Gregor Pobezin Open Challenges in Traditional Biographical Research Novel Approaches to Biographical Research in InTaVia Target Group: A complex, heterogeneous audience, represented by 10 Personas The project InTaVia has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101004825. Interested? https://intavia.eu intavia@donau-uni.ac.at @projectintavia Problem: Challenges of Traditional Historiography Research • three sets of biographies • little overlap • very different focuses Emilia Curator Noah Tourist Guide Anne Collection Manager Luka GLAM Media Designer Johanna Digital Art Historian Elea Museum Education Specialist Leon Historian Caspar Casual User Helena Histroy Teacher Noel Research Librarian Free University Amsterdam Danube University Krems Slovenian Academy of Sciences & Arts Aalto University University of Southern Denmark Stuttgart University Fluxguide GesmbH University of Helsinki Sources of cultural history SI Biographies & cultural (hi)stories …E FI Object collections Europeana National prosopographical databases Digital object databases InTaVia knowledge graph several types of experts Narrative designs for in/tangible (hi)stories 1a) Search 1b) Create 3 1c) Curate 4 2))Analyse 3) Communicate AT NL 1 2 3 1) Data Curation Lab 2) Visual Analytics Studio 3) Storytelling Suite General public Own object data Oown biographical data Aim: The InTaVia Platform Austrian Center for DH & CH Linking and Visualizing Cultural Heritage Data for Humanities Research I Slovenian Academy of Sciences & Arts • Challenge of narrative texts. The world of (or rather in) a literary work is constructed linguistically. This applies to literary characters – but inevitably also to “real-life” protagonists insofar as they are literary characters. A reality within the literary world is not “real” in the general sense: once committed to the realm of the literary, it becomes a quasi-reality (Ingarden). • Accessibility of textual sources. Ever since the first word, or perhaps even a pictogram, was written, someone may have wondered: what was meant by that? Countless analyses of Homer's monumental epics and hymns show that textual subtleties have the capacity not only to amaze but also to confound. Since ancient times, questions have been raised (Aristotle, Poetics 1451b) as to whether the narrative text - a tool "adapted" to epic poems and mythological narratives - is a suitable vessel for historiographical treatises. From Plato's "proto-narratological" insights and Aristotle's skepticism about historiography to the modern coinage of the term non-narrative history the same thing has been observed: texts are tricky. • Doubts about knowledge exchange. Some of the world’s leading post-modern theorists (Derrida) expressed doubt in the possibility that texts can convey anything to readers – much less any real knowledge. / / Example: The case of Pier Paolo Vergerio InTaVia aims for an interoperable system that supports the work of CH experts with in/tangible data across Europe. It focuses on data integration, curation, creation, as well as visual analysis and communication, while critically reflecting sources, data, and methods. This will be achieved by: • an integrated data model for object data and biographical data • advanced NLP models for linguistic analysis of textual data in multiple languages from different time periods. • visualizations to provide multiple views on cultural objects and actors over time. Multiple cultural / historical activities