Rijeka and Montclair exploring digital visualization and memory politics

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Dr. Arnaud Kurze (standing), Montclair State University, conducting a workshop on digital methods at the University of Rijeka, Croatia.

On July 15, 2016, Dr. Arnaud Kurze, Assistant Professor of Justice Studies at Montclair State University, held a workshop on digital methods in post-conflict and post-authoritarian contexts at the University of Rijeka, Croatia.  Participants were all part of a thriving initiative at the university’s Cultural Studies Department, which promotes digital research in the humanities. The aim of this workshop was to explore new ways of analyzing qualitative data and to provide digital tools for visualizing research findings.

The event was initiated by the former Chair of the Cultural Studies Department, Dr. Vjeran Pavlakovic, and provided an excellent platform for a transatlantic knowledge exchange and a thought-provoking scholarly discussion on recent trends in this emerging field. One of  Dr. Kurze’s colleague from Rijeka, Dr. Benedikt Perak, for instance, shared some insights on his latest research, which he presented earlier this summer in Berlin, Germany, and Vienna, Austria. Dr. Perak has created a virtual ontology that looks at different discursive patterns, linking language, culture and behavior. His preliminary findings can be viewed on a web portal hosted by the University of Rijeka, which was created with Gephi. In addition, drawing from an open-source language software called SketchEngine, Dr. Perak was able to build and adjust his discursive and emotion-based ontology.

SketchEngine

Using SketchEngine to retrace the roots and linguistic as well as cultural usage of the term terrorism.

A short lecture by Dr. Kurze on the open-source text analysis software SVEN for Dr. Perak’s research was thus crucial and very timely. While SVEN currently only processes data based roman-based languages and English, different database projects are underway to include slavic-based languages for future text analyses. One of them is called the ReLDI project, to collect and distribute various linguistic data and tools to support empirical research in Croatian and Serbian. It is an institutional collaboration including research centers in Croatia, Serbia and Switzerland.

ReLDI

ReLDI logo and website.

The Rijeka workshop was a great opportunity for researchers to explore a common ground for future research collaboration and exchange programs. With both universities in Montclair and Rijeka pushing for curricula to harness students with valuable tools and analytical skills, workshop organizers vowed to strengthen institutional ties and develop potential future coursework and guest lectures between the two digital humanities poles.

Dr. Arnaud Kurze (center), Montclair State University, conducting a workshop on digital methods at the University of Rijeka, Croatia.

Croatian participants at a workshop on digital methods at the University of Rijeka, Croatia.

Post-Conflict Societies, Memory Politics and Digital Methods

Montclair State invited renowned historian, Dr. Vjeran Pavlakovic, Assistant Professor at the University of Rijeka in Croatia to give a lecture and workshop on transitional justice, cultural remembrance drawing from a digital humanities approach to dealing with the past. During his brief visit to the US from April 28-29, 2016, the guest speaker was able to meet with Montclair students, faculty and administrators to strengthen university ties. A collaboration between both institutions was already established in summer 2015 when Montclair faculty, Dr. Arnaud Kurze, Assistant Professor of Justice Studies, participated at the Cres Summer School on Transitional Justice and the Politics of Memory with several Montclair students. (The Montclair Magazine featured the 2015 trip in its fall issue).

Pavlakovic

Dr. Pavlakovic lecturing on a digital humanities project called FRAMNAT, looking at memory politics and commemoration in the Balkans.

As a Balkan scholar, Dr. Pavlakovic explained that commemorations and other political rituals are key components of a nation’s cultural memory, critically influencing the construction and reinforcement of ideological, ethnic, economic, sexual, and other identities. The Yugoslav successor states experienced three major wars, numerous territorial changes, and experiments with political systems from parliamentary democracy and monarchism to fascist dictatorship and state socialism in the twentieth century. The contested histories of World War Two and the still-living memories of the war in the 1990s permeate both domestic and foreign politics, and the ongoing manipulation of these traumas make transitional justice initiatives even more crucial for creating long-term stability.  The wars of the 20th century, with their heroes and victims, play a central role in the framing of the various post-Yugoslav nationhoods. Within this culture of war, regional reconciliation (and at times even basic cooperation) is nearly impossible to achieve.

Dr. Pavlakovic's Framing the Nation (FRAMNAT) project, which is financed by Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ), analyzes both top-down and bottom-up strategies of forming collective identities and creating a nation-building and nation-consolidating narrative through commemorative practices. The objective is to explore the challenges facing transitional justice initiatives in the Yugoslav successor states, and assess how commemorations of war can hinder or contribute to reconciliation efforts through some specific case studies.

 

FRAMNAT

Data set based on digitized newspaper articles for a commemoration site in Bleiburg, Austria.

During the workshop at Montclair, the focus lay on outlining the methodologies used for the FRAMNAT project, and explore more generally the question of new developments in digital humanities that can be applied to memory studies. Furthermore, participants seized the opportunity to discuss potential cooperation between scholars developing a digital humanities program at the University of Rijeka and the digital methods initiative at Montclair State University for future projects and exchanges.

Click here for a flyer of the event.