Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88404034132?pwd=yLBmLwokmT2aAwDbVizvfVXyO3mU0d.1

Meeting ID: 884 0403 4132
Passcode: 216674

PROGRAM

10.00-10.15

Welcome & introductory remarks
Valentina SANDU-DEDIU, Ioana WASUCIONEK, Dimiter DIMOV 

10.15 – 11.30
Panel 1. The impact of the digital age on the humanities: threats and opportunities

11.30 – 11.45
Coffee break

11.45 – 13.00
Panel 2. New forms and platforms for academic communication and collaboration?

13.00 – 14.00
Lunch break

14.00 – 15.45
Panel 3. The place of the humanities in a world of quantifications, algorithms, and rankings

15.45-16.00
Conclusion

The advent of the internet, social media, and mobile devices has precipitated a transformation in the way we think, obtain information, communicate, and interact socially. Behavioral neuroscientists have posited that the aforementioned factors have also resulted in a decline in the capacity of individuals to maintain focused attention: students are increasingly unable to read the books they are assigned, music lyrics become shorter, simpler, and more repetitive, in order to facilitate their going viral on social media in snippet form.

In contrast, research in the humanities is a more gradual and slow-burn process. The formation of experts is a lengthy process, as is the academic research conducted in archives and libraries. Typically, authors produce individual, lengthy papers that are subject to a lengthy peer-review and publication process. It is thus apparent that research in the humanities is on a collision course with the behavioral transformations ushered in by the digital revolution.

We invite you to critically think about the relevance of the humanities and the necessity for adaptation. Should scholars in the humanities consider alternative avenues for disseminating their scholarship, such as social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram? What methods can be employed to effectively disseminate findings to students and the general public? Have you had any positive or negative personal experiences with these methods for disseminating your research? Should research institutions prioritize public outreach to demonstrate the societal relevance of their findings? Should scholars disregard such developments and persist in pursuing research that is pertinent over the long term? Does historical evidence provide insight into the transitory nature of such trends?

*

The ‘Relevance of the Humanities in the Digital Age’ fellowship program, proposed jointly by the Centre for Advanced Study Sofia and the New Europe College Bucharest and developed with the financial support of the Porticus Foundation, aims to underscore the cognitive functions of the humanities and their potential as critical disciplines by opening them up to issues relevant in/for the contemporary digital world – issues that are “practical”, but also epistemological, ethical, philosophical, etc. The program is intended to accommodate a broadest range of themes pertaining to humanities and social science disciplines provided that they link up to contemporary debates about or major challenges to the human condition stemming from the technological advances and ‘digital modernity’. The program is guided by the belief that there is a considerable added value for humanities scholars across the academe, whatever their field, to be encouraged to rethink their topics.