About the Journal

Our scope includes computational linguistics, human language technologies and literary studies, digital arts, and media. Technology criticism, digital library studies, information, and archive studies, are some of the major fields. The list is by no means exhaustive.

We welcome all scholarly reflections within the broader gambit of the Global South, meaning we not only encourage contributions from the geographical location of Southern Africa but also those viewpoints that represent the issues and concerns of digital humanities from this regional and idea sphere.

The Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal of DHASA. Since its foundation in 2016, DHASA has become the official network of digital humanities scholars in Southern Africa. DHASA members come from a wide variety of fields in the humanities, social sciences, and computer sciences.

One of our key goals is to develop a ‘methodological commons’, “providing guidance in the development of standards and expertise to promote best practices in digital humanities teaching and research.” Another aim is to create a much-needed dialogue and critical reflection on digital humanities teaching and research to provide a voice and channel for debates on pertinent issues.

The DHASA Journal is an important initiative aimed at making the research output of our members and other interested scholars publicly available.

The journal is published yearly, where the proceedings of the bi-annual DHASA conference are published in the odd-numbered years (e.g. DHASA2021) and special thematic issues appear in the even-numbered years.

JDHASA has adopted a new publication schedule, ensuring a minimum of two regular issues per year. The journal aims to expedite the dissemination of scholarly articles, and as soon as the rigorous review process is completed, accepted articles will be promptly published. To enhance the accessibility and identification of published works, each article will receive a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI). The journal will adhere to specific cut-off dates for each issue: the 30th of June for the first issue of the year and the 31st of December for the second issue. Furthermore, JDHASA may also periodically announce calls for special issues, providing researchers with the opportunity to contribute to themed editions or address emerging topics within the field.

Previous Issues and Proceedings

Book of Abstracts of the Inaugural Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) 2017

Welcome to the first fully-fledged conference of the newly established Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA). We are proud to celebrate the launch of Digital Humanities in Southern Africa.

DHASA 2017 intends to bring together both National and Internationals scholars in the DH domain covering applicable topics in the Humanities and Social Sciences arenas. The topics could focus on DH within the African and Southern African contexts, as well as on any topic related to methodological or computational aspects in DH.

Topics include, but are not restricted to:
Language, Literature, Visual Art, Performance / Theatre Studies, Media Studies, Music, History, Sociology, Psychology, Language Technologies, Library Studies, Philosophy, Methodologies, Software / computation, and others.

The Conference takes place at one of the most prominent universities in Southern Africa, located within the picturesque Western Cape Province. It will attract high-level academic discussions and combine that with the collegial sharing of experiences and insights in the serene, beautiful town of Stellenbosch.

Conference Activities
The activities include a two-day pre-conference program comprising of workshops and tutorials (17 & 18 January 2017), followed by two days (19 & 20 January 2017) of peer-reviewed oral and poster presentations. Due to limited space, conference attendance numbers cannot exceed 220 delegates. It is therefore important to respond as early as possible by registering for the event.

We look forward to the first official DHASA conference and the wealth of academic minds who will join us in Stellenbosch.

Proceedings of the International Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) 2019

The 2nd International Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) with a focus on African Digital Humanities took place from 25 – 29 March 2019 at the University of Pretoria.

The intention of DHASA 2019 is to bring together both National and Internationals scholars in the DH domain covering applicable topics in the Humanities and Social Sciences arenas. The focus was on DH within the African and Southern African contexts, as well as on any topic related to methodological or computational aspects in DH.

Topics included, but were not restricted to:
Language, Literature, Visual Art, Performance / Theatre Studies, Media Studies, Music, History, Sociology, Psychology, Language Technologies, Library Studies, Philosophy, Methodologies, Software/computation, and more.

The Proceedings of the 2019 International Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) are available at this link: https://upjournals.up.ac.za/index.php/dhasa/issue/view/283/24

Proceedings of the International Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) 2021

The Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) organized its third conference with the theme “Digitally Human, Artificially Intelligent”. The field of Digital Humanities is currently still rather underdeveloped in Southern Africa. Hence, this conference has several aims. First, to bring together researchers who are interested in showcasing their research from the broad field of Digital Humanities. By doing so, this conference provides an overview of the current state-of-the-art of Digital Humanities, especially in the Southern Africa region. This includes Digital Humanities research by people from Southern Africa or research related to the geographical area of Southern Africa.

Second, the conference allows for information sharing among researchers interested in Digital Humanities as well as network building. By bringing together researchers working on Digital Humanities from Southern Africa or on Southern Africa, we hope to boost collaboration and research in this field.

Third, affiliated workshops and tutorials provide information for researchers to learn about novel technologies and tools. These related events are aimed at researchers interested in the field of Digital Humanities, to focus on specific aspects of Digital Humanities or to provide practical information for researchers to move into the field or advance their knowledge in the field.

The DHASA conference is an interdisciplinary platform for researchers working on all areas of Digital Humanities (including, but not limited to language, literature, visual art, performance and theatre studies, media studies, music, history, sociology, psychology, language technologies, library studies, philosophy, methodologies, software and computation, etc.). It aims to create the conditions for the emergence of a scientific Digital Humanities community of practice.

Here is a link to the proceedings of the DHASA 2021 conference: https://upjournals.up.ac.za/index.php/dhasa/issue/view/284/27

Suggested topics included the following:

  • Humanities research enabled through digital media, artificial intelligence or machine learning, software studies, mapping and geographic information systems, or information design and modelling;
  • Social, institutional, global, gender, multilingual, and multicultural aspects of digital humanities including digital feminisms, digital indigenous studies, digital cultural and ethnic studies, digital black studies, digital queer studies;
  • Theoretical, epistemological, historical, or related aspects and interpretations of digital humanities practice and theory;
  • Computer applications in literary, linguistic, cultural, archaeological, and historical studies, including public humanities and interdisciplinary aspects of modern scholarship;
  • Computational textual studies, including quantitative stylistics, stylometry, authorship attribution, text mining, etc.;
  • Emerging technologies such as physical computing, single-board computers, minimal computing, wearable devices, and haptic technologies applied to humanities research;
  • Digital cultural studies, hacker culture, networked communities, digital divides, digital activism, open/libre networks and software, etc.;
  • Digital humanities in pedagogy and academic curricula;
  • Critical infrastructure studies, critical software studies, media archaeology, eco-criticism, etc., as they intersect with the digital humanities; and
  • Any other theme pertaining to the digital humanities.

Additionally, the topics below that were specifically related to the theme of the conference were requested:

  • AI and decolonisation, AI as a new form of colonisation, algorithmic bias;
  • AI and Anthropocene, discourse of extinction, reverse-engineer-extinction via AI;
  • AI and human-technology interactions (androids, cyborgs, robots, posthumanism), AI and digital labour, data extraction, knowledge magnification,  AI and facial recognition;
  • AI-driven art, impact of AI-art on art, (ontological) relation between art and AI, questions of (computational) creativity, intelligence and perception, digital arts (including architecture, music, film, theatre, new media, digital games, and electronic literature), purposes of art;
  • Histories and materialities of AI, telling better stories about AI, imagining better ways of living with AI;
  • Superintelligence, ‘so-called’ intelligence, another intelligence, artificial unintelligence, adversarial intelligence.