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Digital Humanities as a Discipline *UoR only*

We are pleased to announce the Digital Humanities Hub’s second discussion event on Wednesday 26 October 2022.

Please note, this event is open to University of Reading researchers only. If you are interested in any of the presentations, please contact Mara Oliva (m.oliva@reading.ac.uk).

The event will be taking place on campus, but there is a hybrid option in order to ensure ongoing accessibility for those especially vulnerable to Covid-19. It is open to all researchers, staff, and PGRs from any subject – we welcome interdisciplinary collaboration!

If you are not already a member, you are welcome to join the Digital Humanities Community of Practice via our MS Teams channel. (This link will take you to the Teams channel. If you are not already a member, you will be presented with a dialogue box that says ‘Join’. Click this to send a request, which will be approved if you are a member of the University of Reading. If you are already a member of the Team, this link just takes you directly to the ‘General’ channel.)

Within the COP, you will be able to introduce yourself, share your research, and access information about funding opportunities, support, and events. Read more here.

To attend the event (in person or via Teams), or if you have any other questions, please contact the DH Academic Champion, Mara Oliva (m.oliva@reading.ac.uk).


Programme: Digital Humanities as a Discipline

Date and time: Wednesday 26 October 2022, 14:00-16:00, EMG25 and Hybrid

14.00 Welcome and Intro – DH Champion – (tea and coffee) 

14.10 Keynote address: Professor Federica Frabetti – University of Roehampton 

14.50 Break 

15.00 Roundtable:  

  • Dr Eugene McSorley (Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology
    Head of the Active Vision Lab  |  Director of the Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Lab) 
  • Dr Dominic Lees (Associate Professor of Filmmaking, AI research group)  
  • Dr Mara Oliva (Associate Professor in US History, DH Champion, Digital Humanities Quarterly Editor) 

15.30 Q&A 

15.55 What’s next (DH CoP and Hub – future events) & close 


Abstract: Keynote Address (Federica Fabretti)

In this talk I interrogate the position of Digital Humanities in the contemporary university, particularly (but not exclusively) in British academia. I open up the question of what the role of Digital Humanities might be in this conjuncture, which sees the arts and humanities often marginalised by academia. At the same time, though, the contemporary world presents a number of wider social, political and technological challenges that the arts and humanities may be well equipped to address.
I draw on my recent work on the importance of feminist theories of performativity (particularly Karen Barad’s and Judith Butler’s) to unpack the functioning of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and data-driven methods and policies, as well as the injustices and inequalities they generate.
I invite the Digital Humanities to enter in a critical dialogue with contemporary technology by taking into account at least two aspects. Firstly, technology has always been central to the constitution of what we call “the human”. Secondly, Digital Humanities can itself be a generator of social and political inequalities or, conversely, an important tool for redressing such inequalities.
I conclude by considering the role of feminist performativity in rethinking what it means to perform Digital Humanities responsibly today.

Speaker information

Professor Federica Frabetti is a Principal Lecturer in Digital Media and Head of Partnerships at the University of Roehampton. Her research interests are digital media, software studies, cultural studies, theory, the social and cultural study of technology, digital humanities, and gender and queer studies. Professor Fabretti has decades of experience in both the academic and industrial sectors, having taught for more than 10 years at various UK universities, and prior to pursuing an academic career, working for 15 years in the IT and telecommunication industry in Italy. In 2011 she edited the special issue of the academic journal Culture Machine, “The Digital Humanities Beyond Computing”. She is the author of Software Theory (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015).

Dr Eugene McSorley is a Senior Lecturer in Experimental Psychology at the University of Reading, as well as the Director of Postgraduate Studies for the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences. He is interested in visual target selection and what that tells us about how we process and experience the world. His current projects involve basic eye movement selection and the underlying processes supporting that, decision making, aesthetics and emotional processing, and the Psychology of Art (neuroaesthetics, emprirical aesthetics).

Dr Dominic Lees is Associate Professor of Filmmaking at the University of Reading. His main interests are in aesthetics and style in television drama and film. More recently he has begun research on deepfakes – the digital replacement of actors’ faces in film using Artificial Intelligence, examining the ethical and legal questions arising from using deepfakes as well as their impact on performers and audiences, and the transformative impact of new technologies on the creative process generally. He leads the Deepfakes Research Network, which brings together international scholars, industry professionals and government bodies to consider the future of this technology. His research is rooted in professional practice: his work as a director includes 40 episode of mainstream UK drama series and the award-winning feature Outlanders (2008). He is co-author of Seeing it on Television (Bloomsbury, 2021).

Dr Mara Oliva is Associate Professor in History and Lecturer in Modern American History at the University of Reading. Her research concerns the political history of the US in the 20th century, with particular focus on the interface between domestic and foreign policy. As Digital Humanities Academic Champion, Mara promotes the integration of approaches from the discipline within research practice at the University, and leads the events programme and Community of Practice. She is the author of Eisenhower and Public Opinion on China and co-editor of The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage (both Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), and the editor of Digital Humanities Quarterly.

Details

Date:
26th October 2022
Time:
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Event Tags:

Venue

EMG25
View Venue Website

Organizer

Mara Oliva
Email:
m.oliva@reading.ac.uk