In March 2016 the first DHN conference met in Oslo. Ten years on, the association has gained a Baltic dimension, opened its activities to the arts, and seen digital methods move from the margins of humanities research into its core.

We are marking the anniversary with a seminar that looks forward rather than back. Three short provocations ask where humanities research is heading — here in the Nordic-Baltic region, and in relation to work being done well beyond it. The tools, the funding landscape and the public standing of the humanities all look different from 2016. Where does that leave a regional network like DHNB? Following three short provocations by prominent digital humanities practitioners we will discuss the future of the humanities.

The seminar opens with a brief retrospective on ten years of DHNB conferences and closes with an invitation to DHNB 2027 in Umeå.

Open to all.

Place: Online at Zoom

Registration: For participation, please register using this form.  A Zoom link to the event will be sent to all registered the day before the event.

Time: Thursday 24 September 2026 at 13.30 to 15.00 CEST (11.30 in Reykjavík, 13.30 in Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm, 14.30 in Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius).

Chair: Eiríkur Smári Sigurðarson, Centre for Digital Humanities and Arts, University of Iceland

Agenda (times CEST):

• 13.30: Opening
• 13.35: Hongyi Liu and Matti La Mela: Ten years of DHNB conferences
• 13.50: Chen Jing: Whose Digital Humanities? Rethinking the Humanities Beyond the Euro-American Axis
• 14.00: Anda Baklāne: The Future of the Book: Between the Fluid and the Bounded
• 14.10: Alexander Refsum Jensenius: AI as a catalyst for more humanities research
• 14.20: Discussion with all speakers.
• 14.45: Evelina Liliequist: DHNB 2027 in Umeå
• 15.00: End of seminar

If the seminar leaves you wanting to take part, you can join DHNB or renew your membership here, and the call for papers for DHNB 2027 in Umeå is now open.

The speakers:

Chen Jing (CJ Chen) Associate Professor at the School of Arts, Nanjing University, and a founding member of the university’s Innovation Center for Digital Humanities Research. She is Secretary-General of the Digital Humanities Committee of the Chinese Society of Literary Theory. Her research spans digital humanities, digital art and heritage, and culture and media studies, with particular attention to how digital technologies transform artistic production, cultural understanding and the creation of knowledge. Her projects have explored the Grand Canal, Nanjing’s intangible cultural heritage, historical advertising archives and the digital mapping of historic Chinese cities.

Anda Baklāne Head of Digital Research Services at the National Library of Latvia, a literary critic and digital humanities practitioner. Her work on digital research projects develops approaches for systematising literary corpora, interpreting textual data and opening new avenues for research in the humanities. Her current studies analyse urbanisation and modernisation in Latvian novels. She also teaches literary theory and introductory digital humanities at the University of Latvia, and coordinates the Baltic Summer School of Digital Humanities.

Alexander Refsum Jensenius Professor of Music Technology at the University of Oslo, Director of RITMO, head of the fourMs Lab and Director of the MishMash Centre for AI and Creativity — a national centre, funded by the Research Council of Norway, that investigates the meeting point between AI and creativity and involves a large part of Norway’s creative and performing arts community. A music researcher and research musician, he has worked on the body motion of musicians, dancers and listeners, and on human micromotion. He is the author of Sound Actions and Still Standing, and editor of A NIME Reader and Sonic Design. He also participated in the first DHN conference in Oslo in 2016.

Hongyi Liu MA student in digital humanities at Uppsala University. She was an intern at DHNB in the spring of 2026, where she collected and analyzed data from all DHN(B) conferences over a 10 year period. In her work she has looked at how the conferences have developed over time, what themes have been prominent and how they have changed.

Matti La Mela Associate Professor (docent) in Digital Humanities and Associate Senior Lecturer at the Department of ALM, Uppsala University,  and a member of the DHNB board. His research regards methods in digital history, innovation history, property rights on nature (allemansrätten), and research infrastructures (parliamentary data, historical patent data). 

 

Evelina Liliequist Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities at Umeå University, with a doctorate in ethnology, and since 2025 Deputy Director of Humlab. Her research covers digital practices, digital ethnography, internet history and queer perspectives. She is part of the team hosting DHNB 2027 at Umeå University on 1–5 March 2027, on the theme Human(ities) in the Loop.