Sarah is a PhD candidate in the Joint Program in English & Education at the University of Michigan, where she is also a Graduate Student Research Assistant with the English Department Writing Program, a member of the Digital Accessible Futures Lab, and a Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative Fellow. She has taught Developmental, First-Year, and Upper-Level Writing courses at U-M and various community colleges and universities in Ann Arbor and Chicago. Her research interests center digital rhetoric, gender and discourse, and gaming studies, and her dissertation project explores how women (used inclusively) use multimodal discourse—grammatically, narratively, and visually—to navigate online gaming ecologies.
Fading Democracy
The Decline of Democracy and Its Challenges at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century
A Four-part Series of Online Panel Discussions
Fading Democracy is the title of a series of online discussions about the decline of democracy in Europe, the United States, and around the globe.
The series began in the spring of 2021, with an introductory session on a Wednesday in March and continued with two Friday talks in April and the last on a Friday in May. Each was an independent panel discussion led by the University of Rochester faculty with several guests from eastern European countries. Every panel was followed by a dynamic and sometimes emotional Q&A.
The professors and their guests tackled several heated issues, including the decline of women’s reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights, regime-imposed homogeneity, politically charged changes in culture, art, and education, and ecological crises.
The concept for the series came from discussions between Marianne Kupin-Lisbin and Ania Michas, PhD students in the Department of History at the University of Rochester. Since Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States in 2016, the political and economic crises in various parts of the world have intensified and seem to have culminated in 2020 when combined with the global humanitarian crisis of the Covid 19 pandemic. Deviation from democracy and its diminishing reach at the end of the first two decades of the twenty-first century motivated us to develop an interdisciplinary initiative, and to organize a series of Zoom panel discussions about the collective “fading of democracy” in numerous European countries, and in the United States, and its national and international repercussions.
Our goal was, and is, to highlight the historical background and mutual interdependence of the present critical situations in Europe and in the United States. We believe that it is important that the people of the United States understand and examine the mechanisms which brought the reversal of democratic governments and the trend toward authoritarianism.
For example, although we were impressed by the strength and determination of the people of Belarus in their opposition to Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship, we have been frustrated with the passivity of the European Union, and the lack of any reaction from the United States, the United Nations, or any other intergovernmental organization designed to sustain democratic governments and protect human rights.
This series wouldn’t be possible without the patronage of Dr. Thomas Devaney, Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of History. He has supported our initiative since its inception at the beginning of the Fall semester in 2020.
We would like to acknowledge the University of Rochester faculty participating in these Zoom sessions, and they are: Doctors Randall Stone and Gretchen Helmke, Tanya Bakhmetyeva, Rachel Haidu, and Thomas Fleischman.
The series was co-organized and co-sponsored by the Department of History, the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies, The Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, the Humanities Center, the Art and Art History Department, and the Russian Studies Program.
Fading Democracy – 2021 Series
Introduction: Opening session titled “Fading Democracy”
Thursday, March 11th, 2021, from 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Provided an overview of the current political situation in the world in general and in Central Europe in particular.
First Panel: “Fading Democracy: The Politics of Gender and Sexuality”
Friday, April 9th, from 12:00 to 1:30 pm
Discussed the growing tendency to downgrade the status of issues like women’s reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights in countries where democracy is in the process of dismantling, like Poland and Hungary, or in the countries like Russia and Belarus where a democratic system never existed.
Second Panel: “Fading Democracy: Re-negotiating Conflict”
Friday, April 23rd, from 9:00 to 10:30 am
Focused on the work and practices of Polish contemporary artists seeking to understand why right-wing political movements have secured strong support among working-class and lower-middle-class communities outside of the biggest urban centers in Poland, and why the post-1989 transition promoted exclusionary politics towards such communities.
Third Panel: “Fading Democracy: Post-Socialism, the Climate Crisis, and the European Right”
Friday, May 7th, from 1:30 to 3 pm
A discussion of the history, the present, and the future of Eastern European environmentalism and the protection of wildlife. In particular, the panelists explained what has happened to environmentalism in Eastern Europe since the year 2000.
The introductory opening session featured University of Rochester Political Science Professors Dr. Randall Stone and Dr. Gretchen Helmke. The task for Randy and Gretchen’s session was to discuss and outline the state of democracy in the world in general, but in particular on the European continent and in the United States, and about the international repercussions of the collective fading of democratic ideas.
Randall Stone is Chair of Department of Political Science. He has directed the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies for almost 14 years. Stone’s analyses pertain to international organizations and political economy. His articles have appeared in leading political science journals, and he is the author of three books, with the most recent titled Controlling Institutions: International Organizations and the Global Economy, published in 2011. He is currently working on a new book on the interactions between multinational corporations and international institutions.
Gretchen Helmke is the Professor of Political Science, Associate Department Chair, and Director of Graduate Studies. Her research focuses on political institutions, democratic consolidation and erosion, the rule of law, and Latin American politics. Her most recent book, published in 2017, is Institutions on the Edge: The Origins and Consequences of Institutional Instability in Latin America. She is a co-founder of the Bright Line Watch project, which monitors threats to democracy within and beyond the United States (http://brightlinewatch.org/).
Connections: Discussing the Decline of Democracy Across the Globe.
One day before the first Zoom session of the series (Wednesday, March 10, 1:00-2:00 pm), Gretchen and Randy were on Evan Dawson’s show, Connections, on the WXXI public radio station in Rochester, where they talked about the “Fading Democracy” series.
“The Politics of Gender and Sexuality,” was the first panel discussion, featuring Dr. Magdalena Grabowska, Dr. Elena Lukovitskaya and Kseniya Kalaur, and moderated by Dr. Tanya Bakhmetyeva.
Tanya Bakhmetyeva is an Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and the Associate Academic Director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute at the University of Rochester. Prof Bakhmetyeva has a wide range of research interests, including masculinity, gender and environment, ecofeminism, and gender and national identity. She is currently working on her next book project which explores political masculinity and natural diplomacy in the Soviet Union.
Magdalena Grabowska is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, in the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. She is the author of the book Broken Genealogy; Women’s Social and Political Activism post 1945 and The Contemporary Women’s Movement in Poland. Recently she co-authored, with Marta Rawłuszko, the chapter Polish #MeToo: When Concern for Men’s Rights Derails the Women’s Revolution, published in The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of the #MeToo Movement, 2020.
Elena Lukovitskaya is a docent at Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University in Russia where she works on the intersection of sociology, gender studies, and psychology. Her recent publication is “Gender Equality as a Factor of Sustainable Development – Russia and EU Countries Comparison.”
Belarus native, Kseniya Kalaur, is currently a senior at the University of Rochester where she studies Communications and International Relations. During the summer of 2020 she returned to Belarus and participated in multiple protests against the current authoritarian regime. She also worked for the Coordination Council of Belarusian Opposition as a translator and copywriter.
“Re-negotiating Conflict,” was the second panel on contemporary Polish political art with Dr. Rachel Haidu, and her guests Dr. Magda Szcześniak, Dr. Łukasz Zaremba, and Agata Pyzik.
Rachel Haidu is an historian and a critic of modern and contemporary art with a particular interest in Western and Eastern Europe. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History, which she Chairs. Previously she held the position of Director of the Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies. She is the author of a selection of articles and books, among them The Absence of Work: Marcel Broodthaers 1964-1976 published in 2010. For many years she has been interested in Polish art, for example for the Queen Sofia National Museum Art Centre in Madrid, Rachel co-authored a catalog of the works of Andrzej Wróblewski, one of the most important Polish artists of the 20th century. Rachel contributes art critique essays to publications like Art Journal, Artforum, October, Obieg (an international online quarterly magazine published by the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw), and Texte zur Kunst.
Magda Szcześniak is an Assistant Professor in the Section for Film and Visual Culture at the Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw, Poland.
Łukasz Zaremba is an Assistant Professor in the Section for Film and Visual Culture, at the Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw, Poland.
Agata Pyzik is a Polish journalist and cultural critic. She writes in Polish and English for a number of publications, including The Guardian, The Wire, Icon, Frieze, and Lampa. Agata is the author of Poor but Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West.
“Post-Socialism, the Climate Crisis, and the European Right,” was the third and last panel of the series, featuring Katarzyna Jagiełło, Dr. Iwona Liegmann, and Cecylia Malik. It was moderated by Dr. Thomas Fleischman.
Thomas Fleischman is a Professor of Modern European History, specializing in the history of Germany, and environmental history and the history of animals. His book on politics, nature, and agriculture in former East Germany, titled Three Little Pigs: East Germany’s Green Revolution, 1945-2014, was published in 2020.
Katarzyna Jagiełło is a politician and Greenpeace international activist. She runs a campaign dedicated to the protection of pollinating insects and co-created Adopt a Bee. She is also a member of the Council for Organic Farming at the Ministry of Agriculture of the Polish Government. Katarzyna was and is involved in opposing the logging in the Białowieża primeval forest and she has acted in many other initiatives. Katarzyna is engaged in protecting seas and oceans and is a diving instructor, translator, and traveler. She graduated from the Leadership Academy for Poland and is involved with the international Greenpeace movement.
Iwona Liegmann is an educator, artist, and environmentalist, with a particular interest in activities designed to improve the lives of animals. She has a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Visual and Performing Arts from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (2015). She teaches art at the High School of Fine Arts in Grudziądz. Iwona is a multimedia artist, painter, illustrator, and sculptor. Recently she was awarded a scholarship from the Marshal of Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, allowing her to continue her work on a series of portraits of pro-animal activists.
Cecylia Malik is a visual artist, painter, performer, educator, environmentalist, and urban activist. There is a lot to say about Cecylia (she was a guest artist at the University of Rochester in October 2019), and the information included here is just the beginning. Cecylia graduated with a degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, followed by postgraduate curatorial studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She is co-creator of the “Alcon Blue Collective” campaign to defend Krakow’s Zakrzówek green space against development and to protect the Alcon Blue butterfly. She is the initiator of social and artistic actions such as “Polish Mothers on the Stump” against LEX Szyszko, “Białka’s Braids” in defense of the Białka River against regulation, “River Sisters” created together with the Coalition Save Rivers against the construction of a dam in Siarzewo. For the implementation of the artistic action “365 Trees,” she was awarded the title of “Culture Person of the Year 2010” by the 3rd Program of Polish Radio. In 2012, she received a fellowship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for the implementation of the project and documentary film “6 Rivers.” Cecylia Malik organizes protests with experts and organizations with sensitivity and effectiveness, at the same time creating them as happenings and works of art in public spaces.
We would like to thank Professors Joan S. Rubin and Stewart Weaver, for their support during the process of and realization of the project. We appreciate the work they did to promote the series and increase attendance.
We would especially like to acknowledge the following people who provided logistics for the project and all the participants, including dealing with finances and other necessary tasks to make the project successful. We thank the following:
- Jacquilyn Rizzo, Administrative Assistant, Graduate Coordinator, and Undergraduate Coordinator, Department of History
- Bozenna Sobolewska, Program Coordinator, the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies
- Jane L. Bryant, Program Manager, Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
- Jennie Gilardoni, Administrator, Humanities Center
- Katelyn P. Getchel, University of Rochester History MA student.
Graphics
Marcie Woehl is an Andrew W. Mellon Digital Humanities Fellow and creator of all four promotional posters, which were explicitly designed for the Fading Democracy series. Marcie’s posters convey the political and social anxiety associated with topics discussed during every session.
Project Managers
Marianne Kupin-Lisbin is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History. She is of Slavic descent and her dissertation, titled “The Illusion of Dissidence: The Virgin Mary, Rome, and Local Catholicism in Seventeenth-Century Bosnia,” examines the social and political impact on religious culture and coexistence in the early modern Balkans. She has achieved excellence in teaching; most notably, for several years she has been a teaching Instructor and the Program Coordinator for the Rochester Education Justice Initiative, the University of Rochester’s college in prison program.
Ania Michas is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History and Visual Cultural Studies Program and an Andrew W. Mellon Digital Humanities Fellow. For Ania, “Fading Democracy” was the second interdisciplinary project of social, cultural, and political character that she was involved in during her first year of the Andrew W. Mellon DH fellowship. She wanted to do something pertaining to the distressing situation in her mother country, Poland, and to analyze the populism-based anarchy and democratic breakdown in the countries of Eastern Europe in particular. By developing this series, editing recorded sessions, and placing them on the Mellon DH website, “Fading Democracy” has been transferred even further into the digital humanities project––all interactions, organization, and logistics were carried on digitally during Covid-19 restricted isolation. This is an open-ended project and can be continued and expanded in any required direction.
Marianne and Ania were the co-hosts of every meeting.
Cantay Çalışkan
Cantay is an assistant professor of instruction at the Goergen Institute for Data Science at the University of Rochester. He studied political science, computer science, and statistics during his Ph.D., and received his degree from Boston University in 2018. Cantay received his BA from Brandeis University and his MA from Koç University. Before joining the University, he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Data Analytics at Denison University and a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Ohio Wesleyan University. His research interests include computational social science, emotion quantification and face/gesture recognition, social media, US Congress, and networks of lobbying.
Amit Ray
Amit is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Rochester Institute of Technology. He is the author of Negotiating the Modern: Orientalism and Indianness in the Anglophone World. Dr. Ray’s current research examines the accelerating impact of new technologies on language and culture. He has been developing the concept of “autocolonialism” to explore how information and biological technologies transmogrify our late human condition.
Justin Murphy
Justin Murphy is a reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle, covering education in the Rochester area with an emphasis on the Rochester City School District. He has worked at the Democrat and Chronicle since 2012 and before that was a reporter for The Citizen in Auburn, New York. He grew up in Penfield and attended the University of Chicago and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. His book “Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger” examines school segregation in Rochester. He lives with his wife and children in the Cobbs Hill neighborhood.
Evan Dawson
Joshua E. Introne
Josh is an Assistant Professor at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Brandeis University in 2008. Following his degree was a post-doctoral fellow and research scientist at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, where he served as chief architect for the MIT Climate Colab (https://www.climatecolab.org/). Josh studies collective intelligence in socio-technical systems. He draws on his training in cognitive science, human computer interaction, and computer-mediated group decision making to investigate how to design sustainable systems that benefit those who use them as well as society more broadly. He also draws heavily on complex systems theory to understand patterns of stability and change in socio-technical systems and focuses on both social dynamics and knowledge production in online communities. Much of his current work considers how social technology can influence the formation of peoples’ beliefs, and in particular beliefs that are motivated by misinformation.
Whitney Phillips
A scholar situated between the humanities and social sciences, Whitney Phillips draws from science and technology studies, critical theory, and media history to explore the context and consequence of mediated communication, with a focus on the ideologies, assumptions, and stories that shape what we observe on our screens. She is the author of several books on digital culture and politics. Most recently, she and Ryan M. Milner published You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape (MIT Press, 2021), which they subsequently, and very loosely, adapted for middle grades readers. That book, forthcoming with Candlewick Press in early 2023, is titled Thinking Ecologically about Social Media. In the Fall of 2023, Phillips will be joining the faculty in the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication.
“Hooked on a Feeling: Quantifying Emotions in US Politics” — A Mellon Digital Humanities Conversation with Cantay Çalışkan
The Andrew W. Mellon Fellows in the Digital Humanities are pleased to announce their second DigiTalk of the Spring 2022 semester. This session on March 17th at 3 PM will feature a conversation with Cantay Çalışkan, an assistant professor of instruction at the Goergen Institute for Data Science at the University of Rochester.
In this DigiTalk, Dr. Cantay Çalışkan will discuss his innovative quantitative framework for analyzing the emotions of candidates in US presidential debates and the significance of these emotions in determining who holds our nation’s highest office. Using multinomial probabilistic machine learning and deep learning algorithms along with the help of face recognition, speech-to-text conversion, and speaker diarization techniques, Çalışkan has dynamically quantified emotion from 25 presidential debates, illuminating both the theoretical and political importance of emotions and the public’s perception of politicians.
Cantay Çalışkan is an assistant professor of instruction at the Goergen Institute for Data Science at the University of Rochester. He studied political science, computer science, and statistics during his Ph.D., and received his degree from Boston University in 2018. Cantay received his BA from Brandeis University and his MA from Koç University. Before joining the University, he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Data Analytics at Denison University and a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Ohio Wesleyan University. His research interests include computational social science, emotion quantification and face/gesture recognition, social media, US Congress, and networks of lobbying.
For more information about this event, visit the RSVP links above and below, or contact mwoehl@ur.rochester.edu.
Downstream: Navigating Polluted Media Currents — A Mellon Digital Humanities Symposium with Whitney Phillips
A symposium organized by the Mellon Fellows in the Digital Humanities at the University of Rochester. Co-sponsored by the Departments of Art and Art History, Digital Media Studies, English, History, and Modern Languages & Cultures, the Center for Community Engagement, and the Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program at the University of Rochester
*All public events were held in Conference Room D, Humanities Center, 202 Rush Rhees Library
Downstream Symposium
Whitney Phillips and Ryan Milner’s 2020 book, You Are Here, offers an ecological framework for the understanding of digital media, emphasizing their interconnectedness and the ease by which “pollution” spreads across networks and communities. Noting the many historical and structural factors that led us here, Phillips and Milner argue that it’s now the users ourselves who must take an informed, ethical approach to our online activities and the effects they might have downstream.
Drawing inspiration from Phillips and Milner’s ecological metaphor for our current media landscape, the Downstream symposium brings together humanists, social scientists, and journalists to discuss this moment.
In the introduction to You Are Here, Phillips and Milner write: “The polluted-information frame allows us to table the question of intent and focus instead on how the pollution spreads, why it was allowed to spread, and what impact the pollution has both at the initial waste site and, later, downstream.” (5)
“Polluted information is as damaging as it is perfectly calibrated to our contemporary information ecosystem. It thrives when technological and economic systems function at peak efficiency. It thrives when platforms maximize user engagement. It thrives when publications pursue clicks. It thrives when everyday people do the clicking. It thrives when everything is working well—at least working well for some.” (You Are Here, 10)
While events like January 6 or the spread of conspiracy theories on COVID-19 have made our interconnectedness more apparent, the current situation is only an intensification of larger, systemic problems. After all, Phillips and Milner argue, “efficient systems have long yielded catastrophic outcomes.” Piecemeal solutions are not only ineffective, the authors contend, they also often exacerbate harm. The massively profitable corporations that own these social media platforms push automated moderation tools, promising to “innovate” their way out of the problem. Like the extractive industries’ wanton destruction of the planet’s ecology, their profits are contingent on the continued and increased circulation of these informational currents, whatever damage is done to the informational ecosystems in which we live.
The Downstream symposium is a gathering to focus on, and facilitate conversation about, media pollution as a problem that requires radical reformations to the way information flows. To do so, we must speculate on solutions while simultaneously attempting to “make sense” of the cacophonous and rapidly transforming maelstrom of information. The difficulty of this task is precisely what makes it absolutely necessary, because in the end, we’re all downstream, together.
Putting Theory to Practice: A Discussion of Data Feminism
In coordination with the 2021 Neilly Author Series lecture with Catherine D’Ignazio & Lauren F. Klein, the Mellon Digital Humanities Fellows are hosting a discussion panel, Putting Theory to Practice: A Discussion of Data Feminism, on April 23, from 1:00 – 2:30 PM EST via Zoom.
Register for the Zoom link here
As a follow-up to D’Ignazio and Klein’s lecture, panelists from the fields of data science, digital humanities, data literacy and pedagogy, and philosophy will discuss the seven principles from Data Feminism (MIT Press), specifically how “working with data from a feminist perspective” can: “examine power, challenge power, elevate emotion and embodiment, rethink binaries and hierarchies, embrace pluralism, consider context, and make labor visible” (17-8). This panel will explore what these principles look like in practice by providing examples of practitioners whose current research and projects speak to and actively engage with questions of power and justice. Panelists will introduce their own work with data science, participate in a moderated discussion, and end with a Q&A. We are excited to be joined by the following panelists:
- Amy Bach, CEO, Measures for Justice
- Jonathan Herington, University of Rochester, Department of Philosophy
- Darakhshan Mir, Bucknell University, Department of Computer Science
- Emily Sherwood, University of Rochester, Director of Digital Scholarship
- Whitney Sperrazza, Rochester Institute of Technology, Department of English
Being Human, Being Robot: A DigiTalk featuring Andrew John Wit
Tuesday, April 13, 2021, at 3:30pm to 4:45pm via Zoom.
Register for this free event here.
Event Description:
Andrew John Wit is an Associate Professor at the Temple University Tyler School of Art and Architecture, where he leads research in emerging technologies and their relationship to the built environment. He is a co-editor of the book Towards a Robotic Architecture, an associate editor for the journal Construction Robotics, and an elected editor for the International Journal of Architectural Computing. His work has been presented and published in a wide range of international conferences, journals, and galleries. Andrew is also the Co-Founder of WITO* (pronounced we – toe), Laboratory for Intelligent Environments.
In this talk, Andrew will discuss novel tools, methods, and materials that are helping to redefine the design discipline and the built environment. Typically situated either within the arts or engineering, this talk will discuss how the field of architectural design has been transformed through the integration of AI, robotics, mixed reality, and novel composite materials and their relationship to human makers and inhabitants.
Event Video:
Digital Places, Physical Spaces Schedule
Friday, May 1, 2020, 11 AM–4 PM EDT on Zoom.
11:00: Opening Remarks, Daniel Gorman Jr., University of Rochester
11:10 – 1:00: Digital Places
Moderator: Alexander Zawacki, University of Rochester
- Sarah Thompson (Rochester Institute of Technology), “Reconstruction à l’identique: Restoration, Authenticity, and Digital Models in French Gothic Patrimony”
- Jason Tercha (Binghamton University), “Mapping the Social Effects of Antebellum Railroad Development in Northern Virginia”
- Stephen Jacobs (Rochester Institute of Technology), “Mordechi Marches to Manchuria: Building mordechi.org.”
1:00 – 1:30: Lunch Break
1:30 – 3:00: Digital Spaces
Moderator: Madeline Ullrich, University of Rochester
- Suchismata Dutta (University of Miami), “Schools in Community Conversations: Digital Analytics and the Formation of Hybrid Communities”
- James Rankine (University of Rochester), “Messy Data, Neat Maps”
- Sanaa Khan (University of California, San Diego), “Beyond Bodies: Critical Race Perspectives on Digital Embodiments”
3:00 – 4:00: Keynote Lecture
Moderator: Erin Francisco, University of Rochester
Henry B. Lovejoy, Department of History, University of Colorado Boulder, “Follow the Drums: Mapping Yorùbá Migrations to Cuba, Brazil and Sierra Leone during the Abolition of the Slave Trade”
Digital Spaces, Physical Places: A [Revised] Digital Humanities Symposium
This symposium was originally scheduled for April 16–17, 2020, to be held on the University of Rochester River Campus in Rush Rhees Library, Humanities Center, Conference Room D. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 outbreak caused the cancellation of all in-person events at the University. The Mellon Fellows have changed the symposium to a virtual event, which will occur via Zoom on Friday, May 1, 2020, from 11 AM to 4 PM / 11:00 to 16:00 EDT.
To RSVP for the event and receive the Zoom meeting ID, please complete the form that is linked below, under “Symposium Update.”
In the meantime, we hope you all remain safe and healthy.
Original Call for Papers (CFP)
Digital technologies have forever altered our understanding of place and space by dividing physical presence from telepresence, birthing the hybrid and sometimes messy field of digital humanities. At the most basic level, email, forums, and social media have enabled lightspeed asynchronous communication, changing the way we live, work, and perform scholarship. Physical places—real, historical, and fictional—can be reconstituted in electronic form and made interactive through the use of augmented or virtual reality, posing new opportunities for experiencing the past and the present alike. Emergent online platforms present new and accessible sites of learning.
And yet, while these real, historical, or fictional spaces may indeed be re-envisioned in other forms, how do we keep in mind the specificities and origins that come with a connectedness to particular physical spaces or locales? Scholars in the fields of feminist, post-colonial, and critical race studies have kept these questions at the forefront of their digital humanities practice. As digital humanities scholars, how do we ensure that, for example, the political and social dimensions of gender, race, sexuality, and class—dimensions that exist in physical space—do not get lost in newly emerging digital forms? While thinking through digital space reveals new modes of experience, such as opportunities for community, accessibility, and activism, we might also consider how digital technologies expand, compress, and transform different spaces in specific ways for specific bodies.
This symposium invites contributions that explore the nature and functions of digital spaces, as well as their connection to the physical world. How does spatial thinking figure into digital projects? How do events and debates in digital spaces transfer to the “real” world, and vice-versa? Is a distinction between analog and digital spaces still valid? Possible topics may include and are by no means limited to:
- Avatars and representations of bodies in digital spaces.
- The relationship between digital and physical archives.
- The implications of “big data” for spatial analysis.
- The transformation of geography as a discipline in the computer age.
- Social, cultural, political, and/or religious activity in the digital realm.
- Digital preservation of archaeological, historical, and cultural sites.
- Scholarly applications of GIS and network analysis technology.
- Theoretical approaches for conceptualizing online spaces, bodies, and communities.
- Hybrid communities spanning the digital and analog worlds.
- Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) projects.
- Uses of spatial thinking and technology in the classrooms.
- The geo-political implications of digital spaces.
We invite individual submissions on past and ongoing digital humanities projects, as well as theoretical examinations of the above topics. We also welcome pre-constituted panels of 3–4 presenters. All submissions should include 300-word abstracts for each 20-minute paper presentation and 100-word bios for each presenter. Please submit all materials via email to UR Mellon Fellows, urmellonfellows@gmail.com, by January 31, 2020. Successful applicants will be notified of acceptance by February 15, 2020.
This conference is organized by the current Andrew W. Mellon Digital Humanities Fellows at the University of Rochester. Please contact at the email address above with any questions.
Keynote
Henry B. Lovejoy, Assistant Professor of History, Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship, University of Colorado Boulder.
Follow the Drums: Mapping Yorùbá Migrations to Cuba, Brazil and Sierra Leone during the Abolition of the Slave Trade
While scholars have amassed large amounts of data related to the transatlantic slave trade, a more pressing question lingers: Where did those 12.7 million people come from within pre-colonial West Africa before boarding slave ships destined for the Americas? The answer is complex for two reasons: 1) many sub-Saharan peoples did not have written orthographies until the mid-to-late nineteenth century (suggesting their histories were largely undocumented); and 2) Africa lacks reliable historical maps compared to other heavily populated regions of the world (meaning internal geo-political transformations are frequently misunderstood, especially before the colonization and decolonization of the continent). This digital mapping project seeks to visualize and calculate the probabilities of African origins of enslaved people in diaspora by using two open-source applications: Quantum Geographic Information System and R Project for Statistical Computing. By presenting geo-referenced data of intra-African conflict alongside slave ship departures, it is possible to generate statistical models capable of predicting large-scale, inland migrations on an annual basis. This experiment traces Yorùbá migrations during the collapse of the Oyo empire between 1817 and 1836, while emphasizing bàtá drums as a form of literacy that have contributed to the making of the Atlantic world. This interdisciplinary project appeals to scholars interested in exploring the relationship between conflict, slavery and abolition in the Atlantic world.
Symposium Update, April 23, 2020
Dear Colleagues,
Like many university events, our digital humanities symposium “Digital Spaces, Physical Places,” scheduled to take place on April 16-17, was cancelled due to COVID-19 precautions. However, in the spirit of our symposium theme—an investigation of how the digital complements and alters our sense of physical space—we have decided to move our event online for a virtual symposium. We invite you to join us for our virtual symposium “Digital Spaces, Physical Places,” taking place over Zoom on Friday, May 1st from 11am–4pm EST. Our keynote speaker, Henry Lovejoy, has kindly agreed to give the keynote talk at 3pm that day. More information about his research can be found on his faculty page.
We will post a full schedule here in the following days; until then, we invite you to RSVP to the symposium using this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdc73oVFYPccqz1zR2bdrRThCnPI0vRuvOL0acC_t-PjeJDpw/viewform. A link to the Zoom meeting event will be provided through this event sign-up page.
We are looking forward to this event in its new format, and hope you will join us for this virtual opportunity to engage in digital humanities scholarship, from scholars in the Rochester area and beyond!
Best,
The UR Mellon Fellows
2016 Conference
A Digital Humanities Conference at the University of Rochester
Thank you to everyone who made Hard Coded Humanities, our first conference, a success. Find out more about the proceedings at https://hardcodedhumanities.wordpress.com.
THATCAMP 2018
THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp) “unconferences” are informal and participatory events in which most sessions are group discussions, hands-on workshops, productive working sessions, or pop-up collaborations among participants. By following the model of a THATCamp, we hope to foster an open and spontaneous environment to engage an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners. THATCamp Rochester will be organized around the intersections between digital technologies and the public’s experience of material objects in museums, archives, and new media. We also welcome sessions more broadly related to digital scholarship and pedagogy.
The University of Rochester hosted a featured speaker, Michael Phelps, on Thursday, March 22, at 5 p.m. Phelps directs a multi-spectral imaging project at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt where he uses digital technologies to recover damaged and previously unknown ancient manuscripts. St. Catherine’s Monastery has one of the oldest continuously operating libraries, founded in the fourth century. Phelp discussed his work as the director he Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL), and was present as an interlocutor at THATCamp on Friday, March 23.
THATCamp Rochester is a collaboration between the The Digital Humanities and Social Sciences program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Program in the Digital Humanities at the University of Rochester, and the Memorial Art Gallery.
Michael Phelps Lecture
The University of Rochester will host a featured speaker, Michael Phelps, in the Humanities Center Conference Room D on Thursday, March 22, at 5 p.m. Phelps directs a multi-spectral imaging project at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. Continue reading “Michael Phelps Lecture”
THATCamp 2018
The Andrew D. Mellon Program is delighted to announce THATCamp Rochester 2018, a Digital Humanities “Unconference” created in partnership with The Digital Humanities and Social Sciences program at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Memorial Art Gallery. THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp) is an event that embraces an informal, spontaneous, inclusive and participatory style, a unique approach that encourages group discussions, practical joint workshops and on-the-spot collaborative efforts in the digital humanities.
THATCamp Rochester 2018 will be held at the Memorial Art Gallery, March 23rd, from 9.00am to 5.00pm. In keeping with the venue, participants are encouraged to (but not limited to) explore the role of material objects, archival materials and new and old media as experienced by scholars and the broader public.
Michael Phelps will give a keynote address at the University of Rochester on Thursday, March 22nd, at 5pm. Phelps will discuss his work as the director of the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL) and multi-spectral imaging project at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula. Phelps will also be attending THATCamp as a participant and interlocutor.
To be a part of THATCamp, participants are encouraged to register here and to visit the THATCamp Rochester 2018 website for more information.
Location: Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave., Rochester NY 14607.
Time: 9am – 5pm.
Decolonizing Digital Networks: Women of Color, Feminism, Open Access, and What It Means to be Woke
Lisa Nakamura, Professor of American Cultures, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Thursday, October 19, 2017
1pm
Gamble Room, Rush Rhees Library 361
Lisa Nakamura is the Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor in the Department of American Cultures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is one of the leading scholars in the field of critical digital media studies/digital humanities. From coining the concept of “cybertype” as distinctive ways that the internet propagates, disseminates, and commodifies images of race and racism, to locating the internet as a privileged and extremely rich site for the creation and distribution of hegemonic and counterhegemonic visual images of racialized bodies, Nakamura has significantly contributed to the theory of racial formation in digital cultures. Her publications include Race After the Internet (2011, co-edited with Peter Chow-White) and Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (2007).
DH Lunch: Playing with Digital Histories in the R-CADE
Friday, September 22, 2017
12pm
Humanities Center, Conference Room D
James J. Brown, Jr., Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Digital Studies Center, Rutgers University-Camden
Robert A. Emmons, Jr., Assistant Professor of Fine Arts and Associate Director of the Digital Studies Center, Rutgers University-Camden
In 2014, Robert Emmons and Jim Brown launched the Rutgers-Camden Archive of Digital Ephemera (R-CADE), a collection of digital artifacts made available for research and creative activities. Scholars are free to take apart, dissect, and repurpose artifacts in the R-CADE as they attempt to understand their historical and cultural significance. While the R-CADE does not preserve in the sense of keeping objects in their “original” condition, the archive is in fact an exercise in the preservation of digital culture. The R-CADE has expanded and changed in the intervening three years, and this presentation will discuss the genesis of the project, its theoretical underpinnings, and how the annual R-CADE Symposium has grown. Emmons and Brown will share some of the work that has emerged from the R-CADE and will discuss some of the project’s future directions.