IMC 2014: Sessions

This year the IMC in Leeds and the Digital Humanities conference in Lausanne are taking place simultaneously. Both conferences are widely-recognised platforms for discussing and showcasing new research approaches in their respective fields. Recognizing the ever-increasing impact of contributions from Digital Humanities (DH), this session aims to foster more active engagement between DH and medievalists. Thus, the idea of a virtual session between the IMC and the DH conference was conceived, providing a forum for interdisciplinary discussion in both locations via live-streaming.

In recent years the perception and acceptance of DH has developed in all humanities disciplines, not only because the transfer to the digital world demands proper handling of data, but also because DH has already succeeded in proving its contribution towards generating new insights. It is essential, however, that both fields do not just accept this change passively, but rather actively contribute to shaping its future path. Therefore, we seek to deepen the current dialogue by initiating a session on the impact and perspectives of studying the spatial aspects of medieval written sources, creating a partnership between DH and Humanities to generate a fruitful dialogue from different points of view.

This session is divided in two related, but freestanding parts. Delegates are welcome to attend one or both elements.

13.00-14.00: APPROACHES TO SPATIAL INFORMATION INCORPORATED IN MEDIEVAL TEXTS
Six discussants from different disciplines (Medieval History, Architecture, Liturgy, Archaeology, Art History, Information and Surveying Technology) will be analysing a selected medieval text, a description of an architectural space, presenting their particular point of views, and understanding of the spatial information.

These brief presentations will be followed by questions and discussion concerning the text in relation to the spatial aspects and the scientific approach by the digital technology.

14.00-15.00: DISCUSSION ON SPATIAL ASPECTS IN MEDIEVAL RESEARCH AND IN THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES
In the second part there will be an extended discussion on the spatial aspects in medieval research and in DH as well as discussion on the requirements and strategies for the linking of the two disciplines. It is hoped that this exchange of viewpoints will uncover new possibilities and fields of research initiated by focussed interdisciplinary discussion.

Participants include Sible de Blaauw (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen), Sam Griffith (University College London), and Frithjof Schwartz (Akademie der Wissenschaft und der Literatur, Mainz) in Leeds; and Kai Christian Bruhn (Fachhochschule Mainz), James Cummings (University of Oxford), Dorothy Carr Porter (University of Pennsylvania), and Roberto Rosselli del Turco (Univsertà di Torino) in Lausanne.