# Podcast Introduction Script ## "Digital Humanities — Introductions" (University of Bern, FS 2026) *Two hosts: Alex and Sam. Runtime: ~8 minutes.* --- ALEX: Sam, I just saw this video clip of a university lecturer introducing her course. Everything looked normal—the lighting, the office background, the way she was speaking… but something was… off. SAM: Let me guess. It was one of those AI-generated videos? The mouth movements weren't quite synced, the blinking was a bit too regular? ALEX: Exactly! It was uncanny. And it turns out, that was the entire point. The lecturer, Vera Chiquet, used it to kick off her talk on digital photography and manipulation. SAM: That is a brilliant, and slightly terrifying, way to start a lecture. And it's the perfect hook for what we're here to talk about today. ALEX: It really is. Welcome everyone to the podcast introduction for "Digital Humanities — Introductions," the lecture series from the University of Bern for the Spring Semester of 2026. I'm Alex. SAM: And I'm Sam. Over the next few minutes, we're going to give you a sneak peek into the course, a roadmap of the topics you'll explore, and some practical tips on how to get the most out of it. --- **[What is this lecture series?]** ALEX: So, first things first. What exactly is this lecture series? SAM: It's a comprehensive overview of Digital Humanities, or DH, designed for students who are new to the field. It's made up of 17 individual lectures, each delivered by a different expert from a university across Switzerland. So you're getting a huge range of perspectives. ALEX: And it's all online, right? So you can watch these lectures from anywhere, at your own pace. The whole thing is worth 3 ECTS credits. SAM: Exactly. Think of it as a tasting menu for Digital Humanities. You'll get to sample 17 different flavors of what's happening in the field right now, from the very technical to the deeply theoretical. It's designed to give you a broad foundation, whether you're a history student curious about data, a computer science student interested in culture, or anything in between. ALEX: A tasting menu. I like that. So, shall we take a look at the menu? --- **[Quick tour of topics]** SAM: Let's do it. There are 17 lectures, which sounds like a lot, but we can group them into a few key themes. The first big theme is all about **text**. How we digitize it, how we analyze it, and how we model it. ALEX: This is classic DH territory. It starts with the absolute basics, right? Like, how do you turn a picture of an old book into actual, searchable text? SAM: Precisely. That's Andreas Fischer's lecture on **Text Recognition**. He covers how we get from a scanned image of a medieval manuscript or an old letter to machine-readable text. Tobias Hodel then takes this a step further in his lecture on **Early Modern History and Machine Learning**, showing how AI is revolutionizing our ability to work with difficult historical handwriting. ALEX: Okay, so we have the text. What's next? SAM: Then you get into what you can *do* with it. Rico Sennrich introduces **Natural Language Processing**, or NLP, which is basically a toolkit for tasks like automatic translation or identifying names and places in huge document collections. Elena Chestnova's lecture on **Digital Editing** explores how we create scholarly editions of texts—not just transcribing them, but representing their variations and complexities using standards like TEI. ALEX: And it's not just about historical texts. SAM: Not at all. Cerstin Mahlow's lecture on **Digital Linguistics** looks at how we can formally model language itself, including the process of writing. And Noah Bubenhofer introduces **Corpus Linguistics**, which is all about studying language patterns by analyzing massive collections of texts to see how words are *actually* used in the wild. ALEX: Wow, okay. That's a huge chunk of the course right there, all centered on text. What's the next big theme? SAM: The next theme is about the underlying structures: **data, infrastructure, and models**. It's about how we organize and preserve digital information. ALEX: The 'D' in DH. SAM: Exactly. Peter Fornaro kicks this off with **Imaging Technologies**, going right down to the level of pixels to explain what a digital image actually *is*. Then Lukas Rosenthaler talks about **Linked Open Data and the Semantic Web**, which is a powerful way to connect different datasets across the internet, so that a computer understands that the "Bern" in a library catalog is the same "Bern" on a historical map. ALEX: So it's about making data smarter and more connected. SAM: Right. And Ramona Roller's lecture on **Network Analysis** gives you a method for visualizing those connections—whether it's a network of letter writers in the 16th century or characters in a novel. And to round it all out, Tobias Wildi gives an introduction to **Archives and Digital Preservation**, explaining the crucial work of ensuring all this digital material actually survives for future generations. ALEX: That preservation part feels so important but so easily overlooked. Okay, so we have text, and we have data structures. What's left? SAM: The big questions! Our third group of lectures is all about **critical and theoretical perspectives**. This is where we step back and ask "why are we doing this?" and "what are the social and ethical implications?" ALEX: This is the 'H' in DH. SAM: You got it. Michael Piotrowski starts this with a lecture on the **Theory and Epistemology of DH**, asking what kind of knowledge the field actually produces. Then we have two fantastic critical lectures: Bianca Prietl discusses **Digitalization from Gender Perspectives**, showing how technology is never neutral and often reflects existing social biases. Selena Savic dives into **Data Materialism**, reminding us that data isn't abstract—it relies on physical infrastructure, human labor, and classification systems that have real-world power. ALEX: And that brings us back to that AI-generated video you mentioned. SAM: It does! Vera Chiquet's lecture on **Digital Photography** uses that example and others to explore the long history of photographic manipulation and what it means for truth and credibility in the digital age. It's a perfect example of the critical humanities lens. ALEX: So we've got text, data, and theory. Is that everything? SAM: Almost! The final group is a set of fascinating **case studies**, showing DH in action in specific fields. Gerhard Lauer talks about **Digital Book Studies**, using data to analyze the history of printing and reading. Stefan Munnich gives an introduction to the incredibly complex world of **Digital Musicology**—how do you represent a musical score as data? And finally, Yannick Rochat opens up the field of **Game Studies**, treating video games as complex cultural objects that need to be studied, preserved, and archived just like books or films. ALEX: Phew. That is an incredible tour. From medieval manuscripts to video games, from pixels to gender theory. --- **[What to expect from the exam]** SAM: It's a lot, I know. Which probably has students asking the big question: how on earth are we examined on all of this? ALEX: An excellent and very practical question. Tell us the good news, Sam. SAM: The news is very good. The exam is an **open-book, multiple-choice test**. It will consist of 20 questions covering the 17 lectures. You'll have plenty of time to complete it. ALEX: Open-book is key. So you don't need to memorize every single detail from every lecture. It's more about understanding the core concepts and knowing where to find the information in your notes. SAM: Exactly. The goal is to check your comprehension, not your memory. The exam will take place on **June 1st, 2026**. So you can mark that in your calendars now. It's designed to be very manageable, so don't stress about it. Focus on engaging with the material first. --- **[Tips for getting through the series]** ALEX: Okay, so on that note, what are your top tips for getting through the series successfully? SAM: My number one tip is this: **you can watch the lectures in any order you want**. We just grouped them thematically, but if Digital Musicology or Game Studies sounds most exciting to you, start there! Use your curiosity to build momentum. ALEX: That's a great tip. What else? SAM: Second, **take notes**. Because it's open-book, good notes are your best friend. Don't just passively watch. Write down the one or two main arguments from each lecture, any key terms that are new to you, and the main examples the lecturer uses. ALEX: And I saw that each video has a short quiz with it. SAM: Yes, which is my third tip: **use the quizzes**. They're not graded, they're purely for you. They are a fantastic way to check if you've grasped the main takeaways from each lecture before you move on. ALEX: And a final tip? SAM: **Try to connect the dots between lectures.** You'll notice themes that pop up again and again—like the importance of metadata, the challenge of representing complex sources, or the tension between computational methods and humanistic interpretation. Thinking about those connections is where the real learning happens. --- **[Outro]** ALEX: Absolutely. So, there you have it. A whirlwind tour of the "Digital Humanities — Introductions" lecture series. It's a journey that will take you from the fundamentals of text recognition to the philosophical questions at the heart of our digital world. SAM: It's designed to be an entry point, to open doors, and to show you the incredible breadth of this field. You're about to hear from 17 leading experts, each giving you their unique window into Digital Humanities. ALEX: We hope this introduction has given you a clear map for the road ahead and made you even more excited to get started. SAM: Enjoy the lectures, and we'll see you on the other side.