Discussing the Seven Seas of DH – A Global Fishbowl

Sep 17, 2021  | 6 AM (PT) | 9 AM (ET) | 3 PM (CET)

Online Event (Zoom) | Organized by the Working Group Digital Humanities of the Max Weber Foundation

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Who are the DH-Representatives?

Laila Abu-Er-Rub, Head of Administration at the MWS India Branch OfficeAnastasia Bonch-Osmolovskaya, Head of Digital Humanities at Higher School of Economics, MoscowQuinn Dombrowski, Academic Technology Specialist: Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and the Library at Stanford UniversityFranz Fischer, Director of the Venice Centre for Digital and Public HumanitiesRebecca Kahn, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of ViennaAkram Khater, Director of the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora at North Carolina State UniversityLorella Viola, Research Associate: Linguistics and Digital Humanities at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH)

More information about the speakers is available here.

Why a Global Fishbowl?

Disciplines are subject to changes, which are primarily reflected in a gradual differentiation of topics, methodological approaches and the development of sub- or transdisciplines. In this event, we want to examine digital humanities in a global perspective: What distinguishes the digital humanities, for example, in Germany, Russia, the Lebanon or the United States? Are there any regional peculiarities about infrastructures, topics, or methods? And what challenges, but also opportunities for doing digital humanities, arise in these different locations?

In order to discuss digital humanities in a global perspective, this event will bring together DH-Representatives from different countries and positions to share their experiences. This event is part of the virtual trip organised by the MWS as part of the vDHd2021. Since this virtual conference series focuses on EXPERIMENTS, as a format, we are not choosing a “normal” panel discussion, but a virtual fishbowl. The advantage of a fishbowl is that it actively allows the entire audience to participate in a conversation with our Representatives.

How to Swim and Stare?

Everybody’s microphone is muted and video on. The Host makes a brief introduction and then asks everybody to switch their videos off. There will be four rounds that start with a different topic and a different set-up of Conversation Starters. The Moderators  and Conversation Starters (4 Representatives) keep their video on and engage in an opening dialogue to introduce the theme of the round. Moderators asks a question and the first line-up of Representatives respond to the question (3 minutes/each). Now, Participants from the Audience and other Representatives can swim in.

Round 1: Geography
Round 2: Disciplines
Round 3: Key Areas (Methods and Themes)
Round 4: Future Vision for doing DH

How to Swim in?

As a Participant from the Audience or the Group of Representatives, you have three options to engage in the discussion. You can use the chat to #blubb or #swimin. Every participant, who wants to engage has to give a comment about the current discussion (1 minute) and before they leave ask another question to the sharks. The one minute guideline is to keep the conversation flowing from fish to fish, rather than having one shark. The objective is to have an organically growing conversation. It is fundamental that people feel that they are the initiators and custodians of the conversation.

#blubb: If you want to engage, but you do not want to state your comment and ask your question by turning on the camera and speaking into the microphone, you can simply insert them in the chat by starting with #blubb.

#swimin: If you want to turn on your camera and state your question by using the microphone, simply insert #swimin into the chat and wait for the moderator to call out your name.

[Of course, you can always leave comments in the chat without engaging directly in the discussion. Just use #comment: and insert your comment.]

The goal is to have a maximum of 4 people engaged in the conversation (with their video on). When Participants start their video (to enter in the conversation), someone else should stop his or her video (to exit the conversation) to ensure there are a maximum of 4 people engaged (4 plus the Moderators) actively in the conversation.

Technical note for zoom: if you ask participants to “hide non-video participants” by clicking on the three dots of their own image, and if everybody follows this instruction, the participants will only be able to see the current discussants in the middle of the fishbowl!

And who are the Sponges?

The fishbowl is brought together and will be maintained by members of the Working Group DH in the Max Weber Foundation. Each of us is doing digital humanities at one of the research institutions of the foundation dispersed over the seven seas.

Daniel Burckhardt, GHI WashingtonJörg Hörnschemeyer, GHI RomeJana Keck, GHI WashingtonMareike König, DHI ParisAnne Klammt, DFK ParisBirte Kohtz, GHI Moscow,Jan Rohden, MWS Central Office (Bonn)Karin Schweißgut, Orient-Institut Istanbul

The Global Fishbowl is part of the virtual travel journey organized by the Working Group Digital Humanities during vDHd2021. #vDHd2021