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Digital Humanities

9/17/21

William Robin (musicology) was awarded the Society for American Music’s Sight and Sound Subvention to help fund seasons two and three of his podcast, “Sound Expertise.” The critically-acclaimed podcast, which features interviews with important scholars in music studies about their research, has received more than 29,000 downloads to date. The first two seasons are available for free online, and the third will air in 2022.

4/16/21

By Jessica Weiss ’05 

$4.8 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will fund a new lab at the University of Maryland to facilitate research and scholarship at the intersection of race and technology, and to develop a pipeline program to introduce undergraduates and those in the local community to the field of Black digital studies. 

The Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab is part of a new multi-institutional project led in part by UMD Assistant Professor of Communication Catherine Knight Steele that seeks to work toward an “equitable digital future” through engaging in research on topics like racial inequality, disability justice and Black digital spaces.

The Mellon Foundation grant to the University of Michigan, which is leading the project, will create the Digital Inquiry, Speculation, Collaboration, & Optimism (DISCO) network, a collective of six scholars at institutions across the country.

Steele’s focus, Black digital studies, encompasses the ways that technology—both its possibilities and impediments it can create—impacts African Americans. 

“In this political climate and our post-COVID world, it’s exactly the time for a project like this,” said Steele, who is collaborating with Lisa Nakamura and Remi Yergeau of the University of Michigan, André Brock of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Rayvon Fouché of Purdue University and Stephanie Dinkins of SUNY Stony Brook University on the grant. 

As with the BCaT Lab, partners will leverage their areas of expertise to establish new research hubs, courses and more at their institutions, and will share best practices through monthly meetings. 

At UMD, the BCaT Lab will develop a program model to introduce undergraduates to digital research through workshops and coursework, help students carry out graduate research and create a mentoring network for students and faculty to navigate Black digital studies, focusing on collaboration across generations of researchers. 

“In addition to teaching how to do research in race and technology, the BCaT Lab will explore how to create an effective pipeline of people of color working in the field,” Steele said. “How do we create and sustain a network of scholars who have adequate support, quality instruction and access to mentoring and advising, to move the field in a productive new direction?” 

Eventually, Steele hopes to introduce students in Prince George’s County high schools to the field of Black digital studies and encourage future scholarship.

Steele was the founding director of the Andrew W. Mellon funded African American Digital Humanities (AADHUM) initiative at Maryland, which brings together the fields of African American studies and digital humanities in order to expand upon both fields, making the digital humanities more inclusive of African American history and culture while enriching African American studies research with new methods, archives and tools. 

Her forthcoming book, “Digital Black Feminism,” examines the relationship between Black women and technology over the centuries in the U.S. 

The BCaT Lab will be up and running in Fall 2021, working with undergraduate and graduate students and hosting events, Steele said. A postdoctoral fellow will begin in the lab next year.  

Wednesday, April 28, 2021 - 12:00 AM

NEH is accepting applications to support individual scholars pursuing humanities projects that require digital expression and digital publication.

2/1/21

Enslaved.org is a project that explores and reconstructs the lives of people who were enslaved, owners of enslaved people or took part in the slave trade. News4’s Pat Lawson Muse spoke with University of Maryland associate professor of history Daryle Williams, Ph.D.

 

 

Click below to view the full interview:

 

9/11/20

The University of Maryland has a new four-year undergraduate program that combines art with computer science to prepare students to design and develop immersive media content and tools.

The immersive media design (IMD) major is co-taught by art and computer science faculty with expertise in virtual and augmented reality, digital art, projected imagery, computer graphics, 3D modeling, and user interfaces spanning audio, visual and tactile platforms.

“The goal is to graduate students who can collaborate effectively across creative and technical boundaries, and will excel in their field, whether that’s in computing, health care, education, advertising, gaming or the visual and performing arts,” said Roger Eastman, a professor of the practice in computer science and inaugural director of the program.

The program kicked off this fall with one introductory course, with two more being offered in Spring 2021. 

IMD features two tracks. Innovative Coders, for students focused on computer science, offers a Bachelor of Science degree. Emerging Creatives, with coursework focused on digital art, offers a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Dani Feng, a sophomore in computer science intending to major in immersive media design, has her career sights set on the animation industry. Feng said that she dreams of designing digital tools for artists to better tell stories in broad styles. 

“I want to have the knowledge from both worlds, and be able to look at my work with both a technical eye and creative eye,” she said. 

The program is designed to be collaborative, with core digital art courses featuring small classes and extensive group project work, said Brandon Morse, an associate professor of art who helped develop the curriculum with Eastman.

Morse, a digital artist whose work has been showcased internationally, said that IMD students won’t need to look far for creative opportunities outside the classroom. The region has seen an explosion of immersive design opportunities in the past few years at venues like ARTECHOUSE and the REACH at the Kennedy Center.

IMD has a dedicated space in the A.V. Williams Building that is undergoing renovation. In addition, IMD faculty and students will use digital art labs and fabrication resources in the Parren J. Mitchell Art-Sociology Building, as well as a high-bay research lab in the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering.

“Our computing program is strong, interest in digital media is expanding dramatically, and our location next to government agencies and companies excited about new immersive technologies offer unprecedented internship and employment opportunities,” said Amitabh Varshney, professor and dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.

Varshney played a key role in establishing the new major, co-chairing a task force in 2016 and teaching the university’s first undergraduate course in virtual reality that same year.

The IMD program also bolsters the university’s standing as an arts-tech integrative campus, said Bonnie Thornton Dill, professor and dean of the College of Arts and Humanities.

“This new program, at the intersection of art and technology, is a tremendous opportunity for students to develop their abilities in innovative ways and to expand their creativity and career opportunities,” she said.

By Maria Herd

University of Maryland, College Park
Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 8:00 AM to Saturday, October 20, 2018 - 7:00 PM

Join the first national conference of the African American Digital Humanities Initiative at UMD.

The David C. Driskell Center, 1214 Cole Student Activities Building
Wednesday, March 14, 2018 - 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM

Join African American history and culture scholars in dialogue with emerging leaders in black digital studies.

0301 Hornbake Library
Thursday, March 08, 2018 - 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Join the Fembot Collective for a lecture on W.E.B. Du Bois and the politics of literary recovery.

McKeldin Library, Rooms 6103 and 6107
Friday, March 09, 2018 - 10:30 AM to Saturday, March 10, 2018 - 4:30 PM

Join the Fembot Collective and our partners for the 2018 Fembot Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon!

Lucille Maurer Library, 1126 Taliaferro Hall
Wednesday, October 04, 2017 - 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM

Join the first installment of AADHum's new conversation series on justice, technology and culture.

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