Digital History: quali prospettive in Europa? Intervista a Jörg Hoernschemeyer
In questo articolo Salvo Spina intervista Jörg Hoernschemeyer (https://dhi-roma.it/index.php?id=hoernschemeyer) su alcuni temi di Digital History, partendo dal dibattito avvenuto al convegno Revolutionary, Disruptive, or Just Repeating Itself? Tracing the History of Digital History (https://doi.org/10.58079/126en).
You took part in a roundtable discussion focused on digital humanities and digital history. What insights did this comparison uncover? Does a definitive and unequivocal interpretation of “Digital History” exist in the present day?
The round table served as the prelude to the conference. The event offered interesting insights into a range of regional and national traditions in the field of digital humanities and digital history, including Anglophone and European perspectives as well as others, such as this Asian one. One of the key takeaways of this event was that a clear and shared understanding of what constitutes Digital History, and how it differs from Digital Humanities, could not be conclusively established – particularly not across national and regional boundaries. The fields remain too dynamic to establish any concrete conclusions.
The primary concern of the conference was mapping the various contexts and trajectories of Digital History with respect to Digital Humanities and traditional historical scholarship. In doing so, it revealed striking similarities as well as significant differences. These differences can be attributed, on the one hand, to distinct regional and national research traditions and disciplinary orientations such as archaeology, philology, linguistics, history, literary studies, and scholarly editions. On the other hand, some differences stem from concrete technical challenges. One example, offered by Lik Hang Tsui (City University of Hong Kong), highlighted the considerable difficulties involved in encoding non-Latin script, illustrating the challenges that have deeply shaped the development of Digital History within the framework of traditional Chinese scholarship. Such contributions once again underscored the importance of avoiding a solely Anglophone or Eurocentric lens when examining the development of Digital History. Instead, a broader and more culturally inclusive perspective is required.
The conference also addressed the relationship between digital history and the traditional historical sciences. After all, every digital historian is also a historian. But what distinguishes the digital historian from their “traditional” counterpart? Is it a matter of research focus? Or is it a specific computational methodology? It is certainly true that the rise of the Digital Humanities has played a significant role in fostering the development of Digital History. In this light, it makes sense for Digital History to present itself not as a rigidly defined discipline, but as a truly interdisciplinary research field – one that draws from theoretical, practical, experimental, and creative approaches. At the same time, it should carry forward its core competence: historiographical methodology, translated into digital contexts and applied as a critical data and method literacy. In an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, this may well become one of Digital History’s most urgent and defining tasks.
Do significant distinctions exist between the digital methodologies employed in Italy and those utilized globally?
I completed most of my academic education in Germany and have now been working in Italy for a few years, so I can only approach this question – if at all – by comparing these two countries.
In my view, the development of Digital Humanities in Italy has followed a very distinct trajectory, closely tied to influential figures such as Busa, Zampolli, Orlandi, and Buzzetti (to name just a few), and their scholarly contributions within their respective disciplines. Their work has undoubtedly had a significant impact on the field beyond Italy’s borders.
From today’s perspective, however, I do not see any fundamental differences in how digital methods are applied – neither in terms of the technologies used nor in terms of theoretical reflection. When comparing academic conferences in Germany and Italy, we find that similar topics are being addressed in both contexts. The differences lie more in the emphases: in Italy, for instance, the political and social implications of digital transformation (cf. Fiormonte) were taken up at an early stage, whereas in Germany the Digital Humanities have long been shaped by a more technically oriented understanding.
In my experience, though, key discussions tend to enter international discourse quite rapidly. At present, developments in artificial intelligence – and particularly the associated social, political, and ethical implications – are undoubtedly dominating the global debate.
Are research departments and centres actively engaging with the epistemological challenges posed by digital methodologies?
Yes, absolutely – and this process is likely to be significantly accelerated by recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence. Digital methods are transforming not only how we access information, but also how we define what this “information” is within historical sources. What kinds of knowledge do digital approaches produce? How reliable are the results they generate? To what extent are the underlying data and models shaped by cultural and political biases? And how do such methods ultimately influence the way we interpret history? A critical engagement with digital data and methodologies particularly challenges the methodological self-understanding of historically oriented disciplines which generally rely on this type of “critical historical method”.
In Germany, for example, the NFDI4Memory consortium ( https://4memory.de ) – part of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) – is dedicated to addressing precisely these issues. Its goal is to develop a cross-disciplinary infrastructure for research data in the historically-informed humanities, bringing together a wide range of academic and non-academic research institutions. The epistemological challenges posed by digital methods are explored within the Data Literacy and Data Culture Task Areas, through informational events, discussion forums, workshops, and training programs. Targeted funding is also available to support projects that explicitly engage with these kinds of questions.
The importance of a critical reflection on such developments is underscored by worrying recent trends such as the uncritical use of large language models (LLMs) to “revive” historical figures as virtual witnesses. A particularly problematic example is the so-called Anne Frank chatbot (https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-anne-frank-blame-holocaust).
Cases like this raise not only epistemological questions but also pressing fundamental ethical concerns and touch on issues related to the communication of historical knowledge with the help of such technologies.
What aspirations do you hold for the advancement of historical research and the field of Digital History?
I would like to see digital history continue to establish itself as an open interdisciplinary research field that develops theoretically founded computational methods that can be used as additional hermeneutic tools in historical research.
Exploring the connection between Digital History and Artificial Intelligence raises important questions. What implications does the integration of AI into historical research carry? Can AI effectively function as a proficient historian?
There are meaningful ways in which artificial intelligence can be applied within the research process – including, and especially, in the work of historians – that highlight its positive potential. AI can assist in systematically searching and summarizing scholarly literature, converting printed texts and manuscripts into machine-readable formats, translating foreign-language research, contextualizing sources, or preparing research results for publication. In Digital History, AI systems are already being used to assemble source corpora, extract and structure information, enrich research data with metadata, automatically link to digital resources, and analyse collected data.
It is, of course, essential for historians to always critically reflect on the social, ethical, and ecological challenges posed by the use of AI. It is equally important at the same time to ask where and how AI can meaningfully support the hermeneutic process – and where the risks lie, particularly when such technologies are used uncritically. It should always be kept in mind that AI is, above all, a technology that applies previously acquired skills and knowledge to new problems. It tends to perform well when dealing with the regular and the familiar but struggles with exceptions, ambiguity, and the unexpected. This should reassure humanities scholars. In my view, there is currently no imminent danger that historians will be replaced by digital avatars anytime soon.
A me le conclusioni…
Grazie Jörg, le tue risposte mettono in luce il carattere dinamico, complesso e ancora in via di definizione della Digital History, la quale, più che una disciplina chiaramente delimitata, sembra configurarsi, ancora, come un campo di ricerca interdisciplinare, influenzato da tradizioni regionali, contesti disciplinari e sviluppi tecnologici in continua evoluzione. Pur in assenza di una definizione condivisa e univoca, emerge con forza, però, l’importanza di un approccio critico e “storicamente maturo” all’impiego delle tecnologie informatiche – soprattutto alla luce dei rapidi progressi nel campo dell’intelligenza artificiale. In tale prospettiva, infatti, il percorso è lungo, irto di ostacoli, e segnato da vuoti filosofici che compromettono il rapporto che dovremmo – positivamente – costruire con queste tecnologie generative. Certamente, la Digital History è una frontiera che “potenzia” la ricerca storica, ma comporta anche una riflessione metodologica profonda e una maggiore consapevolezza sull’uso dei dati – o meglio, dei Big Data. La sua evoluzione futura dipenderà, però, solamente dalla capacità/volontà degli storici (analogici) di farsi portavoce dell’aggiornamento del «mestiere di storico», in un contesto interdisciplinare ed eticamente attento alle dinamiche digitali.
OpenEdition vi suggerisce di citare questo post nel modo seguente:
salvospina (7 Ottobre 2025). Digital History: quali prospettive in Europa? Intervista a Jörg Hoernschemeyer. Informatica Umanistica e Cultura Digitale: il blog dell' AIUCD. Recuperato il 15 Febbraio 2026 da https://doi.org/10.58079/14vfg
