Humanities Hub opens: new digital facilities for researchers and students
The new Humanities Hub in the Huizinga Building was officially opened on Tuesday 3 December. In the different labs, researchers presented the options for using digital technologies in humanities research.
The Humanities Hub comprises labs with digital facilities for researchers and students. Researchers are also at hand to help use these digital research tools. The labs include a Digital Lab, an AI Lab, a film studio and a podcast studio.
Digital Lab
In the Digital Lab, researcher Sarita Koendjbiharie is helping a visitor put on a VR headset. ‘These headsets allow participants in our empathy research to experience a virtual reality simulation. They are immersed in the story of a woman who experiences racism on a train. In my research, I’m looking at whether this VR experience makes you more likely to empathise with someone than if you read the same story.’
Journalism Lab
‘The editorial meeting is about to start,’ Professor Jaap de Jong calls into the Digital Lab. People move to the adjoining Journalism Lab, where presenter Twan Huys and students from the Master’s in Journalism and New Media programme talk about the ‘Collegetour’ podcast they are producing together. ‘I’m pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the episodes’, says Huys. The students have secured an impressive range of guests, including journalist Janine Abbring and media entrepreneur Derk Sauer. Huys also reveals the last guest in this podcast series: Dutch TV icon Sonja Barend, who rarely gives interviews.
Opening by Dean
Dean Mark Rutgers praises the possibilities the Humanities Hub offers researchers and students. ‘They can learn new skills, become familiar with digital technologies, use expertise and share knowledge in these labs.’
Initiator Angus Mol invites those present to pop in regularly and bring colleagues and other students along. ‘That is what we envisaged when we dreamed up this hub in 2022. We wanted more visibility for our digital skills and research and have achieved that in this central spot. This hub is not only for researchers who are already working in the digital humanities but also for all our students and staff.’ Mol stresses that alongside the infrastructure, you can also receive help using these technologies.
AI Lab
Artificial intelligence has received a lot of attention in recent years, and that is reflected in the number of visitors to the AI lab. PhD candidate Matthew Sung shows how AI is helping with his research on the spread of dialects. ‘AI helps us research complex relationships between dialects. To what extent was there historical migration, for example? A manual search of a dataset of 200 different dialects is impossible. With AI we can visualise the complex relationships between dialects so we can interpret them.’
The AI lab has high-performance computers that can be used to train AI models. It’s also possible to connect to the Leiden supercomputer ALICE. During the opening, guests can chat with a ‘random student’, who is revealed to be a chatbot.
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Researchers show the options for research with eye trackers -
The film studio -
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The podcast studio
Ludic Lab
It is a bit of a hunt, but in a small room at the back of the hub is the Ludic Lab. This has not only modern board games and gaming computers but centuries-old games too. Archaeologist Aris Politopoulos researches how the past is depicted in these games. ‘We are working here in the Ludic Lab on a collection, a kind of game library.’
‘Play’ also has an important role in the research of Professor of New Media and Digital Culture, Sybille Lammes. ‘This lab will enrich both our research and our teaching’, she says. Lammes invites everyone to come and play, not just for their research but also for a spot of creative thinking or team building.
A full list of all the labs and facilities can be found on the Humanities Hub page, along with the opening hours and information on how to book a spot and equipment. Researchers and students from other faculties are also welcome to explore the options and contact the Digital Lab.
Text: Tom Janssen
Photos: Rob Dorresteijn
More about the Humanities Hub
More information about the Humanities Hub.