Category: Scholars 学者

[English Version]

1. 你如何定义数字人文？

数字人文是一个新兴的跨学科研究领域，特别关注人文与数字信息技术交叉研究主题。主要包括三种类型的研究内容，一是基于数字资源的人文研究，包括数字资源建设与开发，以及使用这些数字信息资源和数字工具进行传统的人文研究；二是基于数字模型的人文研究，也就是利用数字建模技术对人文文本、图像、音视频等文献资料进行建模和统计分析；三是针对各种新兴数字现象的研究。

2. 是什么让你开始对数字人文感兴趣的？

我2007年从武汉大学信息管理学院管理科学与工程专业毕业以后留校工作，看到了日本立命馆大学京都数字文艺研究中心正在面向全球招聘博士后，我就申请了该职位，并成功获批。在立命馆大学从事博士后研究期间，我获知他们中心获得日本政府的一个GCOE项目，并在积极利用数字技术开展京都文艺的传承保护与活化利用研究，进而了解了数字人文这个新兴的研究主题。处于职业敏感，我感觉这是一个新兴的有价值的研究方向，并且会随着数字社会不可逆转的发展会越来越受关注，代表了人文研究的趋势，同时也是图书情报研究的前沿主题，所以我对此研究领域进行了较为深入的文献计量分析，也发现该领域在全球范围内快速发展，而且呈现出日益蓬勃的趋势，越来越多的研究主题开始浮现，并且都带有明显的跨学科特色，十分吸引人，由此，我越来越感兴趣，并积极投入其中。

3. 可以给我们分享一个你参与的数字人文项目吗？

从日本回国以后，在马费成教授指导下，我在武汉大学建立了中国首个数字人文研究中心，推广和宣传数字人文研究理念。并做了一些DH projects，其中我最喜欢的还是与中国敦煌研究院合作的敦煌壁画深度语义标注项目。该项目主要与敦煌研究院的信息中心夏生平主任合作，以敦煌壁画为例，探讨如何对文化遗产图像进行深度语义建模，以揭示历史性图像中蕴含的主题和文化知识，我们融合了图像学领域潘诺夫斯基的图像志理论和信息组织领域的主题标引理论，构建了一个整合性的图像深度语义标注模型，并在此基础上开发了一个针对敦煌壁画图像的主题词表和一系列可视化标注工具，来控制标引词的规范性和实施图像深度语义标注，在此基础上我们还探索了文化遗产数据增强理论以及文化遗产智慧数据建设方案。

4. 以及一个你喜欢的数字人文项目？

目前，我们正在基于文化遗产智能计算教育部哲学社会科学实验室，做长江文明平台项目，我们将开发一个数字平台，支持先秦与秦汉时代的考古与历史研究，我们利用三维建模技术、GIS技术、人工智能技术，已经构建一个在线的历史地图编绘系统，以及一个竹简智能缀合系统，还有一个在线的先秦墓葬地理信息平台，我们也构建了一个文化遗产数字演绎剧场，用于数智化实验和展示我们的科研成果。我们希望借助这些工具和平台整合楚文化相关的历史资料数据，并以此改变楚文化和长江文明研究的范式，为数字人文研究提供一个新型研究基础设施，推动楚文化的研究、教学与全球传播。

Meet Professor Wang Xiaoguang

1.How do you define Digital Humanities?

Digital humanities is an emerging interdisciplinary research field, with a particular focus on research themes at the intersection of the humanities and digital information technologies. It consists of three main types of research. One is humanities research based on digital resources, including the construction and development of digital resources, as well as the use of these digital information resources and digital tools for traditional humanities research. The second is humanities research based on digital models, that is, the use of digital modelling techniques to model and statistically analyse humanities texts, images, audio and video, and other documentary materials. The third is the research on various emerging digital phenomena.

2. How did you become interested in DH?

After graduating from Wuhan University in 2007 with a degree in Management Science and Engineering, I stayed there to work. Later, I saw that the Kyoto Centre for Digital Literature and Arts at Ritsumeikan University was recruiting postdocs from all over the world, I applied for the position, and I was accepted. During my postdoctoral research at Ritsumeikan University, I learned that the Centre had been awarded a GCOE project by the Japanese government and was actively using digital technology to conduct research on the preservation and revitalisation of Kyoto’s arts and culture.,This is when I came to understand digital humanities as an emerging research area. In my professional sensitivity, I felt that this is a new and valuable research direction, and with the irreversible development of the digital society will be more and more attention, representing the trend of humanities research, but also the cutting-edge of library and information science research. I carried out a more in-depth bibliometric analysis of this research field, and also found that this field is developing rapidly worldwide, more and more research themes are beginning to emerge, and all of them are with obvious interdisciplinary characteristics, which is very attractive. As a result, I have become increasingly interested and engaged.

3. Tell us about one of your DH projects

After returning from Japan, under the support of Prof. Ma Feicheng, I established China’s first Digital Humanities Centre at Wuhan University to promote and publicise the concept of digital humanities research. I have done some digital humanities projects, my favourite of which is the deep semantic annotation of Dunhuang murals in collaboration with the Dunhuang Research Academy in China. We worked with Xia Shengping, the director of the Information Centre of Dunhuang Research Academy to explore how to model the deep semantics of cultural heritage images as an example, in order to reveal the themes and cultural knowledge embedded in historic images. We fused Pannovsky’s theory of iconography in the field of iconology and the theory of subject indexing in the field of information organisation to construct an integrated model of deep semantic annotation of images. Based on this, we developed the subject headings and a series of visual annotation tools for Dunhuang mural images to control the normality of the tagged words and implement deep semantic annotation of the images. On this basis, we also explored the theory of cultural heritage data enhancement and the construction plan of cultural heritage smart data.

4. And a DH project you like?

Currently, we are working on the Yangtze River Civilisation Platform project based on the Intelligent Computing Laboratory for Cultural Heritage (Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of the Ministry of Education). We will develop a digital platform to support the archaeological and historical research of the pre-Qin and Qin-Han eras. Using 3D modelling technology, GIS technology, and AI, we have already constructed an online historical map compilation system, as well as an intelligent conjugation system for bamboo slips and an online geographic information platform for pre-Qin and Qin tombs. We have also built a digital deduction theatre for cultural heritage, which is used for digital intelligence experiments and displaying our scientific research outcomes. We hope to use these tools and platforms to integrate the historical data related to Chu culture, and in this way change the research paradigm on Chu culture and the Yangtze River civilisation, provide a novel type of research infrastructure for digital humanities research, and promote the research, teaching, and global dissemination of Chu culture.

[English Version]

1. 你如何定义数字人文？

定义是对事物内涵与外延的界定。数字人文的内涵，我认为可以简单地表述为数字与人文相结合的领域，其外延则有鲜明的开放性特征，无法也没有必要做出确切界定。一方面“数字”和“人文”都没有明确的边界，数字世界常变常新，人文世界宽广无边。如《周易》所言，“文明以止，人文也”，包含人类社会各种文化现象的“文明”皆为人文，足见其广阔。另一方面，“数字”和“人文”多种元素的多样化交织交融，又不断生成很多新现象新事物，聚集在数字人文的大帐篷之下，内容和形态更为丰富。随着数字人文的多方位发展，我们对其本质的认知将逐步加深，从对其内涵的抽象将更为科学精准成熟，至少目前，尽可能保持“数字人文”概念的开放性是合理且有益的。

2. 是什么让你开始对数字人文感兴趣的？

 我的专业是档案学，档案学若干核心概念与数字人文的关联把我引进数字人文。一是“档案”概念，iSchools把数字人文作为发展方向之后，我从相关文献和学术活动中发现数字人文广泛使用“档案”(Archives）一词，与“档案学”中的“档案”概念有交叉有差异，让我看到了“档案”概念在新领域的新含义。二是“社会记忆”，它是档案的基本属性，也被历史、文学、哲学、艺术等人文学科所关注，纳入数字人文之中。三是 “档案资源开发”的数字化转型，其原理、路径、工具、方法、成果形式等与数字人文多有吻合，作为社会生活原始记录的档案是数字人文项目常用的优质资源。在这些概念、理论、方法的相遇中，我对数字人文产生了越来越浓厚的兴趣，走进了这个宽广且充满魅力的领域。

3. 可以给我们分享一个你参与的数字人文项目吗？

 我们团队十余年来从事“数字记忆”的研究和建构，从2013年起搭建了“北京记忆”数字资源平台(http://www.bjjy.cn)。古都北京有3000多年建城史，近900年建都史，其厚重悠久的文化底蕴也逃不脱时间冲刷的流失，我们希望在数字世界尽可能真实地复现这个伟大城市的过往。“北京记忆”的基本架构是前站后库，“前站”是用网站群形式开展数字叙事，为每一个专题制作一个文化网站，以大量文献为基础，使用图文、视频、动画、建模、游戏、数据可视化等方法，生动呈现其历史脉络和面貌，相当于一部部数字专题史；“后库”是将有关文献资料建成多模态数据库，按照知识组织规范，通过搜集、加工、组织、存储等实现北京历史文化资源的聚合和智能检索。这是一个长期持续性项目，复合应用多种数字人文方法，目前已上线23个专题网站，并在此基础上开发了图书、数字出版物、数字藏品(NFT)、线下光影展、跨时空教学场景等多种衍生产品，前后吸引了数十名教师、数百名学生以及多家数字文化公司的参与，为穿越时空传承传播大型城市历史文化做了很多创新性探索。

4. 以及一个你喜欢的数字人文项目？

我所在的中国人民大学已经开展了数字人文本硕博三个层次的专业教育，为了给学生们提供丰富的学习资源，我们建设了多模态“数字人文案例库”，目前已输入近千个案例条目，260个优秀案例，其中很多项目我都很喜欢，比如中国历代人物传记资料库（China Biographical Database, CBDB）、“影谷”（THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW）、“上海年华”（上海图书馆）、“文都时空”（南京大学）等等。我想介绍一个我和很多学生感兴趣的项目——都铎网络（The Tudor Network）。 

这是一个由来自英国、德国不同大学、不同学术专长的研究人员合作开展的，基于英国国家档案馆收藏的15—16世纪都铎王朝时期12万封书信档案的数据分析项目，这些信件跨越近百年，涉及2万余人。该项目对全部书信内容做了文本挖掘，采用收信数、发信数、结点等多个指标进行相似度排序、整体趋势线分析、异常值分析等方法，显示每个人的通信对象、频度等特征，以及通信人之间的复杂关系，进而对书信内容加以分析，揭开了这些书信中的尘封历史。我们喜欢这个项目独特的历史价值和文献价值，项目团队唤醒了沉睡500多年的书信档案，对其中各种数据进行了可视化和科学严谨的分析，还原了一段鲜为人知的历史内幕，其中一些曲折离奇的史实令人惊叹。

Meet Professor Huiling Feng

1. How do you define Digital Humanities

A definition involves delineating the connotations and denotations of a concept. In my view, the connotation of Digital Humanities can be succinctly expressed as the field where digital technology and the humanities intersect. Its denotation, however, has a distinct characteristic of openness, making it neither necessary nor feasible to define it precisely. On the one hand, neither “digital” nor “humanities” has clear boundaries—the digital world is ever-changing, and the world of the humanities is vast and boundless. As the I Ching says, “civilization halts and becomes humanities,” indicating that “civilization,” encompassing various cultural phenomena of human society, is part of the humanities, showcasing its vastness. On the other hand, the diverse interweaving and merging of multiple elements from “digital” and “humanities” continuously generate new phenomena and new entities, all of which gather under the large tent of Digital Humanities, making its content and forms increasingly rich. As the multidimensional development of Digital Humanities continues, our understanding of its essence will gradually deepen, leading to a more scientifically accurate and mature abstraction of its connotation. At least for now, maintaining the openness of the concept of “Digital Humanities” is both reasonable and beneficial.

2. How did you become interested in DH?

My field of expertise is Archival Studies, and several core concepts in Archival Studies are closely related to Digital Humanities, which drew me into this field. First is the concept of “archives.” After iSchools adopted Digital Humanities as a development direction, I noticed through relevant literature and academic activities that the term “archives” (Archives) is widely used in Digital Humanities. This usage overlaps yet differs from the concept of “archives” in Archival Studies, which revealed to me new meanings of the concept of “archives” in this new field. Second is “social memory,” which is a fundamental attribute of archives and is also a focus in disciplines like history, literature, philosophy, and art, making it part of Digital Humanities. Third is the digital transformation of “archival resource development,” where its principles, pathways, tools, methods, and forms of outcomes often align with those in Digital Humanities. As original records of social life, archives are often valuable resources used in Digital Humanities projects. These encounters of concepts, theories, and methods led me to develop an increasingly strong interest in Digital Humanities, drawing me into this broad and fascinating field.

3. Tell us about one of your DH projects

For over ten years, our team has been engaged in the research and construction of “digital memory.” Since 2013, we have been developing the “Beijing Memory” digital resource platform (http://www.bjjy.cn). The ancient city of Beijing has over 3,000 years of history and nearly 900 years as a capital. Its rich and long-standing cultural heritage has not escaped the erosion of time, and we hope to recreate the past of this great city as authentically as possible in the digital world. The basic structure of “Beijing Memory” includes a “front-end” and a “back-end.” The “front-end” uses a website cluster to conduct digital narratives, creating a cultural website for each topic. Based on extensive literature, we use methods like text, images, videos, animations, modeling, games, and data visualization to vividly present its historical context and features, akin to a series of digital thematic histories. The “back-end” involves building a multimodal database of relevant literature and materials. Following knowledge organization standards, we gather, process, organize, and store these resources to achieve the aggregation and intelligent retrieval of Beijing’s historical and cultural resources. This is a long-term and ongoing project that applies a variety of Digital Humanities methods. Currently, 23 thematic websites are online, and based on these, we have developed books, digital publications, digital collectibles (NFTs), offline light and shadow exhibitions, cross-temporal teaching scenarios, and other derivative products. The project has attracted dozens of teachers, hundreds of students, and several digital cultural companies, contributing significantly to the innovative exploration of preserving and transmitting the history and culture of a major city across time and space.

4. And a DH project you like?

At Renmin University of China, where I work, we have already launched a Digital Humanities program offering master’s and doctoral degrees. To provide students with rich learning resources, we have built a multimodal “Digital Humanities Case Library,” which currently contains nearly a thousand case entries, including 260 outstanding cases. There are many projects that I like, such as the China Biographical Database (CBDB), “The Valley of the Shadow,” “Shanghai Memory” (Shanghai Library), “Wendu Time-Space” (Nanjing University), among others. I would like to introduce a project that both I and many students find intriguing—the Tudor Network.

This project was a collaborative effort by researchers with different academic specialties from various universities in the UK and Germany. It involves data analysis of 120,000 letters from the Tudor period (15th-16th centuries) held by the UK National Archives. These letters span nearly a century and involve more than 20,000 people. The project conducted text mining on all the letters, using metrics like the number of letters received and sent, nodes, and other indicators to perform similarity sorting, overall trend line analysis, outlier analysis, and more. This revealed the characteristics of each person’s communication patterns, including their correspondents and frequency, as well as the complex relationships between correspondents. Further analysis of the content of the letters unveiled the hidden history within them. We appreciate this project for its unique historical and documentary value. The project team awakened letters that had been dormant for over 500 years, conducted rigorous scientific analysis and visualization of the data within, and reconstructed a little-known segment of history. Some of the intricate and surprising historical facts uncovered are truly astonishing.

[中文版]

1. How do you define Digital Humanities? 

I consider DH as a burgeoning field of scholarly endeavour that exists at the crossroads of digital technologies and humanities disciplines. It fosters innovative scholarship methods that are collaborative, transdisciplinary, and computationally driven in research, teaching, and publishing. DH employs digital tools and methodologies to advance the study of humanities, utilizing digital resources creatively. The transdisciplinary nature of DH becomes particularly apparent when it involves the GLAM sector, an acronym for galleries, libraries, archives, and museums which are mainly cultural institutions usually resourced to provide access to cultural heritage knowledge.

2. How did you become interested in DH? 

During my tenure as a Senior Research Fellow, I developed an interest in Digital Humanities (DH). I was utilizing digital tools and innovative methods to tackle various research questions. It was then that I recognized the necessity of applying digital tools and methods to address research questions within the humanities. To boost research excellence at the University of Warwick, I decided to join a small team of research software engineers to advance DH research. My passion for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, along with my experiences in various roles in the UK, Germany, and Ghana, likely contributed to my interest in Digital Humanities. Currently, as a Senior Research Software Engineer at the University of Warwick, I work with colleagues in several faculties, centres, and beyond the University. My work involves the application of digital tools and methods in the humanities, a key aspect of Digital Humanities, but my broader scope goes beyond DH and fall within the remit of research computing at the University of Warwick.

3. Tell us about one of your DH projects?  

I am leading digital research on various projects within the digital humanities at the University of Warwick. One such project is an innovative, interactive, multi-search interface I developed for the French Theatre Calendar from 1799-1804. The downloadable dataset is in French and includes both Gregorian and Revolutionary dates. The online database I developed likely surpasses others in its coverage of theatre from this period. Its multi-search functionality significantly enhances researchers’ understanding of early 19th-century theatre.

4. And a DH project you like? 

There are so many DH projects that I like! One of the DH projects that I like, which has already been featured on our website here, is the “Mapping Women’s Suffrage” project. This initiative amalgamates the most recent studies and resources from scholars, local history buffs, genealogists, record keepers, and the general public. Its aim is to uncover and geographically represent the frequently obscured lives and sites associated with everyday women’s suffrage advocates. Concurrently, it constructs an unparalleled depiction of the shape and geographies of the suffrage movement nationwide during this significant era in women’s history.

介绍Godwin Yeboah博士

个人简介

Godwin Yeboah博士是华威大学的高级研究软件工程师。他的背景包括研究软件工程以及在研究或教学中应用地理空间技术，SHAPE（社会科学、人文与艺术）、计算机科学、地理信息系统（GIS）、地理信息学和摄影测量、测地/地理工程，以及在软件/地理工程方面的工业经验。

1. 你如何定义数字人文学？

我认为数字人文（DH）是一个新兴的学术领域，存在于数字技术与人文学科的交汇处。它在研究、教学和出版中促进了创新的学术方法，这些方法具有协作性、跨学科性和计算驱动性。数字人文运用数字工具和方法来推进人文学科的研究，并创造性地利用数字资源。数字人文的跨学科性质在涉及GLAM部门时尤为明显，GLAM是画廊、图书馆、档案馆和博物馆的缩写，这些主要是提供文化遗产知识访问的文化机构。

2. 你是如何对数字人文学产生兴趣的？

在担任高级研究员期间，我对数字人文（DH）产生了兴趣。我利用数字工具和创新方法来解决各种研究问题。那时，我认识到应用数字工具和方法来解决人文学科研究问题的必要性。为了提升华威大学的研究水平，我决定加入一个小型的研究软件工程师团队，推动数字人文研究。我对跨学科和跨领域研究的热情，加上在英国、德国和加纳担任各种角色的经验，可能促成了我对数字人文的兴趣。目前，作为华威大学的高级研究软件工程师，我与多个学院、研究中心及大学以外的同事合作。我的工作涉及在人文学科中应用数字工具和方法，这是数字人文的重要方面，但我的工作范围不仅限于数字人文，还涵盖了华威大学研究计算的职责范围。

3. 请告诉我们一个你的数字人文学项目？

我在华威大学的数字人文领域领导着多个项目的数字研究。其中一个项目是我为1799-1804年的《法国戏剧日历》开发的创新互动多搜索界面。这个可下载的数据集是法语的，包括公历和革命历日期。我开发的在线数据库在该时期的戏剧覆盖范围上可能超越了其他数据库。其多搜索功能显著提升了研究人员对19世纪初戏剧的理解。

4. 你特别喜欢的一个数字人文学项目是什么？

我喜欢的数字人文项目有很多！其中一个已经在我们网站上展示的项目是“女性选举权地图”项目。这个项目结合了学者、地方历史爱好者、家谱学家、档案管理员和公众的最新研究和资源。其目的是揭示并地理化展示与日常女性选举权倡导者相关的那些经常被忽视的生活和地点。同时，它构建了一个无与伦比的全国范围内选举权运动形态和地理分布的图景，展示了女性历史上这一重要时期的选举权运动。

[中文版]

1. How do you define Digital Humanities?

I see DH as any study of the human record which makes critical use of digital methods, and/or computational ways of thinking. Of course much of the human record itself is now digital, to a much greater extent than it was when I started out in the field.  This has broadened DH’s focus from a discipline which simply uses the digital to understand the humanities better, to include study ofthe digital itself from a humanities perspective. For me, this makes the roots of the field in the way that humanists think about the digital world  more important and interesting than ever.

2. How did you become interested in DH?

I came to DH relatively late in life, towards the end of my PhD. I was researching a very traditional, non-digital field, which involved reconciling different mechanisms for dating prehistoric events (if only I had known then what I knew now about the possibilities of, for example, network analysis). I discovered that a key need for my research was understanding relationships between different pieces of evidence from different locations – e.g. the relationship between deposits of the same type of pottery from Egypt and Cyprus, and how they relate to ancient layers of volcanic ash in the Aegean islands. This started me thinking about how such data could be systematically structured, compared and mapped. So having constructed a rudimentary database of all this data, I basically taught myself GIS so that I could analyse different concentrations of different types of evidence across different regions and at different times.

3. Tell us about one of your DH projects?

Over time, my interest in GIS and maps became my primary focus. A project which exemplifies this is the Heritage Gazetteer of Cyprus, which was funded by the A G Leventis Foundation. The HGC aims to provide a framework for thinking about place in Cypriot heritage, and a data resource to trace the evolution of placenames over time. Any toponyms occurring in literature before 1918 can be entered and associated with one or more existing locations, which enables us to build networks of references across the island. This allows us to ask, for example, what the differences are between the town of “Pano Calepia” described by Florio Bustron in 1549, and “Kallepia” described by George Jeffrey in 1918. How has its spatial footprint and relationships with other sites changed, and how do we document these changes?

4. And a DH project you particularly like?

There are so many! One I particularly admire is the Digital Periegesis project , which is using digital mapping methods to re-examine the work of Pausanias of Magnesia, and in the process asking exciting new questions about the relationships between text, time and place.

介绍 Stuart Dunn教授

1. 您如何定义数字人文？

数字人文是指对人类记录的研究中批判性地使用数字方法和/或计算思维。当然，如今的人类记录本身也比我刚进入该领域时要更加数字化了。这使得数字人文的焦点从一个仅仅使用数字手段来更好地理解人文学科的学科，拓展到从人文学科的角度来研究数字化本身。对我来说，这使得人文学者如何思考数字世界的根源变得比以往任何时候都更加重要和有趣。

2. 您是如何对数字人文产生兴趣的？

我在接近博士学位结束时才接触到数字人文。我当时正在研究一个非常传统的、非数字化领域，涉及协调不同的史前事件的年代测定机制（如果我当时知道现在关于例如网络分析的可能性就好了）。我发现我的研究的一个关键需求是理解来自不同地点的不同证据之间的关系——例如，埃及和塞浦路斯的相同类型陶器的沉积物之间的关系，以及它们与爱琴海岛屿上古代火山灰层的关系。这让我开始思考如何系统地构建、比较和映射这些数据。因此，我构建了一个初步的数据库，然后基本上自学了地理信息系统（GIS），以便我可以分析不同地区和不同时间的不同类型证据的不同浓度。

3. 请告诉我们一个您的数字人文项目？

随着时间的推移，我对GIS和地图的兴趣成为我的主要焦点。一个能够体现这一点的项目是由A G Leventis基金会资助的塞浦路斯遗产地名辞典。该项目旨在为思考塞浦路斯遗产中的地点提供一个框架，并作为一个数据资源来追踪地名随时间的演变。任何1918年之前的文献中出现的地名都可以输入并与一个或多个现有位置相关联，这使我们能够在岛上建立参考网络。例如，这使我们能够问，1549年Florio Bustron描述的「Pano Calepia」与1918年George Jeffrey描述的「Kallepia」有什么区别？它的空间范围和与其他地点的关系如何变化，以及我们如何记录这些变化？

4. 您特别喜欢的一个数字人文项目？

有很多项目我都非常喜欢！我特别欣赏的是数字游记项目，该项目使用数字地图方法重新审视马格尼西亚的帕萨尼亚斯的作品，并在此过程中提出了关于文本、时间和地点之间关系

[中文版]

1. How do you define Digital Humanities?

I always define Digital Humanities through the community of digital humanists who are willing to experiment with interdisciplinary methodologies applied to humanities scholarship. By pushing the boundaries and working at the frontier, this approach helps to see the bigger picture and makes the research more transparent, accessible, and interactive.

2. How did you become interested in DH?

Being a cultural historian by training, I landed my first academic job at a very STEM-based university and found myself quite lonely among computer scientists and web developers. So, I started googling whether there was any intersection between humanities and information technologies. That’s how I first came across ‘digital humanities.’ I then participated in NYC DH Week, where I met the community and felt very inspired. This experience motivated me to propose the launch of a small DH centre to senior management. This initiative evolved into an international and interdisciplinary effort, culminating in exciting collaborative DH projects and the launch of the first MSc in Digital Humanities in Saint Petersburg.


3. Tell us about one of your DH projects? 

My very first DH project as a PI was St. Retrospect, an interactive mapping project aimed at representing culturally significant landmarks in Saint Petersburg. The visualisation is structured around the relationships between locations and historical figures, supplemented by historical overviews of the sites and the notable people associated with them. To collect data, we applied machine learning algorithms, such as NER (Named Entity Recognition), to extract locations and names from openly available digitised and machine-readable sources and then verified this information through crowd-sourcing. As an open-source project, its mission is not only to raise awareness about culturally significant sites within the local community but also to engage the community in evaluating historic locations and collecting relevant data.

4. Tell us a DH project you particularly like?

This small-scale project, Pages of Early Soviet Performance, holds significant importance despite its size. The project utilises machine learning to generate multiple datasets from early Soviet illustrated periodicals related to the performing arts. The project’s importance lies in its attempt to answer crucial questions, such as: what if this collection could be accessed as data? what patterns—of words, phrases, or images—can be discovered across the entire collection? By employing computer vision techniques and training a YOLO (You Only Look Once) real-time object detection model, textual and image data are being produced to facilitate new avenues of research on Soviet culture during the first decades after the October Revolution. Although this may seem like a niche project, it significantly contributes to the methods and approaches for working with digitised sources, extracting valuable data, and making it publicly accessible to foster further research.

介绍Antonina Puchkovskaia博士

1. 你如何定义数字人文学？

我总是通过那些愿意尝试跨学科方法来研究人文学科的数字人文学者群体来定义数字人文。通过突破边界和在前沿探索，这种方法有助于看到更大的图景，并使研究更加透明、可访问和互动。

2. 你是如何对数字人文学产生兴趣的？

作为一名受过文化历史学训练的人，我在一所以STEM为主的大学获得了第一份学术工作，发现自己在计算机科学家和网页开发者中间感到非常孤单。于是，我开始在网上搜索人文学科与信息技术之间的交集。就这样，我第一次接触到了“数字人文”。后来，我参加了纽约市的数字人文周活动，认识了这个社区，并深受启发。这次经历激励我向高层管理人员提议建立一个小型的数字人文中心。这个倡议逐渐发展为一项国际和跨学科的合作，最终促成了多个令人兴奋的数字人文项目，并在圣彼得堡推出了第一个数字人文学硕士课程。

3. 请告诉我们一个你的数字人文学项目？

我作为主要研究者的第一个数字人文项目是「圣彼得堡回顾」，这是一个互动的地图项目，旨在展示圣彼得堡的文化重要地标。该可视化围绕着地点与历史人物之间的关系结构，并补充了这些地点和相关著名人物的历史概述。为了收集数据，我们应用了机器学习算法，例如命名实体识别（NER），从开放获取的数字化和机器可读资源中提取地点和名称，然后通过众包验证这些信息。作为一个开源项目，其使命不仅是提高当地社区对文化重要地标的认识，还通过评估历史地点和收集相关数据来吸引社区参与。

4. 你特别喜欢的一个数字人文学项目是什么？

尽管这是一个小规模项目，但「早期苏联表演的页面」项目具有重要意义。该项目利用机器学习从与表演艺术相关的早期苏联插图期刊中生成多个数据集。其重要性在于试图回答关键问题，如：如果这个收藏能作为数据访问，会怎样？在整个收藏中可以发现什么模式——单词、短语或图像？通过使用计算机视觉技术和训练一个YOLO（You Only Look Once）实时对象检测模型，生成文本和图像数据，以促进对十月革命后最初几十年苏联文化的新研究途径。尽管这似乎是一个小众项目，但它在处理数字化资源、提取有价值数据和公开获取以促进进一步研究的方法和方法方面做出了重要贡献。

[中文版]

1. How do you define Digital Humanities?

Digital Humanities is an interdisciplinary field that studies the integration of computational methods and software engineering processes in the arts and humanities research and education as well as in the cultural heritage sector and creative practices. Increasingly, it addresses wider issues around the design and use of digital technologies and their impact on digital cultures and societies. 

 2. How did you become interested in DH?

As a teenager, I enjoyed scientific disciplines – math in particular – but was also fascinated by ancient cultures and societies. I was lucky in high school to be part of an experimental programme that combined classics with STEM disciplines including computer sciences. I went on to get a degree in communications studies with a specialization in technologies to then follow up with a PhD that combined manuscript studies with software-intensive research. This is when I found out that an active international humanities computing community existed; I enrolled in an MA at KCL on those topics in parallel with my PhD and became active in Digital Humanities projects and networks.

 3. Tell us about one of your DH projects?

I have been involved in many projects over the years, but one I would like to highlight relates to my research on one of the methodologies of cross and inter-disciplinary collaboration which I believe is foundational in DH, namely (data) modelling. This activity has been analysed mainly from a STEM perspective but it is the research in DH that makes emerge the epistemological value of modelling: by modelling objects and phenomena into data structures we know things differently. A collaborative project which resulted in a book (Modelling between Digital and Humanities: Thinking in Practice) reflected on the topic by making emerge the importance of language in modelling as well as its pragmatic dimension (modelling is creative and contingent). I hope the book demonstrated how humanities disciplines can give an important contribution to the conceptualisation of modelling specifically and more in general to how we shape our conceptual and physical world with the design and use of digital technologies.

 4. And a DH project you particularly like?

This is a project I have bene involved in only tangentially to support its funding and delivery. It is called Digital Ghost Hunt. Led by KDL Senior RSE, Elliott Hall, it was a very inventive collaboration with theatre and performance professionals, schools and pupils, cultural heritage institutions and the public. By integrating digital technologies into well designed experiences, it showcases the imaginative power of collaboration across sectors and generations and the value of thinking creatively and of tinkering with digital technologies.

介绍Arianna Ciula博士

1. 你如何定义数字人文？

数字人文是一个跨学科领域，探讨如何整合计算方法和软件工程过程于艺术、人文学科研究、教育、文化遗产部门以及创意实践中。随着技术的进步，数字人文越来越多地涉及数字技术的设计、应用，以及它们对数字文化和社会的广泛影响等诸多问题。

2. 你是如何对数字人文产生兴趣的？

在青少年时期，我对科学学科，特别是数学，有浓厚的兴趣，同时也对古代文化和社会非常着迷。在高中时，我有幸参加了一个实验项目，将古典学与包括计算机科学在内的STEM学科结合起来。随后我获得了传播学学位，专注于技术领域，并继续攻读将手稿研究与软件密集型研究相结合的博士学位。正是在这个阶段，我发现了一个充满活力的国际人文学科计算社区。我在攻读博士学位的同时，申请并参加了伦敦国王学院的数字人文硕士课程，并积极参与数字人文项目和网络。

3. 介绍一个你的数字人文项目？

多年来，我参与了许多项目，但我想特别强调一个与我研究的跨学科和跨领域合作方法相关的项目，即数据建模。在数字人文中，数据建模被视为基础性工作。这项活动主要从STEM的角度进行分析，但是数字人文的研究揭示了建模的认知论价值：通过将对象和现象建模为数据结构，我们能够以不同的方式理解事物。我们的合作项目最终出版了一本书《数字与人文学科之间的建模：实践中的思考》，这本书通过强调语言在建模中的重要性以及建模的实际维度（建模是创造性和偶发的过程），深刻反映了这个主题。我希望这本书能展示人文学科在概念建模方面的贡献，特别是在如何通过设计和应用数字技术来塑造我们的概念和物理世界。

4. 你特别喜欢的一个数字人文项目是什么？

这是一个我在资金支持和交付方面略有参与的项目，名为「数字猎鬼」。由KDL高级RSE Elliott Hall领导，这个项目展示了极具创意的合作，涉及戏剧和表演专业人士、学校和学生、文化遗产机构以及公众。通过精心设计的体验融入数字技术，它展示了跨部门和跨代合作的想象力，以及数字技术实验的创造性思维和价值。

[中文版]

1. How do you define Digital Humanities? 

For me, Digital Humanities are a methodological laboratory for the humanities, where researchers can experiment with new computational and quantitative methods to answer old and new questions in the humanities.


2. How did you become interested in DH? 

I became interested in DH during my PhD in computational linguistics, when I worked on adapting techniques from computational linguistics to the study of the Latin language. I gradually realised the potential of using these methods beyond linguistics research, which has given the opportunity to work in many interdisciplinary projects.


3. Tell us about one of your DH projects? 

One of my favourite projects took place in 2018-2019 and was funded by a small grant by The Alan Turing Institute (described here). I put together a team involving two statisticians, a digital humanist, and a classicist to study the change in meaning of words in ancient Greek using Bayesian statistics. It was the first time I led such a diverse team to study an old phenomenon with new methods.


4. Tell us about a DH project you particularly like? 

I have worked on historical newspapers and I particularly like the Impresso project, which has digitized and enriched a vast collection of European historical newspapers, enabling researchers and the public to explore rich archives through advanced text mining and analysis tools. I like it because it democratizes access to valuable historical materials, fostering new ways of doing historical research.

介绍Barbara McGillivray博士

1. 你如何定义数字人文学？

对我来说，数字人文学是人文学科的方法实验室，研究人员可以在这里通过新的计算和定量方法来探索回答人文学科中的旧问题和新问题。

2. 你是如何对数字人文学产生兴趣的？

在攻读计算语言学博士学位期间，我对数字人文学产生了兴趣，当时我致力于将计算语言学的技术应用于拉丁语的研究。我逐渐意识到这些方法在语言学研究之外的潜力，这让我有机会参与许多跨学科的项目。

3. 请告诉我们一个你的数字人文学项目？

我最喜欢的项目之一是在2018-2019年进行的，并由艾伦·图灵研究所的小额资助（详见此处）资助。我组建了一个团队，包括两名统计学家、一名数字人文学者和一名古典学家，使用贝叶斯统计方法研究古希腊语中词义的变化。这是我第一次领导这样一个多样化的团队，用新方法研究一个古老的现象。

4. 你特别喜欢的一个数字人文学项目是什么？

我曾研究过历史报纸，特别喜欢Impresso项目，该项目数字化并丰富了大量欧洲历史报纸，使研究人员和公众能够通过先进的文本挖掘和分析工具探索丰富的档案。我喜欢这个项目，因为它使宝贵的历史资料变得更加普及，促进了历史研究的新方法。