Reported by Rafli Izzuddin

With this year’s Conference on Digital Humanities and Environmental Sustainability (CoDHES) approaching, Binus’ Faculty of Humanities is holding a series of pre-conferences regarding various topics. The first of these was held on 12 June 2026 and was about the context, concepts, and possibilities of digital humanities.

The event began at 9 AM, taking place in the Kijang Campus’ Kijang Function Chamber (KFC), although online participants were also allowed. The main speaker for the event was Viola Lasmana, Ph.D from California State University, Long Beach, with BINUS’ own Irfan Rifai, Ph.D as moderator.

Lasmana’s presentation delved into the past, present, and future of digital humanities as she touched on many subjects ranging from the preservation of culture to the assignment of credit in research, as well as the construction of data centers to power AI without the people’s knowledge or vote.

After the presentation ended, the Q&A session began. One of the questions kicked off a small discussion as to whether the Indonesian word humaniora served as a sufficient translation of humanities and what it encompassed. The event officially ended a few minutes past 11 AM, leaving Muslim attendees enough time to head to Friday prayer and all attendees as a whole some things to reflect on.