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17 - The Holocaust and Digital Humanities

from Part III - Culture and Ideas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2025

By
Todd Samuel Presner
Edited by
Laura Jockusch  and
Devin O. Pendas
Laura Jockusch
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Devin O. Pendas
Affiliation:
Boston College
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Summary

The twenty-first century is a digital century, and the use of digital media and data-analyzing technology has become widespread and even trendy in the humanities. What does this mean for the legacy of the Holocaust? What are the advantages and challenges of digitalization in the context of Holocaust archives, for example with online access to videos of survivor testimony? Are there new strategies for representing or analyzing the Holocaust that draw on the techniques of digital humanities? This chapter explores the uses (and abuses) of digital technologies for both analyzing the history of the Holocaust and presenting that history to a public audience. It also considers the question of the post-survivor future, for example holograms of survivors, and what this says about “authenticity” and authority.

Keywords

HolocaustMemoryDigital HumanitiesArchivesTestimonyArtificial IntelligenceComputationTechnology
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 398 - 420
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

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