🎉 Travel Bursary Now Available!

You can now apply for a travel bursary of up to 500 EUR to attend the DHSS Summer School.

Digital Humanities Summer School 2025: Data, gender and society

Mo 22 – Fri 26 September 2025

The DHSS2025 summer school offers expert-led training in DH tools and methods. It will also offer opportunities to critically discuss the type of research questions that such tools and methods can help to answer. With a thematic focus on gender the summer school looks at the interrelationship between society and data.

The format of the training includes:

• Expert lectures with keynotes from leading Digital Humanities scholars
• Hands-on sessions to explore examples of tools and methods
• Participant presentation – the presentations offer participants an opportunity to share their own research in a short 5-minute talk.
• Visual abstracts workshop – in this workshop participants will create visual abstracts based either on the presentations they held or on a topic they can choose in the workshop

The number of places at the summer school is limited, so you will need to register early.

Fees – 95 Euro (Note: if you are joining FAU as an MA student in DH, registration will be free).

Accommodation – Participants will make their own arrangements, but we will provide information on hotels close to the venue

Keynote Speakers

Anna Foka, Department of ALM Uppsala University

Anna Foka

Anna Foka is Professor in Digital Humanities at the Department for Archives, Museums and Libraries (ABM) and is the founder and Director of the Centre for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences at Uppsala University. Anna’s humanities’ expertise lies in critical perspectives on culture and cultural history, and in/tangible heritage, including concepts of diversity and inclusion more generally. Her research and teaching focuses on applications of Information Technology (including AI and Linked Open Data, among others) for the arts and humanities. Professor Foka is a member of AcademiaNet, the European Science Foundation and the European Commission community of experts. Anna Foka’s latest book is co-authored together with Jan von Bonsdorff , and it its titled AI and Image: Critical perspectives on Technologies for Art and Heritage (Cambridge University Press, Elements Series https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/ai-and-image/E3FDE0FAF32203DFBB5E812F61F5B33E)
For more info please see https://www.uu.se/en/contact-and-organisation/staff?query=N18-926

Title of Session: AI and Heritage: Critical perspectives on AI for the Archives, Libraries and Museum sector

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expanding beyond the realm of computer science, significantly impacting various industries and facets of society. AI and Machine Learning are revolutionizing the fields of computer science and engineering, making professionals in these areas highly sought after. The future of AI is dynamic, already profoundly influencing education, professions, and society. However, there is a growing awareness of the dangers of over-relying on AI for every challenge. In this context, I advocate for embracing AI with a societal and humanistic sensibility. My focus is on the Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ALM) sector. Traditionally, professional decisions in ALM have been made by educated humans using their best judgment. However, machines are becoming increasingly influential in performing these tasks. The quality of machine decision-making is closely tied to the quality of the data and the parameters selected for classification. Using cultural heritage collections as an example, I discuss how AI offers new opportunities for access and engagement but also risks perpetuating historical biases embedded in these collections. I emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration among cultural heritage professionals, data scientists, and social scientists to identify and mitigate bias. We need to think together with machines to adopt a holistic approach to bias mitigation, integrating both technical and non-technical solutions to ensure that AI technologies contribute to a more inclusive society. I conclude with recommendations for future education, research, and practice, highlighting the need for ongoing monitoring and interdisciplinary collaboration to address the complexities of bias in AI applications within the cultural and creative industries, as well as in the training of professionals in the ALM sector.

Mareike Schumacher, University of Regensburg

Mareike Schumacher

Mareike Schumacher, Prof. Dr., is assistant professor for Digital Humanities at the University of Regensburg. In 2022 she published her first book on the topic of place and space in novels. Her research interests include Computational Literary Studies, Digital Gender Studies, Narratology, Ecocriticsim and Public Humanities.

Title of Session: Corpus compilation and gender-sensitive Analysis

A solid corpus is of fundamental importance for computational literary studies. When analysing rare and unusual phenomena or minority representation the compilation of a meaningful corpus is even more crucial. In this workshop participants will learn the most central aspects of corpus creation and work on different case studies hands on. The workshops especially highlights two perspectives of corpus creation: the authorial perspective and the perspective of (gender-sensitive) phenomena. Accordingly authorial gender of male, female and queer authors will be analysed as well as unusual gender depictions in literary texts using state-of-the-art machine learning techniques.

Registration Form

Please note: Registration is open. Sign up now!
Deadline to apply: 14 July 2025

Previously at DHSS

Explore highlights and resources from our previous event Digital Humanities Training Day 2024 (DHTD 2024).

Visit the DHTD 2024 Resource page