1) Two definitions of the Digital Humanities; 2) Presentation of the DH Lausanne history
1) Definition des «Humanités Digitales»/ Definition of «Digital Humanities»
1.1 Défintion donnée en 2010 par le groupe Lausanne de départ:
«L’expression « humanités digitales » signale que quelque chose émerge, discuté avec passion dans le journal électronique « Humanist Discussion Group », et fédéré au plan mondial depuis 2002 dans l’Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). L’ère digitale naît de la remise en question du support même de la pensée des sciences humaines, via la transformation de nos rapports à la textualité. Ce virage numérique se prend sur fond de crise des sciences humaines, une crise financière d’abord, mais de politique institutionnelle aussi, quand bien même la Suisse la perçoit de manière plus feutrée. Dans ce contexte, les humanités digitales, un label revendiqué de diverses manières, offrent l’occasion de repenser nos manières de constituer les connaissances et de les transmettre. Elles se présentent à la fois comme pratique et comme problématique. Elles recouvrent non seulement l’ensemble des techniques numériques appliquées aux sciences humaines, mais surtout le questionnement sur les modifications que ces techniques génèrent du point de vue de la formation et de la transmission de la connaissance en sciences humaines».
1.2 Définition donnée par Claire Warwick (UCL, London), cité ici:
«Digital Humanities is an important multidisciplinary field, undertaking research at the intersection of digital technologies and humanities. It aims to produce applications and models that make possible new kinds of research, both in the humanities disciplines and in computer science and its allied technologies. It also studies the impact of these techniques on cultural heritage, memory institutions, libraries, archives and digital culture».
2) Les Humanités Digitales à Lausanne: une aventure née en 2010 / an adventure born in 2010
An informal research group was born in Lausanne in the spring 2010, with scholars from the University of Lausanne and the EPFL: Claire Clivaz, Christian Grosse, Frédéric Kaplan, Jérôme Meizoz and François Vallotton. The Faculty of theology and sciences of religion supported the first research activities in 2010-2011. This group organized events such as an international meeting now published as ebook at the PPUR editions (Lire Demain / Reading Tomorrow) in August 2011, and the first Swiss ThatCamp in novembre 2011. A website offers all the archives of this first step: http://www.unil.ch/digitalera. The next meetings are presented on that website.
Several colleagues from both institutions (notably Sabine Süsstrunk and Dominique Vinck) have joined this first informal group and developed the DH dynamic in Lausanne. A first DH structure was opened at the EPFL in August 2012: the DHLAB, with Fredéric Kaplan at his head. This dynamic involves now diverse groups of researchers in Lausanne, working sometimes since several years at the crossing of computing and humanities, such as the IMM institute or the SLI (Arts and Humanities, Unil) or the interfacultary plateform P2i (HEC, Unil). An interfacultary laboratory was open in January 2013, the «Laboratory of Digital Humanities and Cultures of the University of Lausanne», the LADHUL, whose administrative part is in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, in collaboration with the Faculties of Arts and Humanities, and the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies. Website: http://www.unil.ch/ladhul.
If you want to be informed about the activities of the DH activities in Lausanne, you can follow this blog, and apply to be enrolled on the listing «Humanités Digitales@unil» by announcing yourself to alba.brizzi@unil.ch
Claire Clivaz’ s blog and Frédéric Kaplan’s blog offer regularly information and analysis on DH topics.
