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Digital Humanities: New opportunities for humanities scholars from 2025!
From the winter semester of 2025/26, Saarland University will be offering a new minor in Digital Humanities in order to provide interdisciplinary training for humanities scholars.
Digital Humanities: New opportunities for humanities scholars from 2025!
A new minor subject entitled “Digital Humanities” will be introduced at Saarland University in the 2025/26 winter semester. The target group is particularly humanities scholars. This is about teaching interdisciplinary skills between the humanities, cultural sciences and computer sciences, which are becoming increasingly important. The introduction of this innovative range of courses is a response to the challenges that digitalization brings with it for these disciplines and is seen by the university as an important step towards improving career prospects in research and practice.
The program is structured and includes a common compulsory area, followed by five selectable areas of focus. The compulsory area includes an introduction to digital humanities as well as application-oriented courses in machine learning and web technologies. Particularly noteworthy is a practical project that enables students to transfer digital skills into their major subject. This corresponds to the trend that digital methods and technologies are increasingly being integrated into research and teaching in the humanities. [uni-saarland.de]
Focus of the course
The five specialization options for the minor are diverse. In the first specialization, **Digital Objects and Data**, students learn to collect, evaluate and visualize image and spatial data. They can also deal with the reconstruction of works of art and the mapping of language zones. The second specialization, **Text and Language**, focuses on corpus-based linguistics and digital literary studies.
The area of **History, Culture and Education** aims at the use of virtual reality, the digitization of historical archives and the use of database technologies. Other focal points such as **Music digital** integrate digitalization into the music world. This also includes the analysis of software and programming languages as well as reflections on media change in music. Finally, the fifteenth specialization **Cultural Reflection on Digitality** deals with critical discussions on digitalization and artificial intelligence, addressing both theoretical and applied ethics. [guides.clio-online.de]
The role of digital humanities in today's research
Digital humanities have evolved steadily since their emergence in the 1960s. The importance of this interdisciplinary field of work, which combines the humanities and computer science, has increased since the publication of the anthology “Companion to Digital Humanities” in 2004. Digital tools are increasingly being used to address research questions in the humanities. A particular focus is on networking research practices and integrating them into scientific infrastructures. [geistes-und-socialsciences-bmbf.de]
Digitalization has already significantly changed the landscape of the humanities by requiring new methodological skills. Historians and other humanities scholars face many new challenges that make it necessary to familiarize themselves with digital methods and sources. The large number of newly created professorships and other academic resources shows how seriously the discipline takes the challenges of digitalization.
In view of these developments, the introduction of the minor subject “Digital Humanities” at Saarland University is considered strategically important. The combination of the minor subject with every major subject in the Faculty of Humanities and the possibility of combining modules from different specializations offer students wide-ranging perspectives. The university is pursuing a goal that goes beyond academic training and is clearly aimed at recruiting qualified specialists in an increasingly digitalized world of work.