Centre for Digital Humanities

Project leader: Sara Ellis Nilsson
Funder: The Swedish Research Council 

"Mapping Lived Religion" builds a comprehensive online database providing open-access across cultural heritage collections, both textual and material, and digitized material in collaboration with the National Historical Museums and Swedish National Heritage Board.

The project creates interactive, digital maps that allow users to sort churches, parishes and cult-sites chronologically, geographically and by saint. These resources will enable new, in-depth investigations into the culture of medieval and early modern Scandinavia. The database and maps are the project’s major digital publication, important for future research. Mapping Saints is a research and educational resource containing a comprehensive, online database which provides open access to data related to the cults of saints in the medieval church province of Uppsala, which included most of modern Sweden and Finland. The database was created based on the project Mapping Lived Religion’s main research question: lived religion as expressed through the veneration of saints. This focus has influenced how the data is categorized and organized.

Project leader: Alexandra Petrulevich, Uppsala University, with Sara Ellis Nilsson on the project team

"Nordic Spatial Humanities" aims to bring together humanities researchers and research engineers and others in related sectors (museums, archives, libraries) who are working on geocoded humanities data pertaining to the Nordic countries and beyond.

The objectives are to (1) generate dialogue and exchange between relevant academic and non-academic sectors on the subject of spatial data and data infrastructures in the Humanities, and (2) facilitate a collaborative initiative whereby common principles regarding ontologies and metadata will be mapped out by members of the network. Collaborative data infrastructure solutions based on Linked Open Data (LOD) and FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) will underpin and further advances in Humanities research that builds on geocoded data.

As mentioned above, Huminfra is a Swedish national infrastructure supporting digital and experimental research in the Humanities by providing users with a single-entry point for finding existing Swedish materials and research tools, as well as developing national method courses.

Led by Lund University, Linnaeus University is one of 12 collaborating nodes in the network, supporting the project by contributing resources and tools for the platform, as well as innovating the platform for improved access. Furthermore, Linnaeus University joins Huminfra in creating new national courses in e-scientific/digital methods, as well as heading the Swedish membership in the European Research Infrastructure Consortium, The Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH-EU).

Project Ieader: Koraljka Golub
Funder: Erasmus+

DiMPAH was a collaborative project to aggregate, connect and make widely available novel Open Education Resources (OERs) on selected digital methods, apply these to interdisciplinary contexts and foster novel creative learning experiences by taking data from the past into future stories. Partnering with Linnaeus University was Aarhus University, University of Amsterdam, University of La Rochelle, University of Cyprus and University of Porto. The following OERs are now available as the result of the project:

1. Data Analysis with Python
2. Text Analysis - Linguistics Meets Data Science
3. Netnography
4. Digital Historical Research on European Historical Newspaper with NewsEye Platform
5. E-spectator
6. Design, Development and Deployment of Augmented Reality Applications
7. Introduction to Knowledge Organization Systems.

The Lost Generation Corpus, at its core, is a project focused on setting up the resources for future research on the group of post-World War I artists and writers known as the Lost Generation.

The project collects, prepares, and saves the output of the authors in a computer-searchable text collection, a corpus, which allows materials to be sorted according to authorship, time of publication and text type. This dataset can then be explored with the myriads of tools available to us through corpus linguistics, allowing for insights into how the literary styles of the authors developed and changed throughout their careers.

The purpose of the project Artificial Intelligence as a Risk and Opportunity for the Authenticity of Archives is to conceptualise and guide the design of AI based methods which embody and address archival professional imperatives by using open and available datasets from the Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet) and the Swedish National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet).

The Global Archives Online is a resource designed to identify and locate open resources for the study of colonial and global history.

Through this collaborative research project designs and implements new ways for the cultural sector to communicate and reach out to different audiences by taking advantage of current digital technologies, while also allowing data about cultural events to be collected to inform future developments in the creative culture sector.

ExtenDT² uses design-based research to support/provide evidence for pedagogical transformation via Design Thinking enhanced by Emerging Technologies. It employs already institutionalized, home-grown and open-access digital expressive media of advanced technical readiness for students to engage in Design Thinking projects.

ExtenDT² uniquely integrates with these expressive media Emerging Technologies i.e. ΑΙ-enhanced Authorable Learning Analytics, Augmented Reality, 3D printing/scanning and virtual robotics, to leverage digital implementation, monitoring and assessment of Design Thinking projects by teachers in schools.

Dagmar Brunow, Professor, Institution för film och litteratur. Her work centres around the digitisation of film heritage, especially around questions of diversity and sustainability. She teaches two courses within the DH master: Film, archive, and digital culture (7,5 hp) as well as Film as a Research Tool (7,5 hp).

Koraljka Golub, Head of iInstitute, Linnaeus University’s iSchool; Professor in Library and Information Science, Department of Cultural Sciences. She has been leading Digital Humanities developments at Linnaeus University since 2015, active internationally in DHNB (Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries) and driving Sweden into DARIAH-EU. She has initiated the Digital Humanities Master program and coordinated it for the first few years.

She is Linnaeus University’s representative in Huminfra, and a member of its operative management group. She was also PI on the European Dimpah project where she also developed an open educational resource on knowledge organization for Digital Humanities. Her Digital Humanities research has focused on the intersection of Digital Humanities and knowledge organization – by information professionals, by subject experts, by end users and automatic.

Fredrik Hanell, Senior Lecturer in Library and Information Science, Department of Cultural Sciences. He has done research and teaching on qualitative digital methods for social media research – most recently as part of the Dimpah project, where he contributed to an open education resource on netnography. Within the Digital Humanities, this captures his interest in reflexively combining qualitative and quantitative methods for digital research. Additionally, he has done some research on (digital) personal data and data literacy and supervised several Digital Humanities master theses.

Joacim Hansson, Professor of Library and Information Science, Department of Cultural Sciences. He is actively involved in the Digital Humanities Master Programme, focusing on the digital representation of cultural heritage documents and artefacts. Hansson's research interests include knowledge organization, document studies, and the institutional identity of libraries. He is a member of several international advisory boards for scholarly journals and plays a significant role in various digital humanities projects at Linnaeus University.

Romain Herault, Lecturer/Doctoral Student, Department of Computer Science and Media Technology, has conducted teaching and research on eXtended Reality (XR) related to DH and cultural heritage. He is active in Huminfra and provides national training opportunities to Swedish researchers on photogrammetry and motion capture. As part of the Dimpah project, he has contributed to an open education resource on digitization of cultural heritage. He currently teaches two courses in the Digital Humanities Master: 4ME503 (Course coordinator and main teacher), 4DH426 (Teacher, technical part).

Daniel Ocic Ihrmark, Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities, Department of Cultural Sciences. His doctoral work dealt with the implementation of digital tools within language teaching. He has also performed research on the language development of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway using digital methods in the Lost Generation Corpus project. While Daniel’s research has mainly been focused on text, he has also been involved in projects with broader scopes, such as the analysis of materials related to online interactions in the Swedish far-right and the automated organization of written materials in different contexts.

Daniel is also active within the Educational Linguistics environment at Linnaeus University, which explores the role and use of language in educational contexts through transdisciplinary efforts. He is mainly involved in teaching connected to the Linnaeus University Digital Humanities Masters program, while also teaching on courses offered by the Language Department with a focus on digital perspectives on languages and linguistic analysis, as well as serving as an instructor in the BAL-ADRIA Summer School on Digital Humanities. Furthermore, Daniel contributes to workshops hosted by LiLa Lab in collaboration with the digital development team at the Faculty of Arts & Humanities.

Ahmad Kamal, Senior Lecturer in Library and Information Sciences, Department of Cultural Sciences. Ahmad is currently the programme director for the Digital Humanities Studies master. He is active in Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries, where he serves as co-lead for the Working Group on Higher Education, Huminfra (coordinator of the Controlled Vocabulary Working Group), and coordinates the BAL-ADRIA Summer School on Digital Humanities.

Mikko Laitinen, Professor of English linguistics (SPR), interested in the use of large-scale social media data in SSH research as well as on data-intensive methods. Laitinen has a robust background in linguistics and digital humanities. He has been instrumental in leading numerous high-profile research projects and has a significant publication record, including 77 peer-reviewed articles and 240 conference presentations. Laitinen is also the Head of Data Intensive Digital Humanities at the Center of Data Intensive Sciences and Applications (DISA-DH).

Marcelo Milrad is a Full Professor of Media Technology at Linnaeus University in Sweden. His research spans across diverse fields including Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL), advanced human-computer interaction, innovative applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, and mobile technologies within Education & Health Care domains. With extensive experience in cross-disciplinary research and educational collaboration, Professor Milrad is at the forefront of leveraging information technologies to enhance teaching and learning experiences. Since March 2020, he serves as the main scientific coordinator of Linnaeus University's cross-disciplinary knowledge environment, Digital Transformations13, fostering collaboration across various fields.

Additionally, Dr. Milrad is actively engaged in an initiative at Linnaeus University alongside colleagues from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, known as Digital Humanities14, furthering interdisciplinary approaches to research and education. Professor Milrad's research is characterized by the close collaboration with industrial partners and the public sector, facilitating the development and implementation of cutting-edge technologies in real-world settings. Currently, he is the principal investigator for the research project Extending Design Thinking with Digital Technologies15, supported by the EU Commission (2022-2025, €3.2 million), aimed at integrating digital tools and emerging technologies to enhance design thinking processes.

With over 250 publications in international journals, refereed conferences, books, and technical reports, Dr. Milrad's work has made significant contributions to the fields of media technology and education. He has also delivered presentations and lectures on his research in more than 45 countries worldwide, furthering global discourse on the intersection of technology and education

Eleonor Marcussen, Senior Lecturer in History, Department of Cultural Sciences. She teaches the module and workshop “Digitizing Archives” on the course Digital History (4HI505, elective, DH master programme); Participated in the Digital Humanities Summer School in Oxford 2019; Previous experience in digitizing collections, surveying ‘old’ digital historical sources and building online research tools at League of Nations Archives at UNOG (Geneva).

Sara Ellis Nilsson, Docent in History and Senior Lecturer, Department of Cultural Sciences. Her current research focuses on using digital tools to study lived religion in particular the cults of saints in medieval Finland and Sweden. That is utilizing maps and relational databases to structure and analyze data in order to achieve new insights into historical processes with a foundation in social and cultural history. In order to be able to ensure long-term sustainability for the Mapping Saints resource/portal and to access the relevant developer expertise required, she has been collaborating with the Gothenburg Research Infrastructure in the Digital Humanities (GRIDH).

In addition to this project, she has also been investigating the use of digital tools in historical reenactment (in progress) and is interested in how the past/history is communicated/interpreted using digital tools and methods. Finally, she has also been involved in pilot research into linked (open) data and spatial data as connected to/used the humanities, in terms of infrastructural applications and requirements (Nordic Spatial Humanities). 

Her externally funded projects are Mapping Lived Religion: Medieval Cults of Saints in Sweden and Finland (PI Sara Ellis Nilsson) and Nordic Spatial Humanities: Linking, Building, and Sustaining Humanities Digital Spatial Infrastructures for Research in the Nordic Countries (PI Alexandra Petrulevich, UU). Her DH teaching includes theses supervision for the Master Program in Digital Humanities (both 1-year and 2-year), and lecturing on Digital History for the Intro to Digital Humanities course. She is the coordinator and one of the lecturers for the master-level course, Digital History (4HI505).

Pernilla Jonsson Severson, Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies, Department of Media and Journalism. Her research, teaching and projects include digital methods and research ethics focusing the interplay of qualitative and more computational approaches to knowledge creation and storage. Research-wise this is applied in studies of media and journalism and gender: for example, on women journalism archives, new genres like webisodes and how to make sense of big and small data. In teaching, Pernilla has a specialty in social network analysis and within this field have supervised several varied digital humanities master theses. Within Huminfra, she is conducting teaching and learning workshops on social network analysis, based from research questions, not tools.

Jonas Svensson, Professor in Religion, Department of Cultural Sciences. He has conducted DH-related research in the form of computer-assisted text analysis and methods for distant reading with the aim of facilitating material sampling. Recently, he has mainly focused on Generative AI, both as a tool in the research process and as a subject of study, particularly in terms of text and image production (training, alignment, and bias). His teaching involved occasional contributions in the undergraduate program in Religious Studies, the doctoral program in Global Humanities, as well as workshops in text analysis, semantic network analysis, and LLM-enhanced topic modeling for colleagues.