call for papers: History of Digital History between East and West

 call for papers: History of Digital History between East and West. Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), University of Luxemburg, 05.02.2026 - 06.02.2026, Deadline 29.05.2025

In histories of digital history, as in digital humanities in general, much emphasis has been placed on the two commonly recognized centers of the development of historical computing since the 1950s: the United States and Western Europe. As a result, crucial developments elsewhere have been overlooked, including in the Nordic countries as well as the Soviet Union and the various states of the Eastern bloc. The consequence of this omission is not merely a lack of knowledge about specific countries and a skewed understanding of digital history’s manifold early trajectories. It also creates epistemological blind spots regarding the political dimensions of the development of early historical computing and, given the latter’s networked nature within a general context of ‘East-West’ scholarly exchange in the Cold War period, obscures the transnational dimensions of the early history of digital history.

This workshop will address these blind spots by focusing attention on the question of how the local and the transnational intersected in the technology-inflected reshaping of historical research practices and how political backgrounds, contexts and constraints fed into this process. We therefore seek papers that focus on local case studies in a transnational ‘East-West’ context, as well as those that consider comparative perspectives. Papers that ask what resources are available to support research in this area are similarly welcome.

Our workshop also continues and expands upon work done at the conference Tracing the History of Digital History (October 2024, German Historical Institute, Paris).

Main themes

- Local case studies: pioneers, projects, groups, schools within a wider transnational and East-West context. How did individual scholars and pioneering research groups contribute to the emergence of digital history and quantitative methods in different national and institutional contexts? What types of projects and methodological innovations emerged from local research centers? To what extent did the adoption of digital and quantitative methods vary between different historiographical traditions, and how did pioneers navigate resistance or skepticism within their own academic communities? How were networks of scholars instrumental in the spread of quantitative and digital methods in history?

- Development of networks: social, material and semantic (events, conferences, workshops). What kind of knowledge, expertise and practical experiences were exchanged and circulated in the networks? Which topics, methods, technical expertise, code, programs? What did people learn from each other? What points of contestation emerged (for instance, different theoretical approaches to quantification)

- Political and ideological dimensions: What role did politics and varied ideological backgrounds play? How did this help or hinder contacts (both practically and in terms of ideologically-infused ideas about doing history, topics to research, justification, valorisation, etc). How can we move beyond simplistic East versus West, communist versus capitalist, binaries and allow for more insight into what happened inside and between countries, and inside ‘blocs’? Similarly, how to consider actors in their own right and not as mere representatives of the latter?

- Methodological debates. What were the key methodological debates in historical research? How were different theoretical perspectives – such as Marxism, social history, and other critical approaches – negotiated within these debates? To what extent did the use of quantitative methods shape and contribute to broader theoretical and methodological reflections in historical scholarship?

- Materialities: How did differences in material infrastructure (hardware and software) shape the development of historical computing in different geopolitical contexts? How did differing access to technology and computing resources affect the methodological and epistemological directions of digital history in various regions?

- Primary and secondary sources: What resources are already available in digital format for investigating the history of historical computing in the 1960s–70s — which types, where, and in what form? What materials remain accessible only in analogue format, and how does this shape research possibilities? How can we map materials in the institutional archives and repositories and those in private archives and personal collections? How can the analysis of historical sources shape current knowledge, reveal biases and gaps, and deepen our understanding of transnational connections in historical computing?

- Links and acceptance with the wider history profession: How was early digital history perceived by mainstream historians? What were the main points of resistance and acceptance? How did the early digital history community navigate disciplinary boundaries within the historical profession? How did the terminology used to describe digital history evolve in its early decades? What were the implications of changes in naming (e.g., “quantitative history”, “cliometrics”, “historiometrics”, etc.)? What were the methodological debates surrounding the use of computers in historical research, and how did they influence the status of digital history? How did political and ideological contexts shape the adoption and institutionalisation of digital history in different regions?

We plan to publish the papers of the workshop in a dedicated Open Access volume in the C²DH book series Studies in Digital History and Hermeneutics. This volume will have sections dedicated to local as well as thematic studies that engage comparative perspectives.

The conference will be held at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) at the University of Luxembourg. Accepted participants will be offered hotel accommodation for two nights on campus.

Submissions

Please send your abstract of maximum 400-600 words by 29 May 2025 to Gerben Zaagsma (gerben.zaagsma@uni.lu) or Marek Tamm (marek.tamm@tlu.ee). Please explain in your abstract to which theme(s) your contribution is linked. Notifications of acceptance will be sent in early July.

Timeline

Call for papers: early March 2025

Deadline for abstracts: 29 May 2025

Notification of acceptance: 4 July 2025

Workshop: 5-6 February 2026

Programme Committee

Gerben Zaagsma (University of Luxembourg)

Marek Tamm (Tallinn University)

Julianne Nyhan (Technische Universität Darmstadt)

Petri Paju (University of Turku)

Sune Bechmann Pedersen (Stockholm University)

Nadezhda Povroznik (Technische Universität Darmstadt)