Digital History – Doing Cultural Heritage
When: 28. September - 1. October 2026
Where: Salzburg (AT)
Gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, Rudolfskai 42, A-5020 Salzburg, Österreich
UNIPARK Nonntal, Erzabt-Klotz-Straße 1, A-5020 Salzburg, Österreich
Registration: You can register for the Digital History 2026 conference via the conference website .
Language: German.
Organisation: This conference is organised by the University of Salzburg :
Christina Antenhofer (FB Geschichte, Abteilung Mittelalterliche Geschichte und Historische Hilfswissenschaften), Laurence Cole (FB Geschichte, Abteilung Österreichische Geschichte), Karoline Döring (FB Geschichte, Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Mittelalter und Frühneuzeit), Livia Heilingbrunner (FB Geschichte, E-Journal historioPLUS), Christoph Kühberger (FB Geschichte, Abteilung Geschichts- und Politikdidaktik/Public History), Robert Obermair (FB Geschichte, Abteilung Geschichts- und Politikdidaktik/Public History), Drew Thomas (FB Geschichte, Neuere Geschichte)
DigiHist2026 websiteConference Theme
In recent years, digital approaches in the historical sciences have attracted particular attention in the fields of digital editions and text processing. By contrast, discussions about digital access to material sources and the broader domain of cultural heritage have been comparatively underrepresented. At the University of Salzburg, research on material culture in connection with digital tools and methods has a long tradition. Accordingly, the 2026 Digital History Conference places cultural heritage at its center and embeds it within a broad discussion of “Doing Cultural Heritage.” This also entails involving stakeholders beyond universities—such as museums, archives, heritage institutions, and memorial initiatives. These cultural and memory institutions are undergoing profound transformations through digitization, which require not only practical but also theoretical reflection. The Salzburg conference will thus focus on three major thematic areas: Documenting, Mediating, and Remembering.
Documenting historical records:
The first thematic area focuses on the documentation of historical holdings, encompassing the full range of historical sources. Particular attention is paid to the materiality of sources and to questions of how they can be digitally represented, semantically annotated, and analyzed in an appropriate way. This includes both text-bearing artifacts and material or visual sources such as buildings, landscapes, and much more. Approaches from ancient DNA research—i.e., the study of the DNA of historical humans, animals, plants, and microorganisms—may also be addressed. The goal is to explore diverse digital approaches, including digitization for improved scholarly access, transformation into digital 3D objects, digital offerings as new narrative layers or exhibition spaces, and the digital processing of historical sources. Possible topics include:
- Securing and cataloguing archival and museum holdings
- Digitally documenting material culture, images, and textual sources in their materiality
- Digital collections and born-digital objects
- Postcolonial debates in the context of archival and museum collections
- Research on ancient DNA and its implications for the historical sciences
Mediating cultural knowledge:
The use of digital mediation tools (including AI) has become an increasingly prominent research field in history education and public history. This includes not only the study of digital media objects (apps, VR, games, databases, etc.) as vehicles for learning and conveying history, but also empirical investigations into user practices and processes of reception in order to critically accompany the appropriation of digital culture. This second thematic area therefore aims to create space for research into digital mediation environments within the heritage sector—discussing both theoretical approaches and pragmatic implementations. At the same time, it seeks to strengthen empirical reception studies concerning engagement with the digital and to focus on the associated challenges. Using concrete case studies of “Doing Cultural Heritage,” mediation strategies employing digital tools are to be explored from multiple perspectives, foregrounding not only the technical dimension of historical offerings but also their historiographical framing and individual reception. Possible topics include:
- The use of AI or VR in different mediation contexts
- Historical learning in, through, and with digital media (production and reception)
- AI as both a point of departure and a site of reflection for history
- Digital Public History between digital hype, meaningful innovation, and commercial trivialization
- Empirical reception studies of digital mediation offerings
- VR as museum staging or game-based “reality”
- Digital Humanities tools for researching mediation processes
Remembering (im)material pasts:
Commemorative and memory culture in the 21st century can no longer escape the influence of digitization. Since the Instagram project @ichbinsophiescholl , debates about a contemporary and appropriate culture of remembrance in digital spaces have entered the academic mainstream. The range of activities is as diverse as memory culture itself. This third thematic area opens the conference to a wide variety of questions in this field. Possible topics include:
- Digital visualization of commemorative landscapes
- Digitally presented eyewitness testimony (e.g., holograms of Holocaust survivors)
- Digital mediation formats at memorial sites
- Digital games and representations of the past
- Digital archives and digitized sources as opportunities for a living culture of remembrance
- Ethical questions regarding the use of social media in commemorative practices
Program
The conference program can be viewed at the following link:
Program DigiHist2026Contact
Tagungsbüro
Fachbereich Geschichte
Rudolfskai 42
A-5020 Salzburg
Österreich
Tel.: +43 (0) 662-8044-4735 (Dr. Drew THOMAS)
Tel.: +43 (0) 662-8044-4730 (Dr. Livia Heilingbrunner, BA MA)
E-Mail: digihist2026@plus.ac.at