DH. I am a researcher at the Institute of Literature, Folklore, and Arts of the University of Latvia (ILFA) and a PhD student at the University of Latvia. I work with digital humanities: I lead DH workshops and build digital tools and workflows for humanities researchers. My focus areas: textual data analysis and visualization, natural language processing, large language models and AI tools, Python programming, and digital corpus building.

LITERATURE & ART. Alternatively, I'm a part-time writer and author of 2 books – 1 award-winning book "Middle-class Problems" (2018), and 1 award-non-winning book "Existentialism" (2020). I'm also a part-time visual artist, working with painting and socio-political art.

TEACHING. Parallelly, I have twenty years experience of teaching at university level & different practical workshops on topics such as literature, philosophy, creative writing, mentorship in culture field, change management. My teaching method builds on addressing issues relevant to the audience, and engaging participants in group work, discussion, and practical tasks.

BEFORE. In the past, I have worked in culture policies in Latvia, I have developed some strategies, conducted some research, lobbied some change, and created some new laws and some new funding initiatives for creatives in Latvia.

VALUES. I used to think that it was unnecessary to talk about values, because values are obvious, after all. However, with time, I have realized that people are very different. So I will write down my values here. More →

COURAGE and EMPATHY – both, and precisely in combination. I consider it important that people have the courage to think for themselves, express their opinion, and stand up for what they believe in. But together with empathy for other people, and especially for those who think differently than they do, which is the most difficult.

CURIOSITY and EXPERIMENTATION – I like it when people are passionate about ideas, and they do what they are passionate about.

RESILIENCE and EXCELLENCE – I could mention only excellence, as that is the end result to strive for. But equally important is resilience in continuing to do, in order to reach the result.

COMMUNITY – I know that I would not have been able to achieve everything I have without the people around me and without community. Therefore, it is important for me to do work that is useful to a broader community.

WELLBEING – it is essential to me that I feel good and that people around me feel good. Without that, everything else doesn't work. And the greater someone's authority, the greater the responsibility to create an environment where everyone feels good.

WHAT NOW. I'm quite happy with my current work at ILFA, projects in arts and literature, and teaching. However, if you have some exciting projects in mind, feel free to e-mail me at haralds.matulis@gmail.com.

Haralds Matulis, in summer, contemplating artsy designs on the shirt and how to implement DH in education, all the while keeping up good standards of literary style and expression, in a friendly and inclusive manner.

Creative-Biography (pdf, in Latvian)