Humanities scholars are confronted with the reality of the digital age on a daily basis. The sources for their research are increasingly available in digital form, as are the platforms for research dissemination and valorization. The research project Creative Amsterdam: An E-Humanities Perspective (CREATE) has provided a rich testing ground for digital humanities research. Aiming to share this experience, the CREATE team has set up the Digital History Workshop series. The goal of the series is to allow humanities scholars to practice, discuss and experiment hands-on with the uses of digital tools in humanities research. In monthly sessions humanities researchers are brought together with programmers and data specialists to share experiences and explore the potentials and pitfalls of specific software and computational tools.

Kicking off the New Year with a Digital History Workshop series on Geographic Information System (GIS)

Have you ever wondered about the geographic and material aspects of your research? Have you ever been curious to find out what your data would look like when plotted on a map? As the “spatial turn” in history, the rise of interdisciplinary “area” studies, and the push for transnational, comparative and global approaches indicate, a concern with the (geo)spatial dimension of cultural data has long spread beyond the traditional domains of archaeology, geography and heritage studies.

The GIS Digital History Workshop is designed for all humanities scholars interested in the geographical / spatial aspects of their data. GIS stands for Geographic Information System: a wide array of computational techniques that allow scholars to statistically analyze, manage, map, manipulate and visualize geographical / geospatial data.

The sessions will be devoted to hands-on practice and discussion of the methodological implications of GIS software such as QGIS. Separate workshop announcements will follow.

General Workshop Information

  • Sessions are held on a regular, monthly basis. We generally meet on Tuesdays, 15-17h, at the Mediastudies eLab, BG01, room 0.16, University of Amsterdam. Please note that the exact day and time may be subject to change.
  • No previous experience with digital research tools is required.
  • Preparatory readings will be distributed.
  • Workshops are meant for hands-on practice. We expect participants to bring a laptop and to install the software we provide you with in advance of the workshop.
  • Workshops are informal and open to all who want to explore digital research tools.
  • Newcomers are invited to prepare by reading the following introduction: Graham, S., Milligan, I., & Weingart, S. (2015). Exploring big historical data: The historian’s macroscope. London: Imperial College Press. Available online
  • For further information please get in touch with Kaspar Beelen at K.Beelen@uva.nl.