Getreu dem Titel des neuen Heftes „Digitalität: Debakel, Chance, Neuorientierung?“ wird in verschiedenen Beiträgen die Rolle der Digitalität in den Geisteswissenschaften diskutiert, Vor- und Nachteile illustriert sowie die damit verbundenen Veränderungen aufgezeigt. Die Idee für das Heft entstand im Zusammenhang mit der DHd Konferenz 2018, die den Titel „Kritik der Digitalen Vernunft“ trägt.
Editorial:
Digitalität als Herausforderung der Geisteswissenschaften Charlotte Schubert
Digital Classics Online Artikel:
Der ‚Stachel des Digitalen‘ – ein Anreiz zur Selbstreflexion in den Geisteswissenschaften? Ein philosophischer Kommentar zu den Digital Humanities in neun Thesen Sybille Krämer
A reflection of the Digital Humanities opens up a perspective in which aspects of humanities practice, which are mostly hidden in the traditional self-image of the humanities, can be made explicit. ‘Critique of digital reason‘ means that a reflection of digital practice can contribute to self-enlightenment of the humanities about the character of their ‘analog’ actions. At its core, it is about the relativity of the role of interpretation. Like all sciences Humanities have also a material, empirical basis in their texts, images and artifacts. And like all sciences Humanities operate in a space of an alphanumeric sign systems, where not only letters yet numbers play a crucial role. The short paper served to underlay the opening lecture at DHd 2018, 26.2. 2018, Universität Köln.
Digitale Methoden? Über begriffliche Wirrungen und vermeintliche Innovationen Michael Raunig, Elke Höfler
This essay is a critical examination of so-called “digital methods” (especially in the humanities) which are based on digital technologies and regarded as highly innovative. The authors argue that it makes no sense to talk about “digital methods” literally, and that it is not certain tools or technologies that make methods innovative or lead to new methods. In contrast, the adoption of digital technology commonly realizes an additional value for academic practices (and traditional methods) and is only a minor source for the development of new methods.
„L‘historien de demain sera programmeur ou il ne sera pas.“ (Digitale) Geschichtswissenschaften heute und morgen Malte Rehbein
The essay starts from the author’s personal approach to digital methods in historical sciences. It characterizes Digital Humanities in a twofold way: in a pragmatic shaping as transfer (“Transferwissenschaft”) and a paradigmatic shaping as transformation (“Transformationswissenschaft”). With regard to historical sciences, different layers of interdisciplinary scholarly work are discussed. This is critically seen from the perspectives of “digital history” as well as “historical information sciences” employing quantifying methods as examples. The discussion is embedded into the general societal discourse on digitality. The essay concludes by suggesting to shape history as a scholarship that provides critical orientation for societies (“Orientierungswissenschaft”) during a period of ubiquitous transformation. It warns about the formation of a society that conforms to digitization but pleads for developing digitization to conform to society.
„Exakt Historisch“ im Digitalen? Versuch einer Anleihe Andrea Schilz
The danger of lacking source criticism becomes increasingly apparent in the digital communication space of the Internet, with its sheer mass of utterances, respectively statements, and the rhizomatic nature of the medium. But it are precisely these statements that cultural studies take interest in as culturally determined phenomena, where these types of primary sources range from websites, forums, multiplayer platforms and the like. But how can criticism in the digital gain as a basis of knowledge, when the traditional system of conventionally secured certainty has changed? Attention has to be drawn to the intermedial and intertextual character of digital sources, especially when it comes to primary sources in the sense of cultural studies: statements. This is the premise under which a small transdisciplinary experiment is shown below – the sketch of a digital-source-critical guideline in which criteria of the „exactly historical“ method of Karl-Sigismund Kramer and Hans Moser (Münchner Schule of Volkskunde/Cultural Studies) are mirrored on Born Digital. I will show the benefits of this approach in more detail using aspects of an example in which the importance of analytic deconstruction can hardly be overestimated. Subject is the centuries-old anti-semitic figure of „Anderl von Rinn“, whose shock waves can still be detected today in the digital communication space.
Linguistik als antifragile Disziplin? Optionen in der digitalen Transformation Noah Bubenhofer, Philipp Dreesen
Digitalization has led to massive changes in the sciences, especially in the humanities, as shown by the Digital Humanities. Using linguistics, we discuss these changes on theoretical, epistemological and methodological levels, which consist in particular in the fact that methods of machine language processing are increasingly alinguistic. These are methods that are not based on linguistic theories and do not follow linguistic modelling of language or language usage. It remains to ask how a scientific discipline such as linguistics must be structured so that it becomes antifragile rather than robust in the face of such revolutions. In other words, how it can get richer out of unforeseeable changes and does not primarily have to endure fights of demarcation and defence against such transformations.