammates, as well as from the other groups. That’s a very precious takeaway for me.
《嵌入式教学法：数字人文教学与变革的基础》（《Embedded Pedagogies: Digital Humanities Teaching and the Infrastructure of Change》）由弗吉尼亚大学学者Brandon Walsh撰写、Open Book Publishers出版，目前处于“即将出版”状态。
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