Joris van Zundert appointed as professor by special appointment

Joris van Zundert of the Computational Literary Studies department at the Huygens Institute has been appointed Professor by Special Appointment in Computational Humanities at Maastricht University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences with effect from 1 September 2026. The appointment is for a term of five years. In his research, Van Zundert focuses on both the possibilities and limitations of computational methods for the humanities.

Digital information is on the rise

Literature and culture are increasingly being produced, disseminated, and discussed digitally. In addition to digitised historical sources, this includes, for example, e-books, online literature, and fan fiction. Readers’ responses and public discourse on literature are also increasingly taking place online, for instance on platforms such as Goodreads, BookTok and Instagram. Consequently, the volume of digital information available for scholars in the humanities to investigate is growing rapidly.

At the same time, the number of computational methods and techniques for such research is increasing. Natural language processing, computer vision, large language models, and other forms of artificial intelligence offer new possibilities to analyse large quantities of cultural sources. According to Van Zundert, the use of these techniques requires a critical and well-founded approach.

“Humanities scholars play an important critical role in the study of digital culture. However, humanities scholars often do not have a deep enough understanding of new digital technologies to offer well-founded criticism. It requires a great deal of technical insight to understand, in a genuine and non-naive way, the limitations of digital methods and the consequences that choices regarding data and technologies have for our research findings.”

Reliability and sustainability

In his research, Van Zundert combines computational methods with the study of cultural sources and their reception. In doing so, he also develops and investigates new methods. A key focus is the reliability and sustainability of digital research practices,particularly now that researchers are dealing with large volumes of data, misinformation, and AI-generated content.

As a professor by special appointment, Van Zundert will also apply this expertise in teaching. He aims to equip students and researchers to use computational methods critically, thereby strengthening the role of the humanities in an increasingly digital society.