Data collection and interpretation are necessary parts of any kind of scholarly research. The extent and character of the data collected by a researcher has always been dependent on the types of tools and corpora known to the researcher. With the advent of technological advancements in the fields of data science, humanities scholars now have the means to gather and discover data at a scope and rate that was unthinkable before the advent of computers. However, while humanities scholars are slowly learning and integrating these new tools in their research, they must also confront the question of how to interpret the large amount of data that they gained sudden access to. In this Discovery talk, Dr. Celik (research fellow at Harvard Law School) will address this question in relation to a variety of case studies within the digital study of Islamic history and law.

The Presenter:

Yusuf Celik’s research focuses on philosophical hermeneutics, posthumanism, and the Digital Humanities. Before receiving his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2020, he was active in the field of software engineering, where he worked for high-profile clients as lead developer and consultant. Yusuf is the project lead for SHARIAsource at the Harvard Law School, where he develops tools and platforms that leverage technologies such as Deep Learning to derive quantifiable insights from historical and legal texts. As of December 2022 he will start a new position as an assistant professor in Digital Humanities and Islam at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.