Sorbian Digital Worlds: Explorations of Culture and Technology in the 21st Century

Contemporary culture is characterized by the ubiquity of digital technologies in all areas of life. Research addresses this fact by determining the specific characteristics of “digital cultures” on the one hand, and by describing the effects of digital technologies on cultural practice on the other hand. For Sorbian culture, such questions have not been addressed so far, although digitization has played a significant role here for years and a Sorbian digital culture has also emerged in the meantime.
The aim of the project is therefore to investigate the changes in Sorbian culture triggered by digital technology, and in doing so to contribute to the theorization of Sorbian digital culture. The project will focus, first, on the impact of digital technology on the way Sorbian culture is generated, conceptualized, and transmitted, and, second, on the various factors that shape the development of Sorbian digital content, software applications, and platforms. The project will combine theory building with empirical research in Lusatia and online research of Sorbian communities, networks, and platforms. Overall, the project will contribute to both the development of research on Sorbian digital culture and the ethical design of digitization projects.
The results will be published in a monograph. At the same time, the project is embedded in a habilitation project, which the researcher is pursuing at the Brandenburg University of Technology.