Lecture by Fabian Pittroff on “Data Spirits: On the Fabrication of Geist in the Humanities”

Join us this Thursday, November 14th, from 14-16 hrs (German time) for the second RUSTLab lecture of this winter term. Fabian Pittroff will present his work on “Data Spirits: On the Fabrication of Geist in the Humanities”.

Work Together Pittroff V2

Even within the humanities, disciplines speak and work differently. There is a considerable variety of methodologies and objectives, which makes collaboration tricky. Data is an integral part of these collaborations, well beyond what is called digital humanities. Even if researchers do not use the term, working with data is as essential as it is mundane. This infrastructural data layer is not just another problem, but a starting point for tracing ways of doing research in the humanities. The talk draws on an ethnography embedded in a long-term research institution consisting of dozens of projects, most of them in the humanities. Here, the notion of data spirits refers to the multiple ways, in which these researchers create and mobilize data through intelligent procedures to generate what they are looking for: spirited ideas.

Ratdesvilles Dithered

Fabian Pittroff is a postdoctoral researcher in the CRC 1567 Virtual Lifewords at the Ruhr University Bochum. Fabian’s interests are data infrastructures in humanities research, ethnography of the virtual, and sociology of intelligences.


Location: on campus (MB 4/165) and Zoom
Zoom Link
PW: RUSTlab

You will find additional resources and information on this term’s guiding theme Fabrication here on our website.