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The role and place of digital technologies in humanities
21 November 2022
IMG_2020

From 14th to 16th of November ISU held a conference of young scientists with international participation "«Tsifra» (digit) in social and humanitarian research: method, field, reality?" organized by ISU Institute of Philology, Foreign Languages and Media Communication. The participants of this scientific event discussed a wide range of issues related to the role and place of digital technologies in modern humanities, primarily linguistics and social anthropology.

The conference was attended by representatives of the Irkutsk State University (including students), St. Petersburg University, HSE University, Institute of the Russian Language of the RAS, Institute for System Programming of the RAS, Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Petrozavodsk State University, Pacific National University, Voronezh State University, Novosibirsk State University.

At the opening of the conference, Konstantin Grigorichev, ISU Vice-Rector for Research and International Relations, and Marina Tashlykova, Director of the ISU Institute of Philology, Foreign Languages and Media Communication, made welcoming speeches.

The scientific part of the event began with a plenary session, at which reports were made by representatives of St. Petersburg University, HSE University, Russian Language Institute of the RAS, PetrSU.

The conference continued in sections:

  • Digital technologies as a field of humanitarian research: problems of description and interpretation of the digital environment
  • Digital technologies as a tool for humanitarian research: the use of various software to analyse the language data
  • Exact humanities: the role of quantitative data in modern humanitarian research
  • Exact humanities: the role of quantitative data in modern humanitarian research.

Each section was completed by a roundtable discussion, the participants exchanged opinions and summed up the results of the previous work.

In addition, the School of Young Scientists “«Tsifra» in social and humanitarian research: methods and technologies of information processing” was held within the framework of the conference. The students of the School participated in the master classes held by representatives of St. Petersburg University and HSE University.

Alexandra Racheva, one of the members of the conference organizing committee:

“Despite some difficulties (including digital technologies), we are pleased with the way the conference was held: as scientists, we have enjoyed listening to the participants’ reports. The kind words of our colleagues are as important: they thanked us for the well-organized work of the sections and an interesting, diverse and up-to-date program. We hope our conference will become an annual one.

The interdisciplinary nature of this event seems especially important to us: philologists were able to look at the research of sociologists and historians, who in turn saw the way students of linguistics and literature work. It turned out that in the digital field, despite all the differences, we are often interested in similar problems that we all understand. The roundtable discussions gave us the opportunity to discuss these problems, as well as to propose a format for further work in this area: ISU scientists agreed to organize a permanent seminar “«Tsifra» in social and humanitarian research”, within which topical issues of the use of digital technologies in various humanitarian fields will be discussed. We would really like this project to become the basis for the integration of different scientific fields.”