introduced movie data as a valuable resource for digital humanities projects. One position paper
reflected on collaborative practices at the intersection of visualization and humanities research
and proposed with a set questions to help researchers involved in digital humanities projects
negotiating collaborative roles and project aims [8]. The keynote talk was given by Uta Hinrichs,
lecturer at the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews, who described her
concept of considering visualization in the digital humanities as “sandcastles” that, “in the
process of their construction, facilitate the exploration of research questions, and, in their final
stage, reflect detours and lessons learned”. She pointed out the value of visualization for digital
humanities research to triggering new hypotheses that can lead to changing research
perspectives requiring visualization re-design. The concluding audience-driven discussion
generated questions like “What is the role of the human in visualizations for digital humanities?”,
“How do we design visualizations to communicate data skepticism?” and “What can the
humanities community do to help developing theory and methods for improving visualization
literacy?” These remain to be addressed by researchers from both fields in the future.
[1] S. Jänicke, G. Franzini, M. F. Cheema, and G. Scheuermann, “Visual Text Analysis in Digital Humanities,” Computer Graphics
Forum, vol. 36, no. 6, 2016, pp. 226-250.
[2] M. El-Assady, V. Gold, M. John, T. Ertl, and D. A. Keim, “Visual Text Analytics in Context of Digital Humanities,” Workshop on
Visualization for the Digital Humanities (Vis4DH 16), 2016.
[3] J. Roberts, J. Mearman, P. Ritsos, H. Miles, A. Wilson, D. Perkins, J. Jackson, B. Tiddeman, F. Labrosse, B. Edwards, and R.
Karl, “Immersive Analytics and Deep Maps - the Next Big Thing for Cultural Heritage Archaeology,” Workshop on Visualization for the
Digital Humanities (Vis4DH 16), 2016.
[4] A. J. Bradley, H. Mehta, M. Hancock, and C. Collins, “Visualization, Digital Humanities, and the Problem of Instrumentalism,”
Workshop on Visualization for the Digital Humanities (Vis4DH 16), 2016.
[5] B. Schmidt, “A public exploratory data analysis of gender bias in teaching evaluations,” Workshop on Visualization for the Digital
Humanities (Vis4DH 16), 2016.
[6] C. D’Ignazio and L. Klein, “Feminist Data Visualization,” Workshop on Visualization for the Digital Humanities (Vis4DH 16), 2016.
[7] S. Jänicke, “Valuable Research for Visualization and Digital Humanities: A Balancing Act,” Workshop on Visualization for the
Digital Humanities (Vis4DH 16), 2016.
[8] U. Hinrichs, M. El-Assady, A. J. Bradley, S. Forlini, and C. Collins, “Risk the Drift! Stretching Disciplinary Boundaries through
Critical Collaborations between the Humanities and Visualization,” 2nd Workshop on Visualization for the Digital Humanities (Vis4DH
17), 2017.
3 The Vis4DH experiment
Overall the Vis4DH experiment has been a success, but not in the ways we originally thought it
would be. We say that because we were thinking initially of our work as inherently providing a
service to the humanities, as if any form of visualization intervention would provide added value
to their work, but the humanists had different ideas: they wanted visualizations that gave insight
into their research problems, not ours. This difference in perception speaks in part to the large
gap in epistemological outlook between the two fields, a gap between very different ways of
creating knowledge that at times led to misunderstanding and controversy. Some interactions
from our first two years have ranged from on-the-floor disagreements sparking outrage to some
genuinely interesting interchanges of ideas. The humanists, we came to realize, perceived that
we did not understand the traditions and complexities underlying their data; it was as if we were
trying to get them to adapt to our methodologies and vocabularies without likewise learning from
their processes and workflows. Even the style of delivery of the papers between humanists and
visualization people was different, the humanists often read papers prepared just for the event,
while the presentations from viz scholars used slides to describe the contents of the submissions.
Another difference was the expectation of debate after the paper was presented. Humanists use
debate as a way of building knowledge and they expect the opportunity for question and answer
periods at conferences. These debates can often get heated. While this was a surprise to the vis
community, it seemed quite normal for the humanists in the room. This type of engagement,
which is central to their practice, is often frowned upon in visualization. It took us two workshops
Visualization and the Digital Humanities: Moving Towards Stronger Collaborations 4