About this Research Topic
The visual analysis and communication of cultural-historical data - whether of cultural collections, biographies, actor networks, or larger historical formations - has become an established and active field of research. Digitization efforts of archives, museums, libraries, heritage sites or other cultural-historical knowledge collections have made increasing volumes of data available, which have motivated numerous Digital Humanities initiatives to render an increasing number of local patches of a growing spatiotemporal “4D mirror world” visible with a panoply of projects. Beyond the use of “scientific visualization” methods - with their focus on material objects or geo-spatially structured data - the use of methods of data or information visualization has started to make temporal, relational, topological or typological structures in cultural history visible.
With this Research Topic we are calling for contributions which showcase, theorize, or discuss current and future work beyond a focus on (spatiotemporal) local case studies. While it will arguably take a while until cultural historians will operate within a trusted-upon relational framework of “big data of the past”, the time seems right to think ahead and envision methods and techniques to create bigger pictures of the past. This could include connections of local views and the linkage of local data collections and perspectives, interrelations of pictures with macro-historical storytelling, the contextualization of local topics, and the remediation of “grand narratives” for future visual reflections.
Submitted work and topics may include:
- visualization case studies exploring new dimensions of scale
- visualization of multiple cultural or historical data collections
- macro-historical data mining
- visualization challenges related to data linking and data harmonization
- integrating different types of data and working across multiple databases
- visualization of historical and cultural context
- state of the art surveys and reflections on future challenges
- theoretical and conceptual discussions
- intertwining micro & macro-analytical visualization methods
- integrating scientific visualization and information visualization perspectives
With this Research Topic we are calling for contributions which showcase, theorize, or discuss current and future work beyond a focus on (spatiotemporal) local case studies. While it will arguably take a while until cultural historians will operate within a trusted-upon relational framework of “big data of the past”, the time seems right to think ahead and envision methods and techniques to create bigger pictures of the past. This could include connections of local views and the linkage of local data collections and perspectives, interrelations of pictures with macro-historical storytelling, the contextualization of local topics, and the remediation of “grand narratives” for future visual reflections.
Submitted work and topics may include:
- visualization case studies exploring new dimensions of scale
- visualization of multiple cultural or historical data collections
- macro-historical data mining
- visualization challenges related to data linking and data harmonization
- integrating different types of data and working across multiple databases
- visualization of historical and cultural context
- state of the art surveys and reflections on future challenges
- theoretical and conceptual discussions
- intertwining micro & macro-analytical visualization methods
- integrating scientific visualization and information visualization perspectives
Keywords: visualization, cultural data, cultural history, cultural collections, digital humanities, digital history
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
