This junior research group is located at the intersection of Romance Philology (esp. French and Spanish Literary Studies) and Applied Computer Science (esp. Machine Learning and Text Mining). Our overall objective is to establish a methodological convergence between latest methods of quantitative analysis of literary texts on the one hand, and basic issues in the field of genre theory and stylistics, on the other hand.
We want to be the "Missing Manual" for digital research collections. While the use of databases such as ProQuest’s Historical Newspapers or Gales’ Nineteenth Century Collections Online is common, these tools have largely escaped critique by traditional humanities scholars. Knowledge of the way proprietary databases work is limited because their structures and content are opaque. As a result, scholars may not be able to discover the provenance of documents or to understand why certain search results are returned.
This is a digital project focusing on the creation of “Asian Victorians” in Southeast Asia under British colonialism. It focuses on the digitization and annotation of the Straits Chinese Magazine, a journal produced by the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Essentially, I'm designing a research methods class / workshop for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as researchers that introduces them to the many rich digital tools available to the humanities. The aim, however, is not to diminish the importance of text-only papers or books in favor of showstoppers filled with links and videos.
Still very much in its development stages, the project explores how Spanish women understood and represented their charitable work from the late-Enlightenment period through the end of the Spanish Civil War and the early part of the Franco dictatorship.
The Global Shakespeares Video & Performance Archive is a collaborative project providing online access to performances of Shakespeare from many parts of the world as well as essays and metadata provided by scholars and educators in the field. The idea that Shakespeare is a global author has taken many forms since the building of the Globe playhouse.
This archival site on Tredegar Iron Works, Richmond, Virginia, in the latter half of the nineteenth century is very much in the beta/inception/conception stages--barely off the ground. Specifically this is intended to explore the ironworks, business and technology of the iron industry, and the interlocking elements of local, state, and regional history.