As the general editors of the DH Benelux Journal, we are proud to present our trilateral Digital Humanities research community with the fourth volume of this Open Access journal. As in previous years, authors of accepted conference abstracts were invited to submit full versions of their papers, which were then subjected to a stringent peer reviewing process. The resulting volume includes research presented at the eighth DH Benelux conference. The theme of the conference was ‘The Humanities in a Digital World,’ and took place on 2-4 June 2021. In this volume’s Introduction by our guest editors Lorella Viola, Jelena Prokic, Antske Fokkens and Tommaso Caselli, this theme and the individual contributions in the volume are described in more detail.

As our guest editor also explain in their Introduction, COVID-19 obliged DH Benelux 2021 to become our second DH Benelux conference to take place fully online – despite the organisers’ significant efforts. We know that organizing a conference like DH Benelux is a great and challenging undertaking in itself, and doubly so when unforeseen circumstances necessitate organizers to pivot quickly and change direction. That is why we would also like to give special thanks to the local organizers for all the hard work they did to make DH Benelux 2021 possible. Thankfully, they could count on an enthusiastic, versatile, and understanding community that took these changes in stride, determined to help make DH Benelux 2021 another great success. Last but not least, we would also like to thank our guest editors – delegates from the programme and organizing committees of DH Benelux 2021 – for all their help putting this volume together!

As we are currently receiving and processing submissions for the fifth volume of our Journal (based on the presentations of the 2022 conference in Luxembourg), and look forward to our next gathering in Brussels, we hope you enjoy reading this volume’s fascinating contributions – and that they may inspire lively academic discussion in the DH Benelux community, and beyond!

1970-01-01
Amsterdam, Borås, and Leuven

Wout Dillen
Margherita Fantoli
Marijn Koolen
Marieke van Erp