The fact that the digital humanities are not some mysterious grab bag full of obscure academic disciplines is impressively demonstrated by the 2018 coalition agreement, in which the discipline is now identified as a research priority. “We’ve entered the mainstream,” said Prof. Dr. Andrea Rapp, Vice President of the Technical University of Darmstadt and professor of German computer philology, summing it up. On February 23, she joined Katharina Brunner, a data journalist at the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Marcel Hatam, International Brand Manager at Ubisoft Blue Byte in Mainz—the company behind games like The Settlers and Anno—on the panel at mainzedZWEI18. The panel was moderated by archaeologist and archaeogamer Lennart Linde from Goethe University Frankfurt.
A cheerful audience, Photo credit: Vanessa Liebler, mainzed, CC BY-SA 4.0
At the invitation of mainzed, the Mainz Center for Digitality in the Humanities and Cultural Studies, the three guests explored the question of how business and society can benefit concretely and in the present day from the digital humanities and cultural studies. Brunner, who was awarded the PUNKT Journalism Prize in 2017 for her data research and analysis *The Facebook Factor*, called on all institutions to make their data publicly available in as structured and open a format as possible. “It is essential for us that the data is available.” Rapp’s observation that digital technology serves as a good bridge to connect the sciences was gratefully taken up by Hatam. “What we need are 3D models.” But for the games to form a meaningful whole, he needs people who can work across disciplines: “The designer must be able to communicate with the programmer, the data scientist, and the humanities scholar.”
Students present their practical projects, Photo credit: Vanessa Liebler, mainzed, CC BY-SA 4.0
It is precisely this vision that underpins the master’s program in Digital Methodology in the Humanities and Cultural Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, in collaboration with Mainz University of Applied Sciences. Part of the event, therefore, was to hear the results of the practical projects from nine first-generation students. They completed these projects at institutions in Mainz and Darmstadt, as well as in Paris, Beirut, and Exeter.
At the invitation of Mainzer Stadtwerke AG, the event took place in the new coworking area at Dock 39 in the Zollhafen. Dr. Tobias Brosze, CEO of Mainzer Stadtwerke, was delighted to welcome mainzed to the coworking area. He sees this as an important milestone on the path to the Digital Hub Gutenberg, which is to be established in Mainz. “We want to create spaces in Mainz for new ideas and unconventional solutions so that we can shape the digital transformation in Rheinhessen together. This exciting event with mainzed confirms that we are on the right track.”
