Final Call for Participation

DHASA Conference and RAIL workshop 2025 https://dh2025.digitalhumanities.org.za https://sadilar.org/en/rail-2025/

DHASA conference dates: 11 November 2025-14 November 2025 RAIL workshop date: 10 November 2025 Conference venue: CSIR ICC, Pretoria, South Africa

Registration: https://dh2025.digitalhumanities.org.za/registration/

DHASA CONFERENCE

Theme: The role of humanities in digital humanities and artificial intelligence

The Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) is pleased to announce its fifth conference, focusing on the theme The role of humanities in digital humanities and artificial intelligence. In a region where the field of Digital Humanities is still relatively underdeveloped, this conference aims to address this gap and foster growth and collaboration in the field. The conference offers an opportunity for researchers interested in showcasing their work in the broad field of Digital Humanities to come together. By doing so, the conference provides a comprehensive overview of the current state-of- the-art in Digital Humanities, particularly within the Southern Africa region. As such, we welcome submissions related to Digital Humanities research conducted by individuals from Southern Africa or research focused on the geographical area of Southern Africa in the broad sense.

Furthermore, the conference serves as a platform for information sharing and networking among researchers passionate about Digital Humanities. By bringing together experts working on Digital Humanities in Southern Africa or with a focus on Southern Africa, we aim to promote collaboration and facilitate further research in this dynamic field. In addition to the main conference, affiliated workshops and tutorials will be organised, providing researchers with valuable insights into novel technologies and tools. These supplementary events are designed for researchers interested in specific aspects of Digital Humanities or seeking practical information to enter or advance their knowledge in the field.

The DHASA conference welcomes interdisciplinary contributions from researchers in various domains of Digital Humanities, including, but not limited to, language, literature, visual art, performance and theatre studies, media studies, music, history, sociology, psychology, language technologies, library studies, philosophy, methodologies, software and computation, AI, and more. Our goal is to cultivate an inclusive scientific community of practice within Digital Humanities.

RAIL WORKSHOP

Theme: Language resources in the age of large language models

The sixth Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL) workshop will be co-located with the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) 2025 conference at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria, South Africa, on 10 November 2025. The RAIL workshop is an interdisciplinary platform for researchers working on African indigenous languages resources such as natural languages processing (NLP) tools, Human Language Technologies (HLT), data collections, and annotations. This workshop aims to foster a scientific community of practice that focuses on computational linguistic tools and data that are designed for or applied to the indigenous languages of Africa.

Many African languages are under-resourced while only a few are considered to be somewhat better resourced. These languages often share interesting properties such as writing systems, making them different from most high-resourced languages. From a computational perspective, these languages lack enough corpora to undertake high level development of NLP and HLT tools, which in turn impedes the development of African languages in these areas. During previous workshops, it was noted that the problems and solutions presented were not only applicable to African languages but were also relevant to many other low-resource languages across the world. Because these languages share similar challenges, this workshop provides researchers with opportunities to work collaboratively on issues of language resource development and learn from each other.

The RAIL workshop has several aims. First, the workshop brings together researchers who work on African indigenous languages, forming a community of practice for people working on indigenous languages. Second, the workshop aims to reveal currently unknown or unpublished existing resources (corpora, NLP tools, and applications), resulting in a better overview of the current state-of-the-art, and also allows for discussions on novel, desired resources for future research in this area. Third, it enhances sharing of knowledge on the development of low-resource languages. Finally, it enables discussions on how to improve the quality as well as availability of the resources.

Organising Committees

DHASA conference

Aby Louw, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Franco Mak, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Franziska Pannach, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Ilana Wilken, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Johannes Sibeko, Nelson Mandela University Juan Steyn, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources Laurette Marais, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Marissa Griesel, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources Menno van Zaanen, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources Privolin Naidoo, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Sthembiso Mkhwanazi, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

RAIL workshop

Rooweither Mabuya, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources Muzi Matfunjwa, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources Mmasibidi Setaka, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources Menno van Zaanen, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources

-- Prof Menno van Zaanen menno.vanzaanen@nwu.ac.za Professor in Digital Humanities South African Centre for Digital Language Resources https://www.sadilar.org ________________________________ NWU PRIVACY STATEMENT: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html

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