2024-2025 – Events Sponsored by Digital Medievalist

JULY 2024

International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds

Session 648 – Early Career Researcher in Digital Medieval Studies: A Round Table Discussion
Tuesday, 1 July 2024, 11.15-12.45

Organiser: Hannah Busch (Universität zu Köln)
Moderator: Hannah Busch (Universität zu Köln)
Participants: Elisa Cugliana (Universität zu Köln), Sebastian Dows-Miller (University of Oxford), Sebastian Gensicke (RWTH Aachen University), Philipp Schneider (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin), Suzette van Haaren (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), and Julia Pelosi-Thorpe (University of Pennsylvania).

As a relatively young and constantly emerging field, the Digital Humanities encompasses a large group of early-career researchers with different backgrounds and diverse career paths. Digital Medieval Studies as a subfield of DH is characterised by various disciplines as well as a high number of international collaborations and is populated by scholars with different educational backgrounds: from scholars trained as medievalists who implemented digital components only during their postgraduate studies to scholars who approached medieval studies through their technical skills. This round table discussion brings together early-career scholars from this domain on the border between traditional humanities research and DH to discuss the challenges and opportunities of their diverse career paths.

Session 1449 – Tools and Methods in Digital Medieval Studies: Past and Present – A Round Table Discussion
Wednesday, 3 July 2024, 19.00-20.00

Organiser: N. Kıvılcım Yavuz (University of Leeds)
Moderator: Lisa Fagin Davis (Medieval Academy of America)
Participants: Hannah Busch (Universität zu Köln), Delphine Demelas (Aberystwyth University), Tobias Hodel (Universität Bern), and Suzette van Haaren (Ruhr-Universität Bochum).

The field of medieval studies has undergone a transformative evolution due to advancements in digital tools and methods. This round table explores the convergence of past and present developments in this domain. Scholars are nowadays expected to harness digitised manuscripts, databases, and computational techniques to analyse and interpret medieval texts, artefacts, and cultures. These tools enable unprecedented access to primary sources and facilitate cross-disciplinary collaborations. Moreover, machine learning and data visualisation empower researchers to discern intricate patterns and trends within medieval data. At the same time, critical inquiries into methods and methodologies are key in order to identify biases and unfounded ways of interpretation. As the past and present intertwine, this round table considers developments in the field of digital medieval studies by bringing together users and creators of tools and methods, past and present.

MAY 2024

International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University

Session 12 — Medieval Digital Humanities: ‘A Workshop for the Perplexed’ (1)
Thursday 9th May: 10am-11.30am (EDT)  (Hybrid) 

Session 12 — Sangren Hall 2710

In this session, we will offer a series of ‘lightning talks’ about an array of Digital Humanities strategies and tools. The session is aimed at researchers who are curious about applying computer-based methodologies to their teaching and research. Come and join the conversation!

Presider: Kalani Craig (Indiana University Bloomington)

  1. Lisa Fagin Davis (Medieval Academy of America)
    • An Introduction to fragments and fragmentology
  2. Matthew Davis (University of British Columbia)
    • The Text Encoding Initiative’s (TEI’s) embedded transcription and the material text
  3. Helen Davies (University of Colorado Colorado Springs)
    • An overview of multi-spectral imaging
  4. Rachel Linn Shields (Saint Louis University)
    • Using LEAF (XML writer that allows you to create TEI documents), plus HTML, CSS, and a bit of JavaScript to create digital editions of Middle English poetry
  5. Patrick Murray-John (Northeastern University)
    • LOD, RDF and SPARQL
  6. John McEwan (Saint Louis University)
    • Seals and machine learning, using archival seal catalogue data to date archaeological seal matrices
  7. Celis Tittse (Utrecht University)
    • Vector distance analysis on a variety of sources e.g. 12th century Spanish liturgical calendars, iconographical descriptions of illuminations, and patristic manuscript metadata

Session 103 — Medieval Digital Humanities: ‘A Workshop for the Perplexed’ (2)
Thursday 9th May: 1.30pm-3pm (EDT)  (Virtual) 

NB: if you’re at Kalamazoo in person, then you may like to join others in Remote Participation Room: Sangren 4325 for this session

Presider: Suzette van Haaren (Ruhr–Univ. Bochum)

Speakers:

  • Hannah Barker (Arizona State University)
  • Kalani Craig (Indiana University Bloomington)
  • Laura Morreale (Independent Scholar)

Have a great project but struggling to figure out how to connect with the right peer reviewers and publishers? Three editorial-board members from different publishing venues will help you develop strategies for identifying publication venues (both traditional and experimental), help you navigate a variety of publication types and options, and build a sustainability plan for whatever publishing route you choose. We’ll start with a short overview of a variety of publishing options for medievalists, both digital and not, and then move to a small-group and one-on-one Q&A session in breakout rooms.

Our editors include folks from Digital Medievalist, the American Historical Review, Reviews in Digital Humanities, Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā, Middle Ages for Educators, the Digital Medieval Studies series from Arc Humanities Press, and a new section in Digital Philology, “Open Datasets for Medieval Studies”. 

Panelists have combined expertise in digital-humanities software development, computational analysis, sustainability planning and digital publishing, as well as more traditional publishing routes.

Hannah Barker is an associate professor of history at Arizona State University. She is the ancient/medieval representative on the editorial board of the American Historical Review and also serves on the editorial board of Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā, an open-access journal in medieval Middle East studies. She runs a pedagogical website Teaching Medieval Slavery and Captivity. She will talk about how medievalists with traditional article projects can decide where to submit them and give some tailored advice for medievalists interested in the AHR. Big journals like the AHR have different strengths and weaknesses than small journals like Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā; it’s not just a matter of presenting your article convincingly, but also choosing the right home for your project.

Kalani Craig is associate professor of history at Indiana University Bloomington. For the last 7 years, she has co-directed the Institute for Digital Arts & Humanities. She’s the digital-history representative on the editorial board of the American Historical Review and serves as a Reviews in the Classrooms editor for the born-digital journal Reviews in Digital Humanities. She will present new digital-media guidelines for the AHR, offer up her experience as an author at Digital Humanities Quarterly, note that projects less well-suited to traditional articles can be peer-reviewed as a project at Reviews in DH, and mention the Journal of Digital History’s very forward-looking technical affordances for folks with a technical-methods approach that needs full interaction.

Laura Morreale is a historian who researches late medieval Italian historiography, medieval French outside of France, and digital medieval studies. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Digital Medievalist, the founder and co-editor of the Digital Medieval Studies book series from Arc Humanities Press, and the project manager for the Princeton-based Middle Ages for Educators site. She will present Digital Medievalist generally as a venue for publishing articles on DH findings or methods, then offer up specific opportunities for publishing on Middle Ages for Educators (the Sweet 16 Competition), and in a special series in Digital Philology that aims to publish, review, and creatively reuse medieval datasets. She will also introduce the Digital Medieval Studies book series, which pairs project profiles with archiving methods to ensure the long-term impact of digital scholarly efforts.  

MARCH 2024

Digital Medieval Studies Institute (DMSI) 2024

Wednesday, 13 March 2024, University of Notre Dame, all day, in person

Sponsored by the University of Notre Dame, Digital Medievalist, and the Medieval Academy of America

As a collaborative effort between the University of Notre Dame, Digital Medievalist, and the Medieval Academy of America, a one-day, pre-conference workshop in digital scholarly methods will be held before the annual MAA meeting in March 2024. The event is tailored especially to medievalists, their sources, and their scholarly concerns and will feature established approaches in digital medieval studies. Five separate day-long workshops will be offered accompanied by two sessions of lightning talks, followed by a social hour:

Accessible Geospatial Tools for Mapping and Sharing Medieval Information (Matthew Sisk)

This workshop will cover the basics of geospatial data and how best to create maps using them. Focusing on geospatial and mapping tools that are low or no cost, the participants will work on analysis and sharing of spatial data for medieval sources.

Transcribing and Marking-up Medieval Texts (Dan Johnson)

This workshop will serve as a primer to text encoding, illuminating the challenges of representing pre-modern works digitally. Drawing on practices and standards developed in part by digital medievalists, participants will get a taste for transcribing and marking up text, annotations, and other paratextual elements using the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) Guidelines.

Working with Medieval Manuscripts or Art Historical Images using IIIF  (Caterina Agostini) 

This workshop will allow participants to explore medieval manuscripts or art historical images and find out more about the International Image Interoperability Framework community of scholars and practitioners. Participants will discover innovative techniques and master essential skills to view, compare, and annotate texts, illuminations, and fragments, whether as isolated components or within their original contexts.

Forensic and Digital Approaches to Fragmentology (David Gura, Scott Gwara)

This workshop aims to provide participants with the knowledge and tools to work with medieval manuscript fragments in forensic and digital capacities. Topics and applications include: analytical manuscript description, identification of contents and genres, theories of origin, biblioclasty, provenance research, and digital resources which may complement traditional paleographical and codicological methods. Each participant will work with a number of manuscript fragments in situ drawn from the collection of University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Library.

Introducing Medieval Liturgy: Tutorials for Students and Teachers (Cara Aspesi, Katie Bugyis, Margot Fassler, Kristina Kummerer Nicoll)

Hosted by Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute, Medieval Liturgy is a teaching website that aims to offer practical demonstrations of the skills and tools necessary to work with relevant manuscripts and fragments. It is fully linked to the Cantus Database. We will familiarize participants with the taxonomy of medieval liturgy that serves as the site plan and provide hands-on instruction in the use of our template to prepare teaching videos. Participants who are interested in developing courses at their home institutions for making videos for Medieval Liturgy will also get an opportunity to discuss their plans.

Final program is now available. For any queries, get in touch with organizers, Laura K. Morreale and N. Kıvılcım Yavuz.

FEBRUARY 2024

Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Sustainable Access in a Digital Age

Wednesday, 7 February 2024, 17.00-18.30 GMT (12.00-13.30 EST), online

Sponsored by Digital Medievalist; kindly hosted by the Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

The unprecedented interruption to digital services at the British Library has called into question our reliance on online systems to consult medieval manuscripts. In an unexpected twist, the cyber attack simultaneously put the physical manuscripts at the British Library out of reach also. This timely conversation will reflect on the current situation, offering perspectives on sustainability and how we might rethink our practices after this startling reminder of the ephemeral nature of the digital.

The discussion will be moderated by Laura K. Morreale, Editor-in-Chief of Digital Medievalist. Speakers include:

  • Benjamin Albritton, Curator of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts, and Curator for Classics, Stanford University Libraries
  • Stewart J. Brookes, Member of the Executive Board, Digital Medievalist; Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; and co-director of Models of Authority: Scottish Charters and the Emergence of Government, 1100-1250
  • Stephen G. Nichols, James M. Beall Professor Emeritus of French and Humanities, Johns Hopkins University
  • Suzanne Paul, Keeper of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts, Cambridge University Library
  • Dot Porter, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies Curator of Digital Humanities, University of Pennsylvania Libraries
  • Andrew Prescott, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Critical Studies, Glasgow University
  • Elaine Treharne, Roberta Bowman Denning Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies and of Comparative Literature, Senior Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Stanford University
  • Bridget Whearty, Associate Professor of English, General Literature and Rhetoric, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Binghamton University

All welcome and we look forward to seeing you there! Registration, via Eventbrite, required