Junior Professorship Digital Humanities
Projects

Projects

Here you will find an overview of the junior professorship's current research projects.

C the Unheard!

Logo of the European Capital of Culture 2025 "In Kooperation mit Chemnitz Kulturhauptstadt Europas 2025"Project period: March-December 2024

External project partners: Chemnitz Open Space

Funding: The project is funded as part of TUCculture2025, an independent initiative of Chemnitz University of Technology in the context of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025.

The project is dedicated to a data-based mapping of civil society discourses in Chemnitz. Civil society activities not only have a lasting impact on Chemnitz's public life, but also on campus life at the TUC. To date, there is no data collection that documents and visualises the diverse engagement of civil society actors. This is where the project comes in with the creation of an open data collection, which is being developed and explored with civil society project partners, students and citizens.

Mapping Civil Society Discourses in Chemnitz

  • Working in a Picnic-like Atmosphere, photograph: Marlene Kropp.
  • Introducing the Data Model, photograph: Marlene Kropp.
  • Analog Mapping, photograph: Marlene Kropp.
  • Collecting Ideas, photograph: Marlene Kropp.
  • Discussions in Small Groups, photograph: Marlene Kropp.
  • Presenting Results, photograph: Marlene Kropp.

The first open data picnic took place on 23 May 2024 in cooperation with Chemnitz Open Space. The aim of the data picnic was not only to explore the diverse engagement of civil society organizations in Chemnitz through data. Rather, it also provided an opportunity for networking between civil society actors from Chemnitz and students from TUC. Among other things, the focus was on the question of what perspectives civil society data opens up for Chemnitz.

The data picnic was part of the TUCculture2025-funded project "C the Unheard!". This project focuses on building an open civil society data collection in Chemnitz and imparting data literacy. Civil society activities shape not only the public life of Chemnitz but also the campus life of TUC in a sustainable manner. As part of the seminar “Digitales Publizieren in den Humanities”, initial civil society data from student initiatives was collected and processed during the summer semester of 2024. The data collection includes publicly accessible communication materials such as press releases, newsletters, and calendar entries. The data picnic brought together civil society actors as well as students from the seminar, to collaboratively work on the data collection.

In the first part of the Data Picnic, students from the seminar and the JP Digital Humanities team presented the developed data model, introduced initial data analysis tools, and showcased visualizations. The barcamp session provided participants with the opportunity to propose topics for subsequent group work. In the second part of the data picnic, the following questions were discussed in three small groups:

  • Data lifecycle: How can civil society data be made more accessible and reusable?

  • Data in social contexts: How should civil society data be processed to provide societal value?

  • Data cultures: How can data practices be integrated into civil society activities?

The discussions in the small groups highlighted in various ways the importance of data in a digital society and how it can be used effectively. At the same time, datafication requires not only time and technical resources but also data science competencies.The data picnic not only offered valuable insights and suggestions for the participants, but also created new perspectives for the use of civil society data in Chemnitz.

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