New head of the Digital Humanities Lab“These encounters promote new ideas, strengthen understanding, and enable mutual learning.”

4 August 2025, by Zsuzsa Becker

Photo: DH-Lab

Since July 2025, Dr. Jan Horstmann has been the new head of the Digital Humanities Lab in the Faculty of Humanities. In this interview, he talks about upcoming projects and his plans for the further development of digital humanities at the faculty.

Previously, you were head of the Service Center for Digital Humanities at the University of Münster. What made you come to Hamburg?

Foto: privat

Hamburg is like homecoming for me, as I completed my master's degree and doctorate here and then coordinated the forTEXT project as a postdoc. Even during the five years I didn't live here, my heart never stopped beating for this wonderful city. But I also find the return to a faculty promising in terms of content. The SCDH Münster advises and supports research projects from all disciplines in the humanities with its team of research software engineers. It is located at the University and State Library, a central infrastructure facility that focuses on long-term solutions. These institutions carry out very challenging, fundamentally important work that is often underappreciated, but without which much of the research would not be possible. At the same time, it is not possible for employees at these institutions to develop their own research priorities or independently apply for third-party funding projects. So I am now returning to Hamburg with a newfound respect for infrastructure work and with ideas for developing my own research profile more strongly.

The Digital Humanities Lab supports interdisciplinary networking in the field of digital humanities at UHH. How would you like to promote this interdisciplinary collaboration and further expand the infrastructure of the DH Lab?

In many years of consulting work, I have learned how important it is to find a common language. In the digitally transformed humanities, disciplines inevitably move closer together and engage in exchange. Reservations often play a role in this process, and misunderstandings can quickly arise if the communicative step of mutual understanding is skipped. Of course, collaboration with people from the disciplines of information science and computer science is central. However, it is also important to contribute one's own expertise in the humanities (computer science calls this “domain expertise,” and it is indispensable). These encounters often give rise to new ideas for joint research projects, strengthen mutual understanding, and provide opportunities to learn a lot from each other. The Digital Humanities Lab at UHH seems to me to be an ideal place for structuring such encounters and learning from each other. I would like to maintain established formats such as the workshops offered and pay greater attention to specifically addressing the various target groups of students, teachers, and researchers.

As part of its digital strategy, the faculty has established a Digital Office Humanities, which brings together the DH Lab, IT GW, DL Office, and Media Center with their various areas of expertise under the same roof. How do you see your role within the DOH?

In this constellation, the Digital Humanities Lab has a dual function: it is a pillar of the DOH in its own right and is also responsible for networking between the four pillars mentioned above throughout the faculty. My role will therefore probably be primarily communicative and connective in nature.

Are there any specific initiatives or projects that you will focus on first?

First, I would like to familiarize myself with the local structures and get to know key people within them. I am not someone who imposes their own ideas on everything, come what may, but rather I want to develop formats that suit the local and personal requirements of the status groups involved. Nevertheless, some things are already certain: I will coordinate the events at the DH Lab, advise on projects, offer digital humanities seminars myself, and develop a DH certificate and a DH master's program.

What excites you about the idea of developing a Digital Humanities certificate and a new degree program?

I am delighted that such initiatives are emerging at more and more universities. As someone who started working in DH at UHH myself, I am thrilled that our university is now ready to anchor DH in teaching, thereby preparing young people for their professional lives and even producing new researchers. The combination of a certificate and a degree program seems pretty ideal to me, as it allows for different levels of commitment from interested students.

What events can faculty members look forward to at the DH Lab in the coming winter semester?

Here, I am jumping on the bandwagon, so to speak: Heike Zinsmeister will once again offer her workshop “AI, how does it work?” as well as an internal AI workshop for the early career researchers oft the Department of Protestant theology (yes, the lab can also be booked for internal workshops). Edyta Jurkiewicz-Rohrbacher will also once again offer her well-established Sketch Engine workshop. In addition, there will be a DH retreat during the lecture-free period for doctoral students of the Cluster of Excellence. I would also like to organize a guest lecture or two, as this format is ideal for supraregional networking.

Lastly, we're curious about what you're currently researching. Can you give us a peek into your current research projects?

From my time at SCDH, I am bringing with me the plan to develop a tool for annotating intertextual references. I would like to prepare a proposal for this in the coming months, as we have determined that it is not possible to accomplish this development on the side without financial and thus human resources. I am in contact with several intertextuality researchers in German-speaking countries, and the idea is to create a generic tool that can serve the needs of various research projects. In my theoretical and conceptual preliminary work, I quickly realized that intertextuality is a broad field. But that is precisely why I find it so exciting and interdisciplinary fruitful.

Of course, I also have other project ideas up my sleeve, but they are not yet ready to be discussed in a public interview. In any case, I am looking forward to exciting collaborations, productive encounters, new ideas, and joint research, teaching, and learning in the coming years.