Multilingual DH Lab
Welcome to the website of the Multilingual DH Lab at the »Ada Lovelace Center for Digital Humanities« at Freie Universität Berlin!
The ML DH Lab is a place of networking and encounter for researchers, teachers, students, research software developers, librarians, and all those members of Freie Universität Berlin who depend on the use of multilingual digital tools (platforms, software...) in their work, and especially on the use of non-Latin scripts in digital environments.
"Disrupting Digital Monolingualism"
Under the heading "Disrupting Digital Monolingualism" (King's College 2020), the ML DH Lab will firstly, focus on the hegemony of the English language as well as the Latin script in the rapidly growing field of digital humanities as a cause for cultural and technological/digital asymmetries. We will address these beyond the immediate field of digital humanities as a barrier to global scholarly exchange in general (e.g., lack of visibility/accessibility of and access to research or sources in non-Anglophone languages and non-Latin scripts).
Secondly, the ML DH Lab provides a space for research on, experimentation with, and promotion of the use of non-Latin scripts (NLS) in digital environments. Available software, information systems, and infrastructures have so far allowed the use of NLS only to a very limited extent or often not at all (Dombrowski 2020; Mahony 2018). We are striving towards an active and productive exchange with (DH) communities in non-European, non-Anglophone regions and in this way underpin the FUB's self-image as an international network university also in the field of ML DH.
WRITING, MEDIALITY, TRANSMISSION AND ARCHIVAL PRACTICES
Finally, the ML DH Lab addresses the fact of the project character of the vast majority of DH research in NLS/multilingualism and the problem of the lack of sustainability in securing human resources as well as reusable technological solutions in the field of ML DH. The ML DH Lab presents itself as a place at the interface between individual scholarly fields, research IT infrastructure facilities and the university library. It is our intention to converge expertise in the field of ML DH in such a way that technical infrastructure can be co-designed more easily and communicated more broadly according to the needs and standards for conducting sustainable, high-quality research and training in the field of ML DH - especially in the area studies disciplines at the FUB.
IN THE MLDH_LAB WE WILL DISCUSS QUESTIONS LIKE:
- Which obstacles with regard to software have to be overcome, for example, when working with digital editions in NLS?
- How do Eurocentric views of writtenness, mediality, traditionand archiving practices become fixated in archival and technical knowledge infrastructures at German-speaking universities as well as research institutions in general and for Digital Humanities in particular, e.g. on the basis of DH tools available or the accumulation of DH infrastructures in the "Global North"?
- Where does the "disrupting digital monolingualism" (King's College 2020) movement currently stand, what are the challenges in building this community ?
- (...)
Contakt:
The "MLDH_Lab" meets at regular intervals for networking, exchange, discourse, and collaborative, hands-on work.
Get in touch!
Contakt:
Dr. Cosima Wagner,
Dr. Jonas-Müller Laackmann,
E-Mail: mldh@ada.fu-berlin.de