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Digital Humanities

The Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image celebrates 25 years
15th century illustration of a person atop a stone tower overseeing a landscape.

Illustration from “La Voie de Povreté ou de Richesse,” by Jacques Bruyant from the 15th century. (Image: Penn Libraries News)

The Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image celebrates 25 years

The Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image has spent the past 25 years digitizing collections from the Penn Libraries, partnering cultural institutions, and private collections.

From Penn Libraries

Archiving empire with religious studies’ Megan Robb
Three people stand in front of Cohen Hall

Professor Megan Robb (center) worked with a team of students including Michael Goerlitz (left) and Juliana Lu (right) to create a digital archive centered on Elizabeth Sharaf-un-Nisa, an 18th-century Mughal woman who cohabited with a European man working for the East India Company, bearing children, marrying him, and ultimately living out the remainder of her life in England. 

Archiving empire with religious studies’ Megan Robb

A long-unseen archive centered on an 18th-century Mughal woman will soon be publicly accessible, thanks to the work of religious studies professor Megan Robb of the School of Arts & Sciences and a team of Penn students.

Kristina García

Mapping the Mughal empire
Sand-colored historical city

The Bhakkar fort in modern-day Pakistan. (Image: Ramya Sreenivasan)

Mapping the Mughal empire

This summer, professor of South Asia studies Ramya Sreenivasan worked with four undergraduates to get behind the façade of the Mughal military conquest state, using GIS and deep mapping to ascertain how the empire was formed and maintained.

Kristina García

‘Living with the Sea’
Three woman stand behind museum objects

Ashleigh David and Erin Spicola frame Kia DaSilva as she talks about the mattang (navigational chart) in front of them. Students were able to access the objects to inform the exhibition planning process. (Pre-pandemic photo.)

‘Living with the Sea’

A student-led exhibition at the Penn Museum features objects from the rarely seen Oceanian collection.

Kristina García

Price Lab for Digital Humanities launches eight-episode podcast series
Three people

The Price Lab for Digital Humanities created an eight-episode podcast series featuring interviews by director Stewart Varner (right) with digital experts. Clay Colmon (left) of Online Learning spoke about Afrofuturism in an episode edited by May graduate and intern Kelcey Gibbons (center).

Price Lab for Digital Humanities launches eight-episode podcast series

The Price Lab for Digital Humanities created an eight-episode podcast series featuring interviews by managing director Stewart Varner and digital experts. Four paid student interns worked as editors on episodes, making it possible to complete the series in time for a summer release.
Engaging with the climate crisis, online
A hand holds a pen in front of an iceberg in the ocean

Work by Amy Balkin, artist-in-residence for the PPEH this year, is a part of the Making Sense gallery. (Image: Amy Balkin)

Engaging with the climate crisis, online

Across a quartet of digital platforms, including one for this week’s Climate Sensing and Data Storytelling convening, the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is encouraging public engagement and the pairing of environmental art and science on climate issues.

Katherine Unger Baillie

‘May the force be with you’ and other fan fiction favorites
An array of plastic Star Wars figurines

‘May the force be with you’ and other fan fiction favorites

Researchers have created a unique digital humanities tool to analyze the most popular phrases and character connections in fan fiction based on blockbuster film series, starting with “Star Wars,” “Lord of the Rings,” and “Harry Potter.”
An Inca ceremonial center, recreated in a digital landscape
group of students working on laptops around a table

An Inca ceremonial center, recreated in a digital landscape

Students use computer graphic technologies to bring historic sites to life as part of a summer research program and fall semester course that unites anthropology and computer science.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Gifts to Penn Libraries enrich Judaic scholarship and digital humanities
Historic ticket with words Academy of Music Hebrew Charity Ball Thursday February 6th, 1873 Ladies' Invitation printed on front.

Ticket for the annual Hebrew Charity Bal at the American Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Feb. 6, 1873. (Image: Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica

Gifts to Penn Libraries enrich Judaic scholarship and digital humanities

The gift includes collections of more than 11,000 items, totaling $12 million and covering four centuries of American Jewish history, and the world’s first endowed position in Judaica digital humanities.

Penn Today Staff

A deep dive into digital humanities at Penn
A group of people sitting around a rectangular wooden table on the bottom floor of a two-story room in a library adorned with books and busts.

Dot Porter’s Digital Surrogates course, seen here in Lea Library, was one of nine offered during the DReAM Lab. Topics ranged from text analysis to digital humanities in the classroom. (Photo: Sarah Milinski)

A deep dive into digital humanities at Penn

The weeklong DReAM Lab, put on by the Price Lab for Digital Humanities and the Penn Libraries, offered participants the chance to study a range of subjects, from text analysis to augmented reality and Afrofuturism.

Michele W. Berger