Digital Humanities

What is Digital Humanities?

Digital Humanities (HN) is a field of research with its own objectives and methods. HN take various forms depending on the disciplines and the objects of research; However, they have a common epistemological foundation: the modelling, representation and exploitation of data. HN helps, among other things, to better develop new knowledge through the creation of numerical models and representations that can be manipulated and altered in order to test hypotheses and theories.
The HN also seek to understand how disciplinary objectives can be redefined through the use of digital technology; In a word, to see what can be done innovatively thanks to digital tools and data in digital format in the different disciplinary fields of the humanities. HN is also a "know-how". This does not imply that specialists in the humanities and social sciences must turn into computer scientists, quite the contrary. However, to understand how software and systems work and to consider the possibilities opened up digitally, it is essential to have some experience with coding and programming.
At EPHE-PSL, digital humanities focuses mainly on numerical and computational methods, including artificial intelligence, applied to rare disciplines, with particular expertise in applications to ancient languages and scripts.

Research projects

A large number of projects (linguistics, archaeology, art history, palaeography, philology, etc.) involve HN.

• Equipex Biblissima (2011–2021) and Equipex+ Biblissima+ (2021–2030), an observatory of the written heritage of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance led by the Campus Condorcet and directed by Anne-Marie Turcan Verkerk.
• RESILIENCE, a European infrastructure for religious sciences, directed for the EPHE - PSL by Denis Pelletier. RESILIENCE supports several digital tools developed at the EPHE - PSL.
• Sigilla, a database of French sigillographic sources that considers the seal in its seriality and context. The authors come from a consortium of institutions and include Laurent Hablot from the EPHE.
• eScripta, the digital component of the Scripta-PSL project co-directed by Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra and Peter Stokes, which applies AI to documents written in rare and historical languages.     
•  Digital Scholarly Cultures, axis 7 of the LabEx Hastec, led by the EPHE - PSL and directed by Daniel-Odon Hurel, provides support for research proposals and theoretical reflections on digital technology.
• manuscriptologIA, led by the Major Interest Area of Text Sciences and New Knowledge (DIM STCN) with the EPHE - PSL and the IRHT and directed by Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra. This project supports a computing cluster (GPU) dedicated to the massive analysis of images of inscribed objects.
• Vietnamica, an ERC Advanced Grant project led by the EPHE - PSL and directed by Philippe Papin, with Marc Bui for the digital aspect, which focuses on the analysis and processing of stampings that reproduce the inscriptions engraved on stone donation stelae in Vietnamese villages from the sixteenth to the^{twentieth century.}
• Karnak hideout, inventory and access to photographic documentation of more than 700 statues, 17000 bronzes and many other objects that generally date from the period from the New Kingdom to the end of the Ptolemaic period.

Tools

The School supports the development of several digital tools, particularly in the context of the above-mentioned projects:

• Kraken : An optical character recognition (OCR) software that transforms images of documents, including handwritten documents, into text files. Kraken is able to analyze and segment documents with complex layouts and transcribe all types of writing.
• eScriptorium : a software that aims to assist the researcher during each stage of the production of digital editions. The transcription module is already available. The latter is based on Kraken and takes the form of a web interface. It can be used for page segmentation, whether automatic or manual (automatic detection of text lines, decoration, layout, etc.).

Teachings

The EPHE - PSL also offers courses in Digital Humanities and is a partner in the PSL Master in Digital Humanities.

Team

While a significant number of the School's members use digital technology for research and teaching, some are more involved in the HN as such:

• Peter Stokes, Director of Studies, EPHE - PSL Project Manager for Digital Humanities, AOROC (UMR 8546);
• Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, Director of Studies, EPHE - PSL, AOROC (UMR 8546);    
• Marc Bui, Director of Studies, EPHE - PSL, AOROC (UMR 8546);
• Anne-Marie Turcan-Verkerk, Director of Studies, EPHE - PSL, AOROC (UMR 8546);
• Daniel Stockholm, Senior Lecturer, EPHE - PSL, UMR_S 938 Centre de Recherche Saint-Antoine (CRSA);
• Benjamin Kiessling, Machine Vision and Machine Learning Engineer, AOROC (UMR 8546);
• Robin Tissot, lead developer.