New Work in Digital Humanities

In the tradition of classics such as The Lives of a Cell, a bold reframing of our relationship with technology that argues code is "a universal force--swirling through disciplines, absorbing ideas, and connecting worlds" (Linda Liukas). In the digital world, code is the essential primary building block, the equivalent of the cell or DNA in the biological sphere--and almost as mysterious. Code can create entire worlds, real and virtual; it allows us to connect instantly to people and places around the globe; and it performs tasks that were once only possible in science fiction. It is a superpower, and not just in a technical sense. It is also a gateway to ideas. As vividly illustrated by Samuel Arbesman in The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World—and Shapes Our Future (PublicAffairs, 2025), it is the ultimate connector, providing new insight and meaning into how everything from language and mythology to biblical texts, biology, and even our patterns of thought connect with the history and nature of computing. While the building block of code can be used for many wondrous things it can also create deeper wedges in our society and be weaponized to cause damage to our planet or our civilization. Code and computing are too important to be left to the tech community; it is essential that each of us engage with it. And we fail to understand it to our detriment. By providing us with a framework to think about coding and its effects upon the world and placing the past, current, and future developments in computing into its broader setting we see how software and computers can work for people as opposed to against our needs. With this deeper understanding into the "why" of coding we can be masters of technology rather than its subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities

In this episode, we spoke with Cornelia C. Walther about her three books examining technology's role in society. Walther, who spent nearly two decades with UNICEF and the World Food Program before joining Wharton's AI & Analytics Initiative, brings field experience from West Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean to her analysis of how human choices shape technological outcomes. The conversation covered her work on COVID-19's impact on digital inequality, her framework for understanding how values get embedded in AI systems, and her concept of "Aspirational Algorithms"—technology designed to enhance rather than exploit human capabilities. We discussed practical questions about AI governance, who participates in technology development, and how different communities approach technological change. Walther's "Values In, Values Out" framework provided a useful lens for examining how the data and assumptions we feed into AI systems shape their outputs. The discussion examined the relationship between technology design, social structures, and human agency. We explored how pandemic technologies became normalized, whose voices are included in AI development, and what it means to create "prosocial" technology in practice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities

Hope Never to See It: A Graphic History of Guerrilla Violence during the American Civil War (U Georgia Press, 2025) by Dr. Andrew Fialka illustrates two exceptional incidents of occupational and guerrilla violence in Missouri during the American Civil War. The first is a Union spy's two-week-long murder spree targeting civilians, and the second is a pro-Confederate guerrillas' mutilation of almost 150 U.S. troops.The men leading the atrocities (Jacob Terman, alias Harry Truman, and “Bloody" Bill Anderson) weren't so different. Both the Union spy and the infamous Confederate guerrilla claimed to be avenging the deaths of their families, operated under orders from military officials, and were hard drinkers. Their acts outline the terror inflicted on both sides of the struggle.This book's use of sequential art, illustrated by Anderson Carman, displays these grisly realities to mute the war's glorification and to help prompt a modern, meaningful reconciliation with the war. The moral ambiguities contained within this story call into question our understanding of the laws of war and the ways in which wars end. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities

We're pleased to welcome Dr. Jimi Jones and Dr. Marek Jancovic, authors of The Future of Memory: A History of Lossless Format Standards in the Moving Image Archive (U of Illinois Press, 2025), to the New Books Network. In this book, Jimi Jones and Marek Jancovic document the development and adoption of JPEG 2000, FFV1, MXF, and Matroska while investigating the social and material aspects of their design and the forces driving their journeys from niche to ubiquity. Drawing on interviews with archivists and developers, Jones and Jancovic reveal the archive as a dynamic space where deeply entrenched social practices produce disagreements but also resourceful collaborations. They contrast the unprecedented rise of archivist-driven standardization and controversies around non-standard technology with the historical dominance of the film and broadcast industries. Throughout, the authors clarify the role of tech companies, software developers, film pirates, hackers, and other players with poorly understood roles in the process. A timely look at the state of audiovisual preservation, The Future of Memory provides a history of recent innovations alongside a snapshot of a field in the midst of profound technological change. Your host is Dr. Adam Kriesberg, Associate Professor at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities

Researchers and archivists have spent decades digitizing and cataloguing, but what does the future hold for book history? Network Analysis for Book Historians: Digital Labour and Data Visualization Techniques (ARC Humanities Press, 2025) explores the potential of network analysis as a method for medieval and early modern book history. Through case studies of the Cotton Library, the Digital Index of Middle English Verse, and the Pforzheimer Collection, Liz Fischer offers a blueprint for drawing on extant scholarly resources to visualize relationships between people, text, and books. Such visualizations serve as a new form of reference work with the potential to offer new, broad insights into the history of book collecting, compilation, and use. This volume gives a realistic look at the decision-making involved in digital humanities work, and emphasizes the value of so-called "mechanical" labour in scholarship.  Liz Fischer is an independent scholar and full-time consultant working with GLAM institutions on data and AI. Fischer's current research focuses on applications of network analysis to book history. Liz's general interests include medieval & early modern English book history, craftsmanship, antiquarianism, and digital humanities, and areas of specialty in the DH world include network analysis, collections-as-data, workflow automation, and web development. Check out the Atlas of a Medieval Life: The Itineraries of Roger de Breynton, discussed in this episode! Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom (2022) and The Social Movement Archive (2021), and co-editor of Armed By Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (2025). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities

'Seeing Like a Platform: An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Modernity (Taylor & Francis, 2025)' by Petter Törnberg & Justus Uitermark In my conversation with Petter Törnberg about Seeing Like a Platform, we kept returning to a simple but unsettling point: platforms don't just carry our messages or connect us to information. They've created an entirely new way of knowing the world. His book with Justus Uitermark argues that when everything must be tagged, ranked, and fed through recommendation engines, we get a reality that only makes sense through those mechanisms. This goes beyond previous technological shifts. The printing press expanded what we could know. Television changed how quickly we could know it. But platforms have altered the conditions of knowledge itself. When a platform "sees" the world, it only recognizes what can be counted, sorted, and optimized. Everything else becomes invisible or, worse, stops seeming real. We start mistaking the map for the territory, except now the map is writing itself based on our clicks and swipes. What troubles me most about Törnberg's analysis is how naturally we've adapted to this new epistemology. We optimize our research for algorithmic discovery. We think in terms of engagement rather than understanding. The platform's logic becomes so embedded in daily life that other ways of organizing knowledge start to feel antiquated, inefficient. For STS researchers, this creates a genuine bind: we're trying to study platform society while swimming in its assumptions. The challenge isn't escaping platform thinking but remembering that there are other ways to think. Notes: The Ascendance Of Algorithmic Tyranny Talking about Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job (Collection on Technology and Work) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities

In this book, Paul A. Thomas—a seasoned Wikipedia contributor who has accrued about 60,000 edits since he started editing in 2007—breaks down the history of the free encyclopedia and explains the process of becoming an editor. Now a newly minted Ph.D. and a library specialist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, he outlines the many roles a Wikipedia editor can fill. Some editors fix typographical errors, add facts and citations, or clean up the prose on existing articles; others create new articles on topics they find interesting. In Inside Wikipedia: How It Works and How You Can Be an Editor (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Thomas goes behind the familiar Wikipedia article page and looks at the unique brand of collaboration that is constantly at work to expand and improve this global resource.James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities

 Today I’m speaking with Marcus Golding, historian and Director of Educational Operations at ClioVis. ClioVis is an incredible software and learning tool that allows educators and studies to create digital timelines, network visualizations, and interactive presentations. Founded by UT Austin history professor Erika Bsumek, ClioVis is made for professors and teachers by current professors and scholars. I’m thrilled to get the chance today to speak with Marcus about this software to share with our listeners how they can enhance their own work and teaching. Visit ClioVis' website to learn more: Click Here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities

Tyler Neill discusses the new platform Pāṇḍitya, an online graph visualization tool illustrating connections between works and authors in the Pandit Prosopographical Database of Indic Texts. It also facilitates exploration of the Sanskrit E-Text Inventory (SETI) as an overlay on the Pandit network.  Tyler's blog "Sanskrit and Tech with Tyler" is here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities

We're pleased to welcome Dr. Peter Krapp, the author of Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation (MIT Press, 2024), to the New Books Network.  In Computing Legacies, Peter Krapp explores a media history of simulation to excavate three salient aspects of digital culture. Firstly, he profiles simulation as cultural technique, enabling symbolic work and foregrounding hypothetical literacy. Secondly, he positions simulation as crucial for the preservation of cultural memory, where modeling, emulation, and serious play are constitutive in how we relate to our mediated history. And lastly, despite suggestions that we may already live in a simulation, he interrogates how simulation can serve as critique of the computer age. In tracing our digital heritage, Computing Legacies elucidates inflection points where quantitative data becomes tractable for qualitative evaluations: modeling epidemics for scientific study or entertainment, emulating older devices, turning numerical calculations into music, conducting espionage in virtual worlds, and gamifying higher education. Simulation, this book demonstrates, is pivotal not only to high-tech research and to archives, museums, and the preservation of digital culture but also to our understanding of what it is to live and work under the technical conditions of computing. Dr. Peter Krapp is a Professor of Film & Media Studies, English, and Music at UC-Irvine. Your host is Dr. Adam Kriesberg, Assistant Professor at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/digital-humanities