20 Dec 2022

Can artificial intelligence read medieval inquisition records?

ChatGPT, a state-of-the-art language model developed by OpenAI, has taken the Internet by storm and has generated quite a fuss also in the DISSINET team. First impressions of ChatGPT’s reaction to medieval Latin texts are astonishing.

12 Dec 2022

Data on witchcraft trials in the Czech lands published online

More on persons, places, charges, punishments, and material substances can be found in the the most comprehensive digital dataset of witchcraft trials in the Czech lands completed by Eva Brhelová, Veronika Praženková, Anna Bílková, Anna and David Zbíral.

2 Dec 2022

Reapproaching inquisition records

David Zbíral & Robert L. J. Shaw have published the most up-to-date summary of the rich debate on the uses of medieval inquisition records. In a last, substantial section, the article explains the core of DISSINET's research agenda.

4 Oct 2022

DISSINET Digital Humanities approach presented in a podcast

David Zbíral was invited to a podcast by the Centre of Early Medieval Studies to talk about digital humanities approch in the research of medieval dissident communities.

3 Oct 2022

Early Christian Baptisteries online

The most up-to-date geocoded dataset of 1,100+ Christian buildings from 3rd-12th century created with participation of DISSINET project now available online.

Structured data vs. contextual complexity of texts: An unnecessary dilemma?

David Zbíral and Robert Shaw briefly introduce the Computer-Assisted Semantic Text Modelling (CASTEMO), an approach to the human-controlled and data-driven transformation of texts to richly structured data, which was developed within DISSINET modelling of historical textual sources.

1 Jan 2022

The DISSINET team is now complete!

We are delighted to announce that, after two highly competitive hiring processes, DISSINET has gained two new members: Gideon Kotzé (computational linguist) and Larissa de Freitas Lyth (historian)

23 Dec 2021

Modelling German Waldensians’ social networks – thoughts of an associate researcher

BLOG: Reima Välimäki short report on researching Stettin Waldensians social networks and about his experience with the DISSINET data model.

1 Sep 2021

The new DISSINET team is up and running!

On 1 September 2021, the ERC Consolidator Grant-funded project “Networks of Dissent: Computational Modelling of Dissident and Inquisitorial Cultures in Medieval Europe” (DISSINET, 2021-2026) officially gets underway! The team is now constituted. Who’s aboard?

15 Aug 2021

Model the source first! Towards source modelling and source criticism 2.0

The project of computational historiography needs not only to adopt the modelling for representing the target phenomena but also to achieve a complex representation of the textual sources and its interpretive layers. To do the latter, we have developed an approach that we call “source modelling”.

20 Mar 2021

Interview with dr David Zbíral in Magazine M

Dr David Zbíral on religious dissidence, computational interdisciplinary history, and the award of an ERC Consolidator Grant.

1 Mar 2021

Historical Geocoding Assistant in SoftwareX

Historical Geocoding Assistant gains visibility through a publication in SoftwareX.

22 Feb 2021

Welcoming Reima Välimäki as a research associate

We are proud to welcome a cultural historian dr. Reima Välimäki as a DISSINET research associate.

9 Dec 2020

ERC Consolidator Grant awarded to Dr. Zbíral

Dr. Zbíral has been awarded the ERC Consolidator Grant for a five-year research project “Networks of Dissent: Computational Modelling of Dissident and Inquisitorial Cultures in Medieval Europe”.

8 Oct 2020

Dr Zbíral awarded the Rector’s Prize

Dr Zbíral has been awarded the 2020 Masaryk University Rector's Prize for an exceptional research outcome.

5 Oct 2020

ERGM & ALAAM Quick Reference Sheet

We have created a quick reference sheet for the statnet and MPNet
implementations of the ERGMs (Exponential Random Graph Model) and ALAAMs (Auto-Logistic Actor Attribute Model).