Urszula Pawlicka-Deger held a postdoctoral researcher position in the Department of Media at Aalto University, Finland before joining King’s Digital Lab at King’s College London, UK as a Marie Curie Fellow. Her research interests include the epistemology of a humanities laboratory, the process of knowledge production intertwined with technologies, and the infrastructural influences on humanistic work. Pawlicka-Deger was a Fulbright scholar in the Creative Media and Digital Culture at Washington State University Vancouver, US (2014-2015), and a visiting researcher in the Department of English at Stony Brook University, US (2015-2016). She was awarded the Willard McCarty Fellowship at the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, UK (2019), where she was also a keynote speaker for the event
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The goal of this paper is to track the path of the formation of
the laboratory turn in the humanities and understand the
conditions, meanings, and functions of humanities labs. The
first section investigates three discourses that gave rise
to the emergence of a laboratory in the humanities: the
transformation of the humanities infrastructure within the
university, paradigm shifts in the social sciences, and the
expansion of cultural categories of innovation, the maker
movement (the proliferation of makerspaces), and the idea of
community. Next, the author presents a history of the
laboratory in the humanities and determines the shift from a
laboratory as a physical place to
conceptual laboratory. The last section
analyses five models for humanities labs based on
laboratories’ statements and operations: the center-type
lab, the techno-science lab, the work station-type lab, the
social challenges-centric lab, and virtual lab. The research
shows that the laboratory turn has emerged in the humanities
as a part of a wider process of the laboratorization of social life, which has
been occurring since the 1980s. Next, the study indicates
the role of digital humanities as the driving force behind
building a laboratory space, which supports situated
practices, the collaborative, and technology-based projects.
The paper shows that the humanities lab does not simply
imitate the science lab but adapts this new infrastructure
for its own purposes and needs.
This article explores the labratory turn in the humantiies.
Owen Hannaway defined a science laboratory as a place that involves observation and manipulation
of nature by means of specialized instruments,
techniques, and apparatuses that require manual
skills as well as conceptual knowledge for their
construction and deployment
laboratories
: a
library’s reading room at Yale University Library has been
redesigned as the Franke Family Digital Humanities
Laboratory, the University of Arizona College of Humanities
has launched a new set of courses as the Humanities Lab, and
research groups and seminars have been called a
laboratory
, for instance, Representing
Migration Humanities Lab in the English Department at Duke
University. The humanities labs have been built upon
different types of existing infrastructure giving rise to
new forms of their realization and interpretation. They
include situated and virtual digital humanities labs as well
as non-digital, seminar- and project-based humanities labs.
In this essay, I argue thus that the idea of a laboratory has
been expanded and altered by social initiatives, such as
library creative spaces, makerspaces, and hackathons. A
laboratory goes beyond the notion of a physical place
dedicated to scientific exploration, becoming, instead, a
widely understood labbing problems
(the approach to solve problems by applying the practices of
labs; see more
The purpose of this article is to track the path of the formation
of the laboratory turn in the humanities and understand the
conditions, meanings, and functions of humanities labs
situated in North America, North-Western Europe, and
Australia. In the first part of the article, I analyse
briefly three discourses that gave rise to the emergence of
a laboratory in the humanities: the transformation of the
humanities infrastructure within the university, paradigm
shifts in the social sciences, and the expansion of cultural
categories of innovation, the maker movement, and the notion
of community. Next, I present a history of the laboratory in
the humanities and examine a wide range of application of
the term laboratory
to the humanities that cover
institutional and technology-based labs (physical and
virtual spaces engaging digital tools and technologies) and
conceptual, non-digital labs (entities and projects that
call themselves labs
and don’t have an explicitly
digital component). Drawing on this analysis, I indicate
five models for humanities labs based on laboratories’
statements and operations: the center-type lab, the
techno-science lab, the work station-type lab, the social
challenges-centric lab, and virtual lab. These five types of
laboratories grew out of various origins and discourses. The
goal is thus to grasp the complex landscape of the
humanities labs, comprehend their functions, and reflect on
their development and features. The result section presents
the main findings of the research related to the emergence
of the laboratory turn, the uniqueness of the humanities
labs, and the implications of labs for the positioning of
the humanities both within and outside of academia.
By looking at the history of the humanities, we can
discern moments of significant shifts occurring at
the time of cultural, social, and economic changes.
Each significant moment in the history of higher
education — the beginning of the twentieth century,
the 1960s/1970s, the 1980s/1990s, and 2007/2008 — is
hailed as a transformation period for the humanities
(see more about the history of university and
humanities: e.g.,
At that time, the humanities were under the influence of
the growing scientification of knowledge. The
humanities were strongly engaged in precise and
analytical research typical for scientific
discourses. As Julie Thompson Klein describes it,
The tendency toward
painstaking research and minute methodology became
as evident in historiography as in science. The
humanist’s equivalent of the laboratory was
analytic abstraction, reinforced by description,
classification, comparison, and compilation. Like
laboratory specimens, humanistic objects could be
manipulated, dissected, and embalmed; measured,
counted, and calibrated; and subjected to precise
methodologies
Significant changes occurred in the 1980s as a result of
the transformations in the academy. The phenomenon
of mass universities, the weakening of disciplinary
boundaries, and expanding globalization and
corporatization led to a crisis in universities in
the 1990s [e.g., Bérubé et
al. 1995, Readings 1996]. This crisis rhetoric has
started to penetrate any discussion about the
university, which is attacked for its
corporatization and ignoring social problems, as
well as the state of the humanities, which is
accused of being unprofitable and impractical. Under
these conditions, the humanities were transforming
gradually into an interdisciplinary field, engaged
in sociological, political, cultural, and feminist
discourses. The shift towards inter- and
transdisciplinary practices and social engagement
was accompanied by the symbolic gesture of moving
the humanities beyond the walls
of the office
into the public domain. The
humanities moved out of their usual spaces — the
office and the library — into a new territory — the
center — to intensify interdisciplinarity and public
engagement. The implementation of new practices was
thus reinforced by institutional changes.
Consequently, since the 1980s, the humanities have
established many centres, aiming to foster
interdisciplinarity, build bridges with the medical,
technical, and natural sciences, and create a common
space for the university and the local community
Next to the interdisciplinary research center, a new unit
emerged with a focus on computing in the humanities.
This center underpinned the development of
humanities computing, renamed the digital humanities
in the twentieth-first century. It played the role
of a work station equipped with computers and other
devices, gathering in the same place humanists,
computer scientists, and programmers. However, the
computing center was more than a physical work
space; it was a significant ground for building new
practices engaged in manipulating complex digital
analysis tools and applying computing techniques. To
advance computing within humanities practices, the
discipline required
institutional investment in an entirely different
infrastructure of courseware specialists, on a
large scale and at an urgent pace
The university entered the twenty-first century along
with the accelerating power of technology, the
emerging cyberinfrastructure, and intensifying
globalization and internationalization. The
university of the twenty-first century is an
economically-driven institution centred on applied,
profitable, and competitive research and training
students in order to provide them with practical and
useful skills. Based on J. G. Wissema’s
considerations of the third generation university,
the academy of the twenty-first century is
distinguished by seeking alternative funding for
cutting-edge scientific research, intertwining the
two worlds of academic and industrial research,
operating in an internationally competitive market,
and the commercialisation of knowledge tactical
humanities
scientification of the
humanities
Consequently, the humanities took a step towards
revamping their infrastructure, aimed at fostering
and enhancing growing computational, collaborative,
and interdisciplinary practices. In this light,
drawing on Amy E. Earhart’s reflections, a
laboratory emerged in the humanities discipline as
more than a space, but a
symbol of our hope
The laboratory idea was thus applied to the humanities field in response to its structural crisis; the existing infrastructure (offices, library, seminars) was insufficient to meet contemporary scholars needs, such as advancing collaborative and interdisciplinary research and fostering frequent meetings and interaction [e.g., Hiatt 2005, Joselow 2016, Breithaupt 2017]. Therefore, a lab was not only seen as a new institutional unit for the humanities but also as a conceptual model for conducting research embedded and entailed in a laboratory’s set of practices. In
lab meetings.
Sure, we had done several joint presentations and written some small articles, with more pending. But was this a lab?; Breithaupt’s striking question shows that firstly, the concept of the humanities lab is still far from a clear definition, and, secondly, that the lab idea grows out of the simple necessity of frequent meetings and conversations as well as the need to work together instead of remaining isolated in offices. The term “lab” is thus used to imply specific values embedded in a particular place or initiative. However, this tactical naming strategy doesn’t necessarily transparently disclose the actual workings of knowledge production.
The impulse to establish laboratories in the humanities is also related strongly to the utilization of technology in research projects. Following the report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences,
LINHD mission is to redefine the way of working in digital humanities by promoting innovation and technology in the environment of the new information society
We at the Price Lab believe that if the humanities are to survive and thrive, digital research tools for the imagined future of our various fields must be developed by scholars who possess expertise in both humanistic inquiry and digital technology
Therefore, along with the development of the digital
humanities, we can track the infrastructural changes
in the humanities of the twenty-first century as
moving from a center the death of the centre
new architecture
of multiple humanities laboratories
The last reason for the challenge-driven innovation community
by
Karolinska Institute, KTH Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm University and Södertörn
University in 2013 and located in the City of
Stockholm
The second discourse on the laboratory turn brings us
back to the 1980s and 1990s when the conceptual
shifts in the social sciences occurred. The new
concepts had a significant impact on emerging new
theories and the research approach of the
twenty-first century. Based on Don Ihde’s
reflections, the following theoretical changes are
indicated: the emergence of the new sociology of
scientific knowledge, namely, social constructionism
and the actor-network theory of the 1970s; the new
philosophy of technology in the 1980s; and the
concept of science as a cultural practice in the
late 1980s and 1990s Science
no longer was simply a kind of knowledge (one
possessed scientia); it increasingly became a form
of activity (one did science). That there should
have arisen in this period a place specially set
aside for such activity and bearing a new name
serves to measure the force of that shift
The perspective of science as a social practice opened up
new questions regarding a place in which to
construct science
Such a perspective on science entailed establishing new
fields to explore the various aspects of the social
construction of science. One area refers to a
contextual theory of knowledge, assuming that the
knowledge is situated in practice, in contrast to
conceptual knowledge, which is abstracted from
situations
In this light, the emergence of the laboratory in the
humanities entails a significant shift from the
infrastructural thinking
The 1980s and 1990s, as Robert E. Kohler observed
astutely, were thus recognized as a productive time
for laboratory studies, and the laboratory itself
was seen as a social institution. After that time,
the notion of the laboratory was neglected until
interest was revived again in the twenty-first
century
extends to other spaces and places via collaborative ventures, shared data centers, and information and communication technologies, challenging
the very distinction between laboratory and field
The last line of development of the laboratory turn runs
through the prevailing cultural categories of the
twenty-first century. Let us now take a look at the
following three cultural discourses and their
impacts on changes within the university and
humanities. The first category of innovation has
dominated cultural and social rhetoric and given
rise to new concepts, such as the innovation society
and innovation paradigm. According to this rhetoric,
to tackle the complex social, cultural, and economic
problems of the twenty-first century, society must
turn into an innovation society, which drives
breakthrough solutions and cutting-edge
technologies. Such discourse has led to the design
of the manifold varieties of innovations labs that
have popped up like mushrooms within the university
and city space as social institutions; for instance,
the Scholarly Innovation Lab (SIL) at the UCLA
library and the Digital Innovation Lab at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The
innovation concept has begun to be a crucial
category defining the humanities labs and signifying
the new features found within these labs, including
a strong link between the humanities and the
creative industries, providing cutting-edge
equipment for excellent research, and solving hard
problems. As a result of this discourse, the concept
of an innovative university emerged with the desire
to turn the university into a successful and
competitive business or entrepreneurial university
The innovation approach requires effective creative ideas
and thinking outside the box. Creativity is seen as
a key method with which to improve social and
economic conditions and devise
potentially better options for the future
creative
spaces that integrate the local community
around the processes of creative endeavours. One
such place is a library creative space that focuses wholly or in part on content
creation as opposed to content consumption
alone
Another type of creative space is the makerspace defined
as a center or workspace where
like-minded people get together to make
things
return to craft
, in which people can
build things together again
The last cultural category, which has accompanied the
maker movement, is community. The labcraft,
makerspace, and hackathon movements are all based on
the idea of the community being the main resource
and driving force behind them. The idea of the
community, introduced in the 1990s We build up people and practices
more than products.
The lab prioritizes
the process of learning and working together: People over projects
means
that we care more about such outcomes, than about
whether a formal project
happens
Cultural trends and a circulation of particular concepts
are reflected in the emergence of different types of
academic institutions, ranging from the
entrepreneurial to the engaged university. To meet
contemporary challenges, the humanities have made an
infrastructural turn
The first laboratories serving other than natural sciences were
computer science labs established in media studies in the
1980s and 1990s; for instance, the Laboratory Paragraphe at
the University of Paris 8 in 1983, Media Lab at MIT in 1985,
and Aalto Media Lab at Aalto University in 1993. Media labs
were launched as production, dynamic, and experimental
research spaces, studios, and ateliers. The goals of the
first laboratories were to foster the creation of new media
projects which explored the impact of technology on society
and the human condition, developed hardware and software
within the context of artistic projects, and tested the
potential of electronic technologies. Concurrently, in the
late 1990s, the word lab
was applied to humanities
and technology, for example, HUMlab at Umeå University was
founded in 1997 and Stanford Humanities Lab at Stanford
University in 1999. Although the institutional models for
these units were not new, their conceptualization as
lab
was an original move. Nevertheless, the
end of the twentieth century and beginning of the
twenty-first century remained under the domination of media
labs.
Since 2007, the situation changed significantly through the
dissemination of the concept of a laboratory in the
humanities domain. The laboratory concept has expanded
rapidly across the humanities department (e.g., the Global
History Lab in the Department of History at Princeton
University, 2007; the Media Archaeology Lab in the
Department of English at the University of Colorado,
Boulder, 2009) and libraries (e.g., the Scholars’ Lab
launched in the Alderman Library of the University of
Virginia, 2008). The trend towards building laboratories
continued unabated, reaching the point of the
Along with the humanities labs, with names referring mainly to
disciplines and cultural categories (e.g., the Culture Lab
at Brown University and Participatory Cultures Lab at McGill
University), digital humanities labs have begun to
proliferate right next to existing models of centers (e.g.,
the Digital Humanities Laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique
Fédérale de Lausanne, Digital Humanities Lab at Utrecht
University, and the Franke Family Digital Humanities
Laboratory at Yale University). The proliferation of various
labs in the humanities has led to the broadening of the
concept of laboratory beyond the notion of a physical place.
The term laboratory
is used to describe the following
places, initiatives, and ideas: an interdisciplinary
department (the Humanities Lab at Lund University), a center
(the HUMlab at Umeå University), a makerspace (the Maker Lab
in the Humanities at the University of Victoria), an
incubator for new ideas (the Humanities Lab at American
University), a research workshop (the Northwestern
University Digital Humanities Laboratory at Northwestern
University), a collaboration of individuals (the Nebraska
Literary Lab at the University of Nebraska), a coalition
(the Humanities Action Lab led from Rutgers
University-Newark), a student-led initiative (the Public
Humanities Lab at the University of Virginia), a
state-of-the-art facility (the Digital Humanities Lab at the
University of Exeter), an innovative course (the Humanities
Labs at Colby College), a study programme (the Humanities
Lab at Leiden University), consortium (the DigHumLab at
Aarhus University), a virtual research environment (the
Digital Humanities Innovation Lab at the National University
of Distance Education), and even a podcast (the Literature
Lab Podcasts at Brandeis University). Consequently, the
notion of laboratory has gone far beyond its traditional
meaning, turning into a
Thus, over the last years, we have observed the proliferation of humanities labs and the growing interest in a laboratory that implies a new mode of working. It suffices to mention conferences, panel discussions, and seminars devoted to the concept and organization of laboratory:
To comprehend a laboratory in the humanities and identify its
different realization, I firstly collected the descriptions
of labs ranging from media labs to digital and non-digital
humanities labs laboratory
, analyse their mission statements,
and further determine their functions. Before discussing the
typology in detail, however, we can pose a significant
question of what is a humanities lab in itself? To answer
this question, let us look at below statements from three
laboratories: At Humanities +
Design our mission is to produce, through the lens
of humanistic inquiry, new modes of thinking in
design and computer science to serve data-driven
research in the humanities. We believe that
humanistic inquiry, grounded in interpretation,
has much to contribute to the development of
technologies if they are to help us reveal
ambiguity and paradox, allowing human-scale
exploration of complex systems. In the laboratory
environment, theoretical and methodological
discussions happen side-by-side with hands-on work
with digital materials. Humanities scholars and
students, designers, engineers, and computer
scientists engage together in ongoing tool design
as defined by the specific needs of participating
humanities projects.
The Digital Humanities Laboratory
(DHLab), a unit of Yale University Library, offers
space, community, and resources for Yale scholars
who are using computational methods to pursue
research questions in the arts, humanities, and
humanistic social sciences. Located inside
Sterling Memorial Library, the Franke Family
Digital Humanities Laboratory is a hub for
consultations, training, and opportunities that
support Yale students, faculty, and cultural
heritage professionals in their engagement with
digital tools and techniques.
The Humanities Lab at ASU is
designed as an experimental space in which
interdisciplinary faculty teams work with students
from a variety of academic and cultural
backgrounds to investigate grand social
challenges, to construct researchable questions
that delve deeply into those challenges, and to
generate possible approaches to complex, “wicked”
issues like immigration, health, and climate
change, for which there are no easy
answers.
The first lab, the Humanities + Design is a research lab at the
Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford
University focused on designing and producing tools through
the lens of humanistic inquiry. Critical thinking practiced
by humanities scholars is thus applied to a hands-on work
conducted by designers, engineers, and computer scientists.
The lab team works on building open source tools for digital
research, such as Data Pen, an instrument for creating data
sets that draws from linked data sources, and a
visualization tool Palladio. The second example represents a
lab established as a shared space at the university’s
library. It is a facility that provides equipment and
digital technologies and support in digital humanities
skills acquisition for both research and teaching purposes
through consultations, training, and guest lectures. This
multifunctional lab has been built to offer space,
community, and resources for scholars in the arts,
humanities, and social sciences. The last statement, in
turn, describes the Humanities Lab at Arizona State
University which is a set of lab-based courses. The lab
offers an experimental space where students and faculty work
on a particular problem in intergenerational collaborative
teams for one or two semesters. Each lab is devoted to a
specific socio-cultural challenge that is investigated
through critical thinking, critical engagement, hands-on
practices, and interdisciplinary discussions. Although these
three labs represent different functions and practices, each
is guided by a laboratory
ethos, defined by the
Stanford Humanities Lab: collaborative, co-creative, and
team-based
This wide range of uses of the term laboratory
implies
that labs are varied due to the function and activities.
Based on the collected data, I indicate the following six
functions of laboratories in the humanities:
Since any laboratory is a self-defined entity focused on a specific function, activity, and practice, it can be difficult to build a common definition of the laboratory in the humanities. However, based on the above reflections, I attempt to create the following working definition of the humanities lab:
A laboratory in the humanities is a
technical, research, and intellectual infrastructure
for humanistic issues and inquiries which offers
space (physical, virtual or conceptual), community,
and resources to conduct a set of activities
resulting from its specific function (e.g. research,
design, work station, service, pedagogical, and
public engagement). Laboratory initiatives are
guided by the following principles:
interdisciplinarity, collaboration, co-creation,
team-based, and experimentation.
The widespread application of the term laboratory
has led
to the fact that there is no single model for the humanities
laboratory. Based on more than two hundred laboratories,
established in North America, North-Western Europe, and
Australia, I determine five models for the humanities labs
due to their situatedness (physical or virtual), traditions,
functions, scholarly questions, practices, and activities.
Let us now explore these five models (the center-type lab,
the techno-science lab, the work station-type lab, the
social challenges-centric lab, and virtual lab), investigate
their organization and indicate a discourse from which they
originate.
To characterize the center model-based laboratories, it
is essential to summarize the infrastructure changes
that occurred in the humanities over the past years.
In the 1990s, as previously stated, the first
laboratories emerged in the humanities (e.g. the
English Media Lab at the Department of English of
the University of Manitoba in 1995 and the HUMlab at
Umeå University in 1997) modelled upon media labs
for providing digital and analog media, facilitating
the use of digital and online resources, and
assisting with the application of digital tools for
the study of literature, language, culture, and
history. Since the 1990s, the digital humanities
have been rapidly developing through establishing
the first humanities computing centers, later
becoming the digital humanities centers, defined by
Zorich as an entity where new
media and technologies are used for
humanities-based research, teaching, and
intellectual engagement and
experimentation
The next changes involve the reorganization of digital humanities centers into departments (e.g., the Centre for Computing in the Humanities was renamed the King’s College Department of Digital Humanities) and thereby, the institutionalization of the discipline and the establishment of digital humanities programmes and degrees. Later, the infrastructure of the center would be a strategic choice for the university to further set up the department of digital humanities (e.g. the Department of Digital Humanities at the University of Helsinki grew out of the Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities, research network, and infrastructure established in 2016). Meantime, laboratories have been launched in the humanities departments and libraries, emulating the center model or establishing an entirely new infrastructure for the humanities research, teaching, and activities.
Laboratories built upon the center model are a central
institution at the university for conducting,
coordinating, and promoting research, teaching, and
infrastructure for digitization in the humanities
and social science. They play a key role in building
collaboration across departments and providing
support and training to the entire university, as
exemplified by the Price Lab for Digital Humanities
at the University of Pennsylvania: The Price Lab serves as a central
node of communication and exchange across Penn’s
many departments, centers, and schools with
expertise and interest in the digital
humanities
The center-type lab model is identified by the following features:
While any one of these features might be present in other models, the center is clearly distinguished by a large-scale central role in advancing humanities scholarship as well as supporting the study and the uses of digital methods and technologies for research and teaching in the humanities.
In the natural sciences a laboratory is an ordinary place which provides facilities, instruments, and equipment with which to conduct experiments, test hypotheses, and investigate samples. Science laboratories have a long history dating back to the alchemical laboratory in the sixteenth century; however, for the purposes of this paper, we will focus on the techno-science model developed in the second half of the twentieth century, along with the acceleration of technological innovation. A crucial moment in a lab history occurred when the laboratory was exposed as a space for constructing knowledge through the use of technology and instruments rather than a place for revealing reality. Sociology of scientific knowledge, mentioned in the previous section, played a key role in this movement. Techno-science implies that science cannot be detached from the technological tools that shape our perceptions and help to produce the knowledge; thus, our observations are always embodied via the practical use of instruments.
Techno-science labs associated with the categories of production, technology, innovation, and experimentation became an inspirational architecture for the humanities in need of a new place to explore the emerging innovative uses of technology in the study of history, art, and culture. Therefore, the impulse to establish a laboratory in the humanities came about in order to replicate the knowledge production environment associated with science. A science-based lab is thus seen as a driving force for cutting-edge projects and a natural space for developing and applying technologies to humanities research. The following labs are good representations of the techno-science lab model in the humanities: the Stanford Humanities Lab at Stanford University (1999-2009); the Critical Media Lab at the University of Waterloo (2008); the CulturePlex Lab at the University of Western Ontario (2010); the Digital Humanities and Literary Cognition Lab at Michigan State University (2012); the Humanities + Design a Research Lab at Stanford University (2012); the Maker Lab in the Humanities at the University of Victoria (2012); the Poetic Media Lab at Stanford University (2013); and the King’s Digital Lab at King’s College London (2015).
Based on these examples, laboratories built using the techno-science model are driven by the following functions: providing state-of-the-art facilities and equipment for experimental and innovative research; promoting new ways of conducting research, teaching, and learning through the application of digital technologies; introducing new digital methods and new modes of knowledge (e.g., data mining, mapping, data visualization, simulation, 3D digitisation, tinkering, coding, prototyping, and fabricating); producing data-driven research in the humanities; designing applications, tools, and platforms used in digital humanities research and teaching; and designing technical infrastructure for the humanities.
The principles that guide the techno-science-based laboratory are identified as:
The humanities labs originated from techno-science labs
are focused on production, tools, and research
products. Although they stress the notions of
community and collectivity, these concepts are not
their goals in and of themselves but rather a way to
achieve their objectives. Each lab represents
distinct aspects and missions, but their common and
the most significant feature is technology being the glue
, to use
Pierre Proske’ description of the Media Lab
Melbourne triangulation of
arts practice, commentary/critique, and outreach,
merging research, pedagogy, publication and
practice. They didn’t just comment and discuss,
they built: new media, interactive archives,
predictive models of social change, new courses,
collaborative research workshops, art
exhibitions
The next model is called both the work station and
service model
These labs are guided by the following functions: supplying facilities, equipment, and devices; supporting faculty and students in their studies; providing help in research data management; and training faculty and students in regard to the utilization of equipment, digital tools, and software.
The work station model is distinguished by features listed below:
The humanities lab as a work station aims to provide an environment, services, and facilities which support scholarly work rather than innovative research projects, as in the case of techno-science labs. A laboratory is thus understood literally as a place — referring again to Hannaway’s definition — equipped with specialized instruments and apparatuses that require hands-on skills and knowledge for their utilization.
The next model of a humanities laboratory grows out of
social labs, community labs, and citizen labs new research methods, new lines of
inquiry, and new ways of engaging with public
audiences
container for social
experimentation
I started the Humanities Lab because
I realized that our students were not benefitting
from the kind of interdisciplinary, exploratory
experiences faculty were getting through the IHR.
(…) So I wanted to see if we could establish a way
for students to get that experience; to recognize
the humanities as important for approaching and
addressing today’s challenges, because the kinds
of questions that really plague us are humanistic
at their core. They’re about values and culture
and understanding the way people form beliefs and
the kinds of attitudes we carry around with us and
the way we all live in our own narratives. And
encountering that is essential for solving these
problems.
wicked
problems, such as
immigration, health, and climate change through the
humanities inquiry approach and intervention: Most of the really big challenges we
face are not fundamentally about technology,
science, economics, etc. They are human challenges
that have been with us for a very long time and
therefore require human-centred inquiry as part of
the search for a solution. Yet, often the
humanities disciplines are not included in such
discussions. Therefore, the Humanities Lab brings
the humanities to the table by emphasizing the
study of values and the way we understand the
world around us. Merging the humanities with
diverse disciplines helps us to see the grand
social challenges more holistically and therefore
puts us in a better position to conceptualize
solutions.
Unlike the techno-science model, which is centred on designing and applying technological tools to research projects, the social challenges-centric model aims to build a common and interventive space that in itself is a way to address the most profound social issues. I indicate three varieties of the social challenges-centric model for a humanities lab: coalition-based lab, problem-based lab, and community engagement lab. This model is thus not a unified structure, but a dynamic form driven by the ideas of community, dialogue, and intervention.
The first type of lab arises as an initiative of a
coalition of various institutions that activate a
laboratory as an urgent need to react to pressing
problems in a particular place. The Humanities
Action Lab (HAL) is a coalition of universities,
issue organizations, and public spaces in forty
cities led from Rutgers University-Newark. Students
and stakeholders in each city investigate a
particular problem in a local context, produce
community-curated public humanities projects, and
stimulate public dialogue on the urgent questions.
Laboratories can also work on the same problem
explored then by different communities and from
various perspectives. They develop local
contributions to national project that further
travel nationally and
internationally to museums, public libraries,
cultural centers, and other spaces in each of the
communities that helped create them
Students from around the country collaborated with more than 600 community stakeholders including Haitian refugees, former service people, and attorneys representing current detainees, to explore GTMO’s history from many perspectives, as well as the questions it raises today. Together they created a traveling exhibit, web platform, digital and physical archive, interview collection, and series of public dialogues. The exhibit has traveled for more than 3 years to 18 cities and counting, with public dialogues in each place. More than 500,000 people will have had a face-to-face encounter with the exhibit, and many more online and through social media
The problem-based lab is in turn set up around a central
theme for a specific purpose. It thus creates an
environment — problem space — around particular
urgent social and cultural issues that need to be
addressed by integrative and interdisciplinary
approach. Good examples are the labs within the
Humanities Laboratories at the Franklin Humanities
Institute of Duke University, where each individual
lab is devoted to a particular problem and launched
for mainly three years. The first lab at the FHI,
Haiti Lab, was established after Haiti’s natural
disaster in 2010 to broaden knowledge about Haitian
culture, history, and language and expand Haitian
studies in the U.S. Other labs at the FHI devoted to
significant social phenomena and challenges are
BorderWork(s) Lab (2011-2014) investigating the acts
of division and demarcation in the world; Health
Humanities Lab (2016- present) undertaking issues of
clinical medicine and public health from the
perspective of the humanities and social science;
and From Slavery to Freedom Lab (2018- present)
examining the life and afterlives of slavery and
emancipation. The similar type of problem-based lab
is also set up within the Humanities Lab at Arizona
State University where each lab works as a one- or
two-semester course bringing together students and
faculty around wicked
issues. The lab is thus
established for a fixed period of time to
investigate grand social challenges, construct
researchable questions, and generate possible
approaches to complex problems. So far, the
Humanities Lab program has launched the following
courses: Health & Wellbeing Lab, Sexual Violence
Lab, Sustaining Humans Lab, Rebuilding Puerto Rico
Lab, and Facing Immigration Lab. The next great
example, differing from the previous ones, is the
Human Security Collaboratory (HS Collab) launched by
the Global Security Initiative (GSI) at Arizona
State University focused on addressing complex
problems related to digital security and civil
rights through the application of digital humanities
tools and inquiries. The lab’s current projects
include
The third type of lab — the community engagement lab — aims to promote civic engagement through participatory approaches to research and social action. Good examples are the mentioned HS Collab at Arizona State University and the Engage Media Lab at The New School. The latter lab is a student group and research lab that develops workshops, screenings, and research projects in collaboration with The New School students and the New York City community. Other instances include the Public Humanities Lab at the University of Virginia and the Participatory Cultures Lab at McGill University. The last one is particularly focused on participatory research devoted to issues of social justice, gender-based violence, food security, and poverty alleviation. Research projects use various tools that engage a community: digital storytelling, photovoice, participatory archiving, and more. Community engagement projects are conducted through the collaboration with variety countries including South Africa, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
To summarize, instances of laboratories built upon the social challenges-centric model include: the Humanities Laboratories at Duke University (2010); the Participatory Cultures Lab at McGill University (2010); the Engage Media Lab at The New School (2011); the Humanities Action Lab led from Rutgers University-Newark (2014); the Human Security Collaboratory (HS Collab) at Arizona State University (2015); the Humanities Lab at Arizona State University (2017); and the Public Humanities Lab at the University of Virginia (2017).
Based on these cases, the social challenges-centric model of labs can encompass the following functions: building a community around the lab and challenges; fostering collaboration and communication across departments, institutions, and communities; engaging with the local community beyond the university; connecting the diverse local perspectives of communities around the world; producing community-curated public humanities projects; propelling positive social, cultural, and environmental changes; promoting civic engagement; and initiating new public dialogues.
The model is guided by the following principles:
The social challenges-centric model for the humanities
lab originates from the concepts of social labs,
citizen labs, and public creative spaces. While the
techno-science model is centred on applied research,
technological issues, and innovative approaches, the
social challenges-centric model is created around
people, social issues, and public engagement.
Further, while the techno-science model produces
quantifiable and applied projects, the products of
this model of labs are dynamic, powerful, and
influential. As Zaid Hassan claims, Complex challenges are therefore
dynamic and can change in unexpected ways over
time, whereas technical challenges are relatively
stable and static in comparison
Thus far, the term laboratory
has been used in the
context of Hannaway’s definition of a place which
accumulates instruments, techniques, and
apparatuses. The techno-science, work station, and
community labs have one major thing in common, which
is physical situatedness
The advancement of cyberinfrastructure underpinned the development of the digital humanities field that applies computational tools and methods to the humanities. The discipline of digital humanities is based on the utilization of digital source materials, digital methods, and new ways of collaborating in the digital environment. The core feature of the digital humanities is thus virtual situatedness, defined as the digital, internet-based workspace with an infrastructure, connection, and operation that affect the work and research communication. Scholars work in the virtual space, including online platforms and the virtual research environment, which directs digital humanities research, supports the use of digital tools, and enables scholarly collaboration. Digital humanities scholars are thus examples of researchers who work in both physical and virtual spaces. Therefore, their research rooms comprise physical places, such as a laboratory or center, as well as a virtual laboratory. Hence, the concept of laboratory goes beyond the category of physical location towards a placeless and virtual idea not determined by walls and physical situatedness. The virtual model of the humanities lab plays a key role in the cyberinfrastructure that enhances the web-based research environment, supports national and international collaborations, facilitates networks of scholars, and provides data services, resources, and tools.
Given the scope of the function and the operation of the virtual laboratory, the model comprises two types of labs. The first is formed as a collaborative platform for enhancing communication and cooperation and promoting new modes of learning and research with the use of digital tools and technologies. HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory) constitutes a good example of this initiative. It is a community-based publishing and an academic social networking platform that enables global communication, sharing, and collaborations among students and researchers across the humanities, social sciences, media studies, the arts, and technology sectors. Alfalab (2009-2011), in turn, was a collaborative network and a virtual project of five institutes of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences that aimed to promote, provide, and apply the use of digital tools and methods in the humanities research practices and foster a cooperation of humanities researchers at national and international levels.
The second type, called the virtual research environment,
is a virtual space for facilitating digital research
processes, providing databases, tools, and services,
and promoting collaboration across the university,
academic institutions, and cultural organizations.
It is an innovative, web-based, and
community-oriented digital environment with an
international dimension, defined by Annamaria Carusi
and Torsten Reimer as a set of
web applications, online tools, systems and
processes interoperating to facilitate or enhance
the research process within and without
institutional boundaries; it enables collaborative
research activities beyond geographical
barriers
Hence, the structure of the virtual model of the humanities laboratory can be grasped through:
The advancement of cyberinfrastructure ushered in the era of virtual laboratories, created in the digital environment beyond physical, geographical, and cultural borders. Similar to the center-type lab, the techno-science and work station-type lab, the virtual laboratory facilitates scholarly practices and enables collaborative, innovative, and technology-based projects. Hence, the virtual lab represents a laboratory with the aspects characterized by the rest of the models. The main difference lies in situatedness; while the previous labs are all determined by a physical location and physical infrastructure, digital labs are signified by virtual milieu and software.
The paper has shown that the laboratory turn has emerged in the
humanities as a part of a wider process of the
meeting place
incubator
for new ideas
conceptual
vehicle
laboratory
to the
humanities field in the academy. Therefore, the issues of
the implementation of labs beyond this field and the
university’s campus remain still unexplored, including the
emergence of labs in GLAM sector, the formation of cultural
and citizens labs along with makerspaces and hackerspaces in
public domain, and the use of the word lab
in
different areas of social life. Humanities labs constitute
part of the ongoing move towards turning various social
spaces and initiatives into a
The second major finding was that the implementation of laboratory emerged as the essential process in the development of the humanities, one, which required the reconstruction of infrastructure to support new research practices and methods related to the utilization of technology and digital tools. Therefore, the digital humanities have become the driving force behind building a laboratory space, which supports situated practices, the collaborative, and technology-based projects. Furthermore, the digital humanities have propelled the development of the virtual laboratory, which involves virtual situatedness, a collaborative and academic network, and the digital research environment.
The next significant finding to emerge from this study is that borrowing the laboratory concept from science does not mean imitating its form and features. The humanities have developed unique models of labs differing in the scale of operation, infrastructure, and functions: the center-type lab, the techno-science lab, the work station-type lab, the social challenges-centric lab, and virtual lab. The previous section has shown that each type produces knowledge resulting from a lab structure and mission. Humanities labs do not represent a unified structure; instead, they consist of a group of various types of labs, which have their own architectures, goals, and practices. As a result, the humanities lab does not simply imitate the science lab but adapts this new infrastructure for its own purposes and needs. What fascinates me here is also the way how the humanities reposition themselves in the academy and public domain by bringing the field into dialogue with the sciences in interdisciplinary labs, building their own infrastructure, and designing a lab as a site of intervention in social challenges.
This study has important implications for understanding the
concept of laboratory in the humanities as well as
developing new models and sites. However, one challenge of
the humanities lab remains to be discussed: its
sustainability. The problem of sustainability concerns any
model of laboratory sustainability
for its activities and projects
through 2022. It aims to address the questions of the
accessibility of digital materials and the sustainability of
in-progress artefacts
The research included in this article was presented during my lecture, entitled
Crisisand the Future of Literary Studies