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Claiming 'Space' in the Digital World: Decolonising the Humanities

When: —
Venue: Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street

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This is the first of the two task-based workshops, which aim to explore the relationship between the human and technology. The two sessions are sponsored by the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network.

This workshop examines the ways digital space, technology and information systems legitimise certain identity types. Exploring the construction of the human in both literary and digital spaces, this session will enquire about the continuous influence of colonialism by asking: How do algorithms and data produce discriminatory effects? How do exclusionary digital practices bias narratives of nationality and disrupt inclusive understandings of English and British national identity?

These humanistic inquiries in relation to the digital space are also led by the expanding area of Digital Humanities (DH), which applies computational approaches to English and Humanities. This seminar explores how Digital Humanities, as a useful approach, can expose unequal geographic and ethnic representations in the digital record. In particular, the workshop explores the ways that Digital Humanities can help democratise and decolonise pedagogy and curriculum in the English discipline. 

This task-based workshop invites participants to use technology in the classroom for collaborative storytelling, mapping and narrating, which recognize the previous omissions, exclusions and marginalisation of different categories of the human.

Refreshments will be provided. 

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Speakers
  • Coralie Consigny -

    Co-organizer: Coralie Consigny is a research analyst, whose principal work focuses on exploring societal risks stemming from AI, which include privacy concerns, biases as well as larger systemic threats.

  • Dr Soody Gholami -

    Dr Soody Gholami is a Research Fellow at Birkbeck. Her project titled ‘Decolonizing the English Curriculum in post-Brexit Britain’ focuses on integrating inclusive pedagogy in English and Humanities.