Virtual Keynotes / Digital Humanities Infrastructure
RedHD: We are still here and growing. The challenges we’ve overcome // RedHD: Aquí y aun creciendo. Los retos que hemos enfrentado
[EN] The DH2018 conference marked a turning point for the Red de Humanidades Digitales (RedHD). This event enabled the organization’s legal registration, showcased its potential to the global community, and fostered connections with digital humanists across Latin America. However, the subsequent challenges were significant: expanding RedHD locally, strengthening regional connections, and promoting collaboration with networks, associations, and individuals within the Latin American context. In this presentation, we will analyze the progress achieved since then, the challenges faced, and our plans for the future. Specifically, we will explore how the pandemic reshaped our strategies while also opening new and more effective pathways for action. We will reflect on the networking model represented by SemanaHD, the growth of the Biblioteca de Humanidades Digitales, and the publication of Hola Mundo. Digital humanities in Latin America, and how these initiatives are shaping the present and future of RedHD.
[ES] El congreso DH2018 marcó un antes y un después para la Red de Humanidades Digitales (RedHD). Este evento permitió el registro legal de la organización, visibilizó su potencial para la comunidad global y facilitó la vinculación con humanistas digitales de toda Latinoamérica. Sin embargo, los retos posteriores fueron significativos: expandir la RedHD a nivel local, fortalecer las conexiones regionales y fomentar la colaboración con redes, asociaciones y personas del ámbito latinoamericano. En esta presentación analizaremos los avances logrados desde entonces, los desafíos enfrentados y los planes a futuro. En particular, exploraremos cómo la pandemia alteró nuestras estrategias, pero también abrió nuevas y más efectivas vías de acción. Reflexionaremos sobre el modelo de vinculación representado por la SemanaHD, el crecimiento de la Biblioteca de Humanidades Digitales, la aparición del libro Hola Mundo. Digital humanities in Latin America, y cómo estas iniciativas configuran el presente y el futuro de la RedHD.
Miriam Peña Pimentel
Associate Researcher, Institute of Bibliographic Research – National Autonomous University of Mexico. PhD in Hispanic Studies from the University of Western Ontario
Specialist in Digital Humanities and literary studies, with particular interest in the development of models for rich publication and in Digital Scholarship for the training of human resources in the Digital Humanities. Miriam Peña is the principal investigator of the research project “Books of All, Books for All (LTxLT): Making the Heritage Collections of the BNDM Visible using Digital Humanities” and the project “Mexican Bibliography and Digital Applied Humanities”, where she develops protocols for digital preservation through enriched publication and the remediation of objects.
Ernesto Priani Saisó
Professor. Facutlad de Filosofía y Letres. Univesidad Nacional Autónoma de México. PHD in Philosophy from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Philosopher. Initially, his interests revolved around the history of Renaissance philosophy, both from the point of view of the historiographical problem of the concept of Renaissance and around the development of the philosophy of Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. In 2004, he began to be interested in digital humanities as a methodology for the study of the history of philosophy. In 2008, he started and currently directs the project Digital Library of New Hispanic Thought (bdpn.unam.mx), of academic digital editions of documents of early modernity in Mexico. Is co-author of the book Una Mirada al libro electrónico (A Look into the electronic book) with Isabel Galina, author of Los instrumentos de la noche (Night’s Instruments). In 2012, he co-founded the RedHD (Digital Humanities Network). He was president of RedHD between 2018 and 2024.
Digital Humanities in South Africa (and Beyond): Challenges and Opportunities
Menno Van Zaanen
Digital Humanities (DH) in South Africa is still a relatively new field. In 2016, the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) was founded, which in 2018 joined the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). Also in 2016, the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) was established as a country-wide research infrastructure. One of SADiLaR’s aims is to build research capacity in the field of DH.
Now, almost ten years later, South Africa’s DH community is slowly growing. Many researchers have heard about DH, but, at the same time, do not know where to start. To try to resolve this, SADiLaR created the ESCALATOR project which runs activities focusing on training, community building, and awareness. At the same time, DHASA organizes DH conferences and runs a journal to improve publication opportunities in the field of DH.
In this presentation, I will discuss experiences from both ESCALATOR and DHASA. I will highlight activities with positive outcomes, which may be reused in other contexts (e.g., your own country), but I also discuss (open) challenges. Ultimately, I hope that this information will form the basis for discussions and collaborations to boost the field of DH world-wide.
Menno van Zaanen is the Research Manager and Professor in Digital Humanities at the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), which is a national research infrastructure funded by the South African Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation. Since 2021, he is the president of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) and a member of the Constituent Organization Board of the world-wide Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). He has published in the areas of computational linguistics, computational musicology, cognitive science, virtual and augmented reality, learning analytics, and digital humanities.
In-Person Keynotes
centerNet – Sponsored Keynote
For the 10th Global DH Symposium, we have partnered with centerNet as part of the discussions of global DH as a development in the field, infrastructure, and lab development.
Minimal lab/Maximal labor
Gimena del Rio Riande
In 1979, Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar published Laboratory Life. Through real examples, the authors showed how science is not an objective process, but a social one built through time, places and perspectives. Many years later, albeit unintentionally, the book Digital Humanities and Laboratories (Pawlicka-Deger and Thomson, 2023) reinforced the notion of science as a social construction and emphasized that, in the Digital Humanities field laboratories are volatile, undefined and polymorphic spaces.
In this talk, I aim to reflect (once again) on what it means to do research in Digital Humanities, drawing from a personal experience: the creation of a DH lab in an Argentine public institution. HD LAB is a group of people who are enthusiastic about static, open-source and minimal computing technologies, and mostly about the “everyone does everything” philosophy. Minimal lab but maximal labor.
Dr. Gimena del Rio Riande is Senior Researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas y Crítica Textual (IIBICRIT-CONICET, Argentina) and Professor at the Universidad del Salvador. She holds a MA and PhD in Romance Philology (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). Her main academic interests deal with Digital Humanities, Digital Scholarly Editions and Open Research Practices in the Humanities.
She is the director of the Laboratorio de Humanidades Digitales HD LAB and the first postgraduate certificate in Digital Humanities in Argentina. She is part of the Board of Directors of the TEI and one of the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) Ambassadors for Latin America. She coordinates de activities of the Asociación Argentina de Humanidades Digitales (AAHD).
State of Global Digital Humanities Panel
The closing keynote panel features scholars who have given keynote presentations at a past Global DH Symposium. These scholars will give short presentations at the 2025 Symposium and then engage in a discussion around the state of global digital humanities.
Future Proofing the Caribbean Digital: Institution(al) Building, Information (In)Security, and Sustainable (Infra)Structures
Schuyler Esprit
In this talk, I will reflect on the ways that developing Caribbean digital scholarship, particularly centralized within the region itself and extending to the diaspora in the Global North and elsewhere, has developed within the last decade to highlight the strategies, victories and detours of community and institution building in digital humanities. Ultimately, the principles of digital scholarship that govern the ethos of the community of scholars invested in a sustainable, livable Caribbean future has driven the success of the theories, programs and projects that now constitute an established subfield of digital humanities. I will reflect on the way that minimalism, social justice, marronage, and a “poetics of relation” have engendered Caribbean digital scholarship.
Schuyler Esprit is the Founding Director of Create Caribbean Research Institute, the first digital humanities center in the Caribbean. As a scholar of Caribbean literary and cultural studies, her research areas of interest include Caribbean literary and cultural studies, environmental and ecological humanities, and digital humanities. Dr. Esprit has placed digital humanities in conversation with community activism, public education and student civic engagement in the Caribbean. She is a Lecturer in the Department of Literatures in English at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, and is currently the Deputy Dean for Graduate Studies and Research in the Faculty of Humanities and Education.
Promises of Access, Algorithmic Realities, Machines that Learn and Stochastic Parrots: Subalternity and Digital Humanities
Radhika Gajjala
Current anxieties around “authorial intent” in LLMs resurface attempts to locate “authentic” authorial voice through digital connectivity. Yet such discussions inevitably also return us to debates around considerations of access, connectivity and authenticity of subaltern voice and representation. Flat arguments of bias and stereotyping resurface in the context of AI while conveniently allowing us to elide and bypass the complexities around the infrastructures that require the reorganization of how we occupy lands and consume resources such as water while shifting around subaltern bodies yet again in the name of progress and development. Acknowledging these complexities and contractions of the contemporary moment as we are faced with “AI” in the classroom space – how do we as digital humanists create awareness while also addressing a sense of anxiety in our student body? This talk will draw on various examples from work done in the classroom using Claude.ai and Midjourney in order to raise questions and invite discussion.
Radhika Gajjala is Professor at Bowling Green State University. Her recent books include: Digital diasporas: Labor and Affect in Gendered Indian Digital Publics (2019).; Online Philanthropy in the Global North and South: Connecting, Microfinancing, and Gaming for Change (2017).
From Memory to Action: Transborder Digital Humanities and Social Justice Across Borders
Sylvia Fernández Quintanilla
This talk examines the state of transborder digital humanities, focusing on the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and how by engaging with local, transborder and transnational methodologies with digital tools allow us to reshape memory-making across borders—physical and digital. Drawing on case studies from projects like Borderlands Archives Cartography, Torn Apart Separados, Fuerza Feminist and GeoTestimonios Transfronterizos, that address border experiences advocating for human rights and immigration policies, and resisting gender violence and feminicides, and racism. I will explore how these digital humanities projects challenge dominant narratives and preserve transborder histories. These initiatives, which span multiple geographies and cultures, use relational data, community metadata, curated archives and critical data narratives and maps to bridge generational gaps and promote collective memory in accessible ways. The talk will also consider the ethical dimensions of working with culturally sensitive materials across borders, emphasizing community engagement, consent, and ethical stewardship in digital humanities projects. Ultimately, it will discuss how these projects foster transnational conversations about shared experiences of displacement, resilience, and belonging.
Sylvia Fernández is an Assistant Professor of Public and Digital Humanities in the Interdisciplinary School of Engagement, Affiliated to the Spanish as a Heritage and English Programs and co-founding director of the Community-Engaged Digital Scholarship Hub with the Libraries and Museums and the College of Liberal and Fine Arts at the University of Texas-San Antonio.
She is a transfronteriza originally from El Paso-Cd. Juárez border region. Her research, teaching, and community engagement lie at the intersection of interdisciplinary studies focused on gender violence and migration representations through literature, archives, cross-border cultures and languages, and Latinx communities in the United States. She also explores transnational feminisms and intersections with the use of digital technologies for analyzing, designing, and developing academic and creative digital and public works through ethical and inclusive practices. Over the past decade, she has been a producer and contributing member to numerous multilingual and transnational digital humanities scholarship projects addressing themes of feminist movements, immigration, border cultural heritage and memory.
