Dear colleagues,

We cordially invite you to attend the scientific workshop Beyond Digital Humanities: Revolution, Revisionism or Political Agenda?, which will take place as part of the project Ready for the future: understanding long–term resilience of the human culture (RES-HUM) on Monday, October 6, and Tuesday, October 7, at the Hans Belting Library at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University (Veveří 470/28, ground floor of building K/L, 602 00 Brno).

We look forward to welcoming you,
RE:CENT. Center for Medieval Visual Cultures and Research Communication, Department of Art History, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.

Abstract:
The media through which we conduct our work as scholars has been irrevocably altered by the digital age. Pen and paper have largely been replaced by the computer, and even physical books and maps have largely given way to digital versions. Like the save icon, our sensory landscapes are littered with skeuomorphs as we adapt to humanitates digitales. But to what degree has our thinking been altered by these new tools? In interpreting the past, do new tools such as databases, 3D reconstructions, and GIS technologies help, complete, or hinder our ability to ‘think with’ and through pre-modern epistemologies and ontologies? Where do they intersect with memory, phenomenology, and non-Cartesian subject/object paradigms? What are the economies, agendas, and histories attached to these new digital media? And what challenges arise when these tools move from being complementary aids to replacing the methodological foundations of our disciplines, including the ways they are taught?

This workshop, organized within the framework of the project “Ready for the future: understanding the long-term resilience of the human culture” (RES-HUM), is designed as a critical assessment of the digital humanities and the tools now in common use in Art History, Archaeology, and the human sciences writ large. We seek to create a space for creative dialogue on responsible praxis, and to chart an innovative, considered path for further integration of these tools into our thought worlds. This is all the more urgent given the recent explosion of digital tools and uncritical ‘digital ways of thinking’ into nearly every aspect of our lives, including government, commerce, and healthcare. Having now become largely accustomed to these new media, but still retaining memory of many previous forms of habitus in the academy, we believe the time is now ripe for an evaluation of our digital past, present, and future as scholars.

The workshop, organized by RE:CENT – Center for Medieval Visual Cultures and Research Communication, will bring together scholars who fully engage with digital media and the human past to encourage a lively, self-reflexive dialogue on the implications of their work for the potential of digital tools to shape scholarship and human resilience. They are invited to participate in three panel discussions: I) Constructing the Myth of the Database: Between Natural Sciences and the Humanities II) Mapping the Past on the Present Environment: A Methodological Trap?, and III) 3D Reconstructions: Precious Instruments or Visual Manipulation. A series of questions will be pre-circulated for the participants of each panel; answers that consider the historiography on digital media, the economic interests involved, bias, and driving ideologies, are highly encouraged.

Organizers:
Prof. Ivan Foletti, Masaryk University, Brno – foletti@phil.muni.cz
Dr. Adrien Palladino, Masaryk University, Brno – adrien.palladino@phil.muni.cz
Dr. Ian E. Randall, Masaryk University, Brno – ian.randall@phil.muni.cz