Digital Humanities at the Warburg: current research and future directions

Digital humanities is a field of research in which traditional humanities disciplines intersect with digital techniques, methods and technologies. It consists of two distinct but related strands, one of which uses digital methods to enhance established humanities disciplines such as textual studies or iconology, the other of which examines the impact of the digital on cultural heritage, society and culture. 

Digital humanities has been recognized as a discipline since the 1940s when an Italian priest, Roberto Busa, first employed computers to create a concordance of texts by Thomas Aquinas. But in some ways, Aby Warburg’s thinking from several decades before Busa’s work intersects closely with many of the threads of subsequent digital humanities research: his BilderAtlas, for example, which attempts to map out the semantic linkages between images, pre-figures the thinking behind the Semantic Web and its approaches to mapping knowledge. It is appropriate, therefore, for the digital humanities to take its place in the research of this Institute.

This seminar will present three on-going and recent research projects at the Warburg which employ the concepts and techniques of the digital humanities:-

• Writing bilingually 1465-1700: building a database of early printed books and manuscripts presented by Dr Sara Migletti, Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Intellectual History
• Greek manuscripts in Renaissance Venice: the library of Guillaume Pellicier and its contribution to Europe’s intellectual heritage by Dr Richard Gartner, Digital Librarian
• Mapping wax in Renaissance Florence: a case study by Dr Louisa McKenzie, Associate Fellow at, and a recent PhD graduate from, the Warburg

The seminar will be introduced by Prof. Jane Winters, Professor of Digital Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, who will lead a closing plenary discussion on how the digital humanities may be taken forward in future research at the Warburg and on paths to future collaboration between the Institute and other practitioners of this discipline.

ATTENDANCE FREE IN PERSON OR ONLINE WITH ADVANCE BOOKING

image: ChatGTP generated image in the style of Albrecht Dürer.