By Marcel Beentjes, student French language and culture Are you that family person who helps your grand parents or your uncle who doesn’t really know how a computer works? If that’s the case, you often see the difficulties they have when using a computer, smart phone or tablet. There’s a difference between the generations in how they are digitized. And that’s logical…

Pilot Episode This the pilot episode of our podcast titled ‘Digital Discussions’, in which we discuss topics about the digital, humanities, and digital humanities. In this episode, Cosima introduces a discussion about the advantages and disadvantage of the digitilization of humanities. In future episodes, we’re going to rotate the role of host that introduces a topic and a discussion around it with…
One of the benefits of the digital era is that the past is more and more accessible in digital applications. In this blog I want to illustrate this with some examples, mostly for the case of the city of Leiden. For my lecture on socio-economic history I have to write an article based on primary sources from the city-archive of Leiden. Leiden…
When someone asks you ¨Who are you?”, what do you think of? Do you think of your name? Do you think of the body you are in? Or do you think of your mind inside your body? Do you think of the place you hold amongst relationships such as friends, family, clubs, etc.? Do you think of your Facebook or Instagram profile,…

– Bhumika Gupta A few days ago, my grandmother came to visit me and I showed her the latest gadget in my collection, an Amazon Alexa Echo Dot. This nifty little device can do anything for you, from playing music, to fetching the news headlines, to even telling you jokes. My grandmother, a sixty-something-year-old lady, was amazed by this technology. She could…
Since the existence of image-based journalism and the overall rise in various media formats, we have become oversaturated with images. This in itself does not have to be viewed as a negative development in society. Much good has come from the advent of new media. People learn of different cultures and explore ever-changing forms of entertainment. With globalization working hand in hand…
Some people may have heard of the short-lived existence of Microsoft’s AI chatbot called ‘Tay,’ others may have completely missed the event. The latter would come as no surprise, given that Tay was released on March 23rd of 2016 and was taken down the very same day. This artificial intelligence chatter bot was published on Twitter and was designed as a 19-year…