Blogging Humanities

»We in the humanities have to let go of the idea that print publications are the non plus ultra of academic communication. We need to be braver and more experimental.« This was just one of the takeaways from the conference put on by the German Historical Institute Paris in March 2012 for the launch of the blog portal de.hypotheses.org. The non-commercial site serves as a platform for German-language research in the humanities and social sciences. The conference raised important questions about the role of blogs in the humanities and the extent to which they are engendering a new research culture. A lot has happened since then. Hypotheses.org continues to grow. Blogs are popping up all over the place and trying to attract readership. And yet, particularly for academics in the humanities, the status of a blog entry remains unclear in terms of reputation and prestige.

The working group »Blogging Humanities« examined the pros and cons of this new scholarly practice, studied the origins of blogging, and seeked ways to harness the medium’s potential for research at the ZfL. The practical results of the group’s work feed into the ZfL's own blog.