Conference Agenda

Digital Arts and Humanities With and For Society: Building Infrastructures of Engagement

The British mid-century poet WH Auden, in an oft-quoted line, wrote of the death of the Irish poet, dramatist, theatre producer, and politician, WB Yeats, that ‘poetry makes nothing happen’. Later in the stanza, he qualifies what he means by it makes nothing happen, indicating that it is enough that ‘it survives’. Late in life Yeats himself pondered ‘Did that play of mine send out / Certain men the English shot?’ The play was ‘Cathleen ni Houlihan’, and Yeats was right to ask if it played a role in encouraging irish men to rebel against British rule in the 1916 Easter Rising. Through the work of literary researchers in recent decades, the play’s authorship is now widely attributed to his long-time collaborator, Lady Gregory.

The arts and humanities survive: they are re-interpreted and re-imagined. Within our stories and histories, within our artworks and music, we see ourselves, our societies, and our pasts, both personal and communal. The large-scale digital mediation of this past, and the capturing of the digital present, is a central research concern of those attending the 2026 DARIAH Annual Event.

The theme of this conference posits that it is not only the creation of this digital record which is important, but how we create it, with and for whom. If poetry makes something happen by its survival: then we, as a community, have a commitment to not only participate in its survival, but to its flourishing.

This panel will explore how the digital has created a new public sphere: how researchers, projects, professionals, and institutions have built into their digital scholarship new dialogues with and for the public. It will focus on connectivity: how the digital can foster public humanities and engaged research, and the value and rewards of nurturing generosity, participation and shared creativity in the digital arts, heritage and humanities.