Lecture by Patrik Svensson, Professor of Humanities and Information Technology at Umeå University

Since the mid-1990s we have seen the emergence of ‘research infrastructure’ as a framework, which is now an important factor in allocating resources, controlling academic work and imagining futures. These futures are often technocentric, ‘heavy’, standardized and driven by data. They are also about transformation and breakthroughs. In a recent Australian infrastructure roadmap, research infrastructure is described as the “leaps that remake the world”.

In this talk, Svensson will trace the emergence of research infrastructure and consider its properties and mechanics. He is particularly interested in how the humanities – partly through the digital humanities – have negotiated the infrastructure turn, and how research infrastructure in the humanities, as outlined in policy documents and reports, often becomes a refuge from practices and perspectives that would seem central to humanistic work. Svensson argues that infrastructure is not a fixed concept and that we need to make sure that infrastructure, inside and outside the academy, is based on humanistic and human values.

Svensson’s work is practice based and he will use concrete examples (e.g. labs, technology, institutions, events and policy work).

About the speaker

Patrik Svensson (http://patriksv.com) is Visiting Professor of Digital Humanities at UCLA (2016-2019), Professor of Humanities and Information Technology at Umeå University, and former Director of HUMlab at Umeå University (2000-2014). Starting 2019 he is also Visiting Professor of Digital Humanities at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

This event is part of "New Horizons: Confronting the Digital Turn in the Humanities", a lecture series organised by the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH).

The lecture is followed by a drinks reception.

Photo: Francesca Albrezzi

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