DH Lecture Series
The DH lecture series is a collaboration between the Digital Lab at the University Library in Bergen, D-Lab at NTNU and the Norwegian Network for Digital Humanities and Cultural Orgainzation (DHKO). The lecture series addresses DH-related topics and gives researchers and others involved in DH projects or research the opportunity to share their experiences, successes and challenges related to the use of digital tools and/or methods.
Information about the lectures will be announced well in advance via the DHKO mailing list, and posted on the event calendar of the Digital Lab at UiB, where you can register to receive a Zoom link.
Do you have suggestions for topics you would like to hear more about, or are you working on something that you would like to share in a lecture? Do not hesitate to contact the organizers by e-mail.
DH Lectures Spring 2026
In the spring of 2026, you can attend digital DH lunches every last Thursday of the month at lunchtime from 11:30-12.00 on the following dates:
Follow the Digital Lab's calendar for more information.
January 2026
29.01.2026 - Exploring the Research Potential of Norway’s Web Archive
The National Library of Norway has preserved a vast digital footprint of the internet. Now, with the WEBDATA project, researchers will gain unprecedented access to explore and analyze this unique resource.
The talk will be held in Norwegian.
The WEBDATA project
Since the 1990s, the National Library of Norway (NB) has collected and preserved large amounts of content from the internet. This web archive is in demand among researchers and holds great potential for academic knowledge production. Through the WEBDATA project, a national research infrastructure is being developed that enables searching, exploring, and analyzing data from this archive.
Jon Tønnessen is an internet historian and researcher at NB. After presenting the main goals of the project, he will demonstrate a preliminary test platform for search and exploration. Tønnessen will also share insights from the work of mapping researchers’ needs. Participants are invited to contribute to this effort by answering a short survey, ensuring that the infrastructure provides maximum value for research communities.
The WEBDATA project partners are the National Library of Norway, the Norwegian Computing Center, the University of Oslo (LTG and Humit), and UiT The Arctic University of Norway. The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway.
Get more information and register here.
February 2026
26.02.2026 - Building Termportalen
In this Digital Humanities lunch talk (DH-lunch) Jan Ole Bangen gives a developer's perspective on interdisciplinary collaboration in building the national language infrastructure Termportalen.
The talk will be held in English.
Termportalen is Norway's national terminology infrastructure, providing a search portal at termportalen.no, tools, and a competence milieu for terminology management. Government-funded and part of the University of Bergen Library's Language Collections since 2021, it serves as the hub for Norwegian terminology work in collaboration with the Language Council of Norway.
Termportalen's work requires close collaboration between terminologists and developers. This talk examines this interdisciplinary collaboration through three ongoing discussions from a developer's point of view: project-based vs. product-focused organization and its implications for terminology infrastructure; the use of evidence-based prioritization to address domain loss in Norwegian specialized language; and the collaborative development of digital workflows for terminology work and quality control. Throughout, the importance of explicitly coordinating responsibilities and competencies emerges as a recurring theme.
Jan Ole Bangen works as a developer at the University of Bergen Library.
Get more information and register here.
March 2026
26.03.2026 - Unreal Ancestors – Reimagining History Through AI
In this Digital Humanities lunch talk (DH-lunch), Lina Harder examines how generative image systems produce convincing visions of history and why these images matter for research, teaching and public memory.
The talk will be held in English.
From horned Vikings to the misattributed “Let them eat cake”, popular culture has long shaped historical imagination. Now, widely available AI image generation tools enable users to create convincing portraits of long-dead dictators or fabricated images of persecuted groups and circulate them within seconds.
Recent studies show that AI-generated depictions of Neanderthals repeat outdated scientific models, and memorial institutions in Germany have raised concerns about fabricated Holocaust imagery online. In 2024, Google’s Gemini image generator also faced criticism for producing depictions of Nazis and Vikings portrayed as people of colour. These cases show how assumptions about race, gender, religion and political identity shape generative systems, and how platform policies and model training influence what appears as “history”.
Drawing on current research into AI, visual culture and regulation, the talk assesses both the risks and the critical potential of generative image tools. Used with care, such systems can also serve a teaching role, prompting students to question sources and examine how visual meaning is constructed.
Lina Harder is a PhD Fellow at the University of Bergen’s Center for Digital Narrative, where she studies how artificial intelligence simulates historical figures and reshapes cultural memory, education and storytelling. Combining practice-based research with a background in museum curation and communication, she builds and analyses AI-driven narrative systems to examine questions of bias, consent and ownership in the digital afterlife of the past.
Get more information and register here.
April 2026
30.04.2026 - Why Use Vision Language Models for Handwriting Recognition – A Holistic Approach
This DH lunch will be about fine-tuning or "training" of Vision Language Models (VL-models), or image-to-text language models
VLM is a kind of LLM’s, but with photo and video as main input not chat-dialog. That is why they are also referred to as Multimodal LLM. We have a project where we train the VL-model Qwen 3.0 VL in Norwegian hand writing from early 1900. The goal is to be able to transcribe the whole censusfrom 1920 including the residential part.
VL-modellane (Google Gemini, Qwen VL) is about to outcompete traditional OCR og HTR/HWR which are words and line-based. Training of VL-models is therefore different from, for example, Transkribus, trOCR and requires different types of datasets than for example Norhand at Nasjonalbiblioteket. VL-models «understands" entire pages and draws conclusions based on similar word patterns on the same page.
Arne Solli is an associate professor of history at the Department of Archaeology, History, Culture and Religious Studies (AHKR) at the University of Bergen. He has a professional background in historical demography, family and household history, and has later specialized in urban history, the history of epidemics and area and property history in the period 1500–1900. Arne leads, among other things, the UrbGIS project, a map portal for historical population and property data in Norwegian cities, and is engaged in applied digital humanities and historical Information Systems.
Get more information and register here.
May 2026
TBA
DH Lectures 2025
November 2025
27.11.2025 – Digital Reconstructions – Virtual Life for Lost Books
Åslaug Ommundsen presented the CODICUM project, exploring how medieval book fragments can be reconstructed virtually to illuminate Nordic book culture and scholarly networks between 1000 and 1500. More
October 2025
23.10.2025 – Digital collection of the Norwegian language from the runic inscriptions until 1814
Dag Trygve Truslew Haug presented “Norchron,” a diachronic corpus project building a digital text collection spanning from runic inscriptions to 1814. More
September 2025
25.09.2025 – What can literary travelogues tell us about 19th-century Norway?
PhD candidate Marit Sjelmo presented research using the Norwegian Travel Literature Corpus to examine depictions of Norway in 19th-century travel writing. More
May 2025
08.05.2025 – Predicting the Buried Past: Using Digital Tools in the Search for Hidden Graves in the Falstad Forest
Kristoffer Eliassen Grini presented digital and geophysical methods used to locate undocumented graves in the Falstad Forest, a protected memorial site linked to wartime executions. More
April 2025
10.04.2025 – How to streamline the process of cleaning and transforming data
This lecture introduced OpenRefine and demonstrated how it can address common data issues such as inconsistent formatting, duplicates, and incomplete entries. More
March 2025
13.03.2025 – Norway’s Forgotten Ballads – Digitizing a Cultural Heritage
Associate Professor Siv Gøril Brandtzæg discussed the digitisation of Norwegian skilling ballads and the creation of the first database dedicated to this material. More
February 2025
13.02.2025 – Four theses on algorithmic folklore
Gabriele de Seta introduced “algorithmic folklore,” reflecting on how algorithms shape creative production and digital culture in everyday life. More