I am presenting my research at the Global Digital Humanities Symposium held at Michigan State University (March 21-22, 2019). The Symposium will be livestreamed at go.cal.msu.edu/globaldh. So if you are interested in the phenomenon of humanities labs, please join my session today, on March 21, at 2.40pm (EDT time zone)!

Below, the abstract of my presentation, titled Mapping a History of the Humanities and Media Labs:
The last years can be called as a boom of laboratories in the humanities created as a physical space and as a ‘placeless’ project (virtual labs, lab podcasts) for a specific purpose and for a fixed period. The multiplication of labs has led to a state of emergency when it becomes significant to investigate their objectives and operation. Hence, I pose the following questions: What does a laboratory mean in the humanities? How did a laboratory grow from a physical workspace into an action taken around people and challenges? How did the transition occurred from the first experimental generation to the second wave of the humanities labs?

My goal is to present a lab history in the humanities, digital humanities, and media studies within a global context from the 1980s to 2018. The main part of my presentation is a map of laboratories established in the humanities and media studies around the world. Based on a survey and laboratories’ statements, I created an interactive map with labs’ descriptions and timeline to analyze the concept of the humanities lab from geographical and historical perspective.

It is vital to understand the phenomenon of laboratory in the humanities that entails significant changes in the research practices and scholarly communication. The humanities labs do not represent a unified structure but they are a cluster of various models which have their own architectures and practices. Hence, the humanities labs do not purely imitate the science lab but adapt this new structure for its own purposes and needs.