North-West University visits the Centre for Digital Humanities

The Centre for Digital Humanities was pleased to receive a delegation of three professors from the humanities faculty of North-West University (NWU) in South Africa. The visitors wanted to explore the possibilities of integrating more digital humanities methods within several education tracks in their own faculty. To gain inspiration, they made a trip to various universities in Europe.

The South African delegation consisted of (deputy) deans Dumisani Moyo, Ndivhoniswani Aaron Tshidzumba and Mirna Nel of the board of the NWU’s Faculty of Humanities. They aim to implement more digital methods in their course curriculum, so humanities students will be better equipped to keep up with the datafication of society. Increasing the job opportunities of humanities graduates is also an important reason. The delegation is currently looking into the possibility of setting up a Centre for Digital Humanities within the NWU.

On the day of their visit, the delegation was given an introduction by Hugo Quené, director of the CDH, who talked about the organization, ambition and activities of the Centre for Digital Humanities at Utrecht University. The developers of the Digital Humanities Lab demonstrated to the NWU professors various tailormade DH applications they are working on. The visitors met with the DH support group of the University Library and Mirko Schäfer gave a presentation about the entrepreneurial research taking place at the Utrecht Data School. The tour ended with lunch at the Faculty Club with Thomas Vaessens, dean of Humanities at Utrecht University.

The CDH is looking forward to the future digital humanities activities of NWU.