Humanities Informatics

All Spring 2020 Programming has been suspended

W e hope to reschedule events in the fall

and will share updates as we are able.

Humanities Informatics Lab Showcase Symposium (CANCELLED)

April 3 - 4, 2020, in Wilson and Campbell Halls

Please join us for a two-day Showcase Symposium highlighting the research and outputs

of UVA's Humanities Informatics Lab. Check back soon for a detailed agenda.

CHCI Annual Meeting 2018

In June 2018, UVA's Humanities Informatics Lab hosted the Consortium of Humanities

Centers and Institutes' annual meeting on the theme of Humanities Informatics.

Scholars and researchers from across the globe gathered to discuss the ubiquity of data in our lives and to showcase

the power of the humanities to address urgent questions about the 'human' in our information age.

Find podcasts of the lectures here.

The Humanities Informatics Lab at UVA brings together scholars who study the relationship between human culture and technology and explore the management, control, and flow of information. This interdisciplinary endeavor uses contemporary and historic contexts to ask questions that explore the intellectual and cultural histories of information, as well as to consider how structures of information shape knowledge and values within society. What does it mean to be human in the age of information? How has technology shifted the contours of human society? Can we keep up with the consequences of big data collection and processing? Will artificial intelligence overtake human intelligence?

Members of the Humanities Informatics Lab share resources on a variety of topics relevant to the digital humanities. Please contact Jack Chen if you would like access to these readings.

RESEARCH GROUPS

Human & Machine Intelligence

Led by Paul Humphreys and Vicente Ordóñez Román, the Human and Machine Intelligence research group focuses on the subset of information studies that comprise knowledge, representation, interpretation, learning and understanding to all connections of these terms in the humanities and the newer approaches in technology.

Network-Corpus

Led by Brad Pasanek and Rennie Mapp, this research group rethinks the historic practices of humanistic inquiry for a digital age.

Surveillance & Infrastructure

Led by Camilla Fojas and Natasha Heller, this interdisciplinary research group considers how medical, military, police, and cultural institutions rely upon surveillance infrastructures to categorize, manage, and act upon the world and its peoples.

Smart Environments

Led by Mona El Khafif and Jeana Ripple of the Architecture School, this research group offers critical reflection and dialogue as to what defines "smart" and how design, coding, and policymaking can help craft informed, just, and critical communities.

When algorithms make decisions, is there any room for discretion? Is new media technology making democratic politics impossible? What are the implications for the information explosion unleashed by large corporations such as Google? How has social life been transformed by new media technologies? What transformations have emerged in art and performative cultures with the impact of interactive media technologies? How has our understanding of the ‘human’ been transformed by advances in genetic engineering and artificial intelligence? Humanities Informatics is emerging as a new field in response to these issues.

In June 2018, the Humanities Informatics Lab at UVA hosted the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes annual meeting on this theme. Scholars from universities across the globe gathered to discuss the ubiquity of data in our lives and showcase the power of the humanities to address urgent questions about the 'human' in our information age. You can find podcasts of the lectures here.

Graduate

Learn about the PhD program, admissions, and program structure

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