Carlotta Zuern was awarded a bursary to attend the Introduction to Digital Humanities strand of the Digital Humanities Oxford Summer School in 2025. To join the mailing list and learn about the next summer school sign up here. Read about Carlotta's experience at the summer school here:
This August, I was fortunate to attend the Digital Humanities @ Oxford Summer School, thanks to a bursary. As a bachelor’s student of Gender Studies and Empirical Linguistics at Goethe University in Frankfurt, I had heard about the summer school from a colleague and was immediately intrigued. The fascinating topics promised to open new ways of conducting research for me. Since I had little prior knowledge of digital humanities, the workshop strand “Introduction to Digital Humanities” seemed a suitable starting point.
The summer school kicked off with a captivating keynote titled “Creativity and the Machine: Writing, Literature, AI” by Professor Caroline Bassett of Cambridge University. She challenged our human-centric views on creativity and explored how we need to adapt our understanding in the age of AI.
The core of my week was the introductory workshop. It began with “An Introduction to the Introduction“ by David de Roure and Megan Gooch, which was a perfect starting point for our journey into the world of DH. This was followed by a lecture on Digital Archival Practices by Andrew Cusworth and an insightful talk on opportunities and challenges when working with Digital Editions by Jack Orchard, Mark Rogerson and Nicole Pohl.
The second day started with providing a practical Digital Humanities Toolkit: David de Roure gave us an overview of different resources and practices in Digital Humanities and Matthew Nicholls shared how he created his fascinating 3D model of Ancient Rome. We even got to build our own small 3D model using SketchUp! Dominik Lukeš then explored the capabilities and limitations of Large Language Models for humanities research. The day concluded with an introduction to Linked Open Data and knowledge graphs for cultural heritage research by Erin Canning.
On the final day of this workshop strand, Simona Stoyanova introduced us to the basics of Text Encoding. We had an interactive session using a Miro board to explore the structuring and text encoding of different documents ourselves. The day’s last lecture focused on Relational Databases, where Meriel Patrick and Pamela Stanworth explained useful concepts for planning and using relational databases in our own research projects.
Of course, I also made sure to attend the closing keynote on Friday: “Text on Maps: Bridging the Spatial/Textual Divide in DH” by Dr. Katherine McDonough of The Alan Turing Institute. Dr. McDonough provided a fascinating look into her research on analysing text in maps and the meaning those words encode.
One week at a summer school is just enough to realize how much you don’t know, but it is also enough to show you where to start. The summer school gave me a foundational toolkit for exploring a variety of digital methods. After this comprehensive overview, I feel confident to be able to find and utilize new resources for my academic projects.
I am deeply grateful to all the speakers who shared their knowledge and to everyone who made this incredible summer school possible. Even though I could not attend the summer school on campus, the program was a dynamic and enriching experience. I was pleasantly surprised by how interactive and engaging the workshops were, despite the distance, and I had plenty of opportunities to connect with people from all over the world.
I would highly recommend the DHOxSS to anyone interested in exploring the possibilities of digital humanities for research and enhancing their knowledge about current developments and their meaning for our future. I would be very happy to attend next year as well!
