Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 222.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2023-09-21 09:47:50+00:00
        From: Gerben ZAAGSMA <gerben.zaagsma@uni.lu>
        Subject: PhD position in data histories at C²DH Luxemburg

Dear all,

At the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) of the University of
Luxemburg we are currently recruiting one more PhD researcher within the
framework of our recently started Doctoral Training Unit “Deep Data Science of
Digital History” (D4H).

The project should deal with data histories and historicizing understandings of
data in (digital) history broadly understood. A short indicative description can
be found below, however interested candidates are very much encouraged to
develop their own proposal around the topic.

For more information on the D4H project, and information on how to apply, see
https://dhh.uni.lu/d4h/ and https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/news/d4h-data-science-meets-
digital-history.

For any questions and informal conversation please get in touch with Dr. Gerben
Zaagsma (gerben.zaagsma@uni.lu<mailto:gerben.zaagsma@uni.lu>).


With best regards,
Gerben Zaagsma


-----
Who’s Afraid of Data? Historicizing Data in Historical Research

This PhD project centers on ways in which historians have historically
understood “data” and how this has shaped the profession. Many contemporary
historians dislike the idea that their sources in certain ways might be viewed
as data yet discussions of “data” go back much further than the post-2000 era of
‘digital  history’. In his 1890 memoirs historian Hubert Bancroft already talked
of “historical data” so, to paraphrase Christine Borgman (2009), the question
is: when is historical data?

In the scholarly punched card era that took of in the 1930s systematic
historical data processing first confronted historical research and it became a
central notion in the era of history and computing from the late 1950s onwards.
In our current age of ‘digital history’, as data talk has become pervasive, no
historian can ignore “data” anymore yet few have picked up on calls to
historicize data and data practices (Van Es and Masson 2018) and think through
its conceptual and practical implications for the historical profession.

The project explores when, how and why historians started to talk about data,
which forms emerged in the process, and how perceptions and understandings of
“data” changed over time (from narrowly conceptualised ‘hard’ data to
acknowledgements of the uncertainties and ambiguities that characterise much of
the data in today’s digital archives). A crucial question here is not only how
research practices changed because of “data”, but what perceptions of data and
data talk were put forward and how these understandings affected historical
discourse.


Dr. Gerben Zaagsma
Assistant Professor

Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH)
University of Luxemburg

M: gerben.zaagsma@uni.lu<mailto:gerben.zaagsma@uni.lu>
T: +352 466644 6208<tel:+3524666446208>
W: www.c2dh.uni.lu<http://www.c2dh.uni.lu/>
W: http://gerbenzaagsma.org<http://gerbenzaagsma.org/>



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