Digital Humanities combine traditional humanities research methods in disciplines such as literature, history, and art history with computational technology and methods. Digital humanists use digital tools and methods to explore, analyze, and present cultural, historical, and textual materials. Importantly, the digital tools and methods do not replace the traditional research methods but instead supplement and enhance them.
University of Mississippi students and faculty have contributed to many digital humanities projects. While many are hosted in this repository, others are stand-alone websites, including those affiliated with other universities.
For more information about Digital Scholarship and Digital Humanities at the University of Mississippi, please consult UM Libraries' topic guide.
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Penny University Library
Christian Murray
While completing a Ph.D. in History at the University of Mississippi, Christian Murray created the Penny University Library, providing the public with digitized copies of works read and debated during the Age of Enlightenment, along with information pertaining to these works and their authors. Murray’s research interests include Intellectual, Book, and Legal History in the transatlantic Enlightenment, and the Digital Humanities.
Link to: Penny University Library
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Dear Mr. Meredith
Abbie Norris-Davidson and Adam Clemons
On October 1, 1962, James Meredith made history as the first African-American student to be admitted to the then racially segregated University of Mississippi. In the weeks before and after his admission, Meredith received thousands of letters from around the world expressing support or condemnation of his actions. In 1997, Meredith donated the letters he had kept to the University of Mississippi's Department of Archives and Special Collections.
Using the StoryMaps platform from ArcGIS, this website maps the locations from which these letters were sent and shows whether the writers were “pro” or “anti” integration, creating a snapshot of American attitudes about segregation and public perception of James Meredith’s actions during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
Abbie Norris-Davidson is an Assistant Professor in the University of Mississippi Libraries where she is the Digital Initiatives Librarian. Adam Clemons is an Assistant Professor of Scholar Support and Data Services in the University of Mississippi Libraries.
Link to: Dear Mr. Meredith.
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Mapping Memphis
Abbie Norris-Davidson
“Mapping Memphis” is a spatial humanities project that analyses how historic geographic data can offer new insights into urban heritage and community. It does so using a primary source largely underrepresented in digital humanities research: funeral home ledgers. From 1904 to 1929, T. H. Hayes and Sons Funeral Home, the oldest African American owned business in Memphis, Tennessee recorded demographic and funereal information for over 4,000 African American individuals. The project focuses on the physical locations recorded in each entry that inadvertently offer a glimpse into the decedents’ homes, offices, and community spaces in early twentieth century Memphis. “Mapping Memphis” plots these individual locations onto a digital map, creating a visual representation of Memphis’ social and physical layout a century ago.
Abbie Norris-Davidson is an Assistant Professor in the University of Mississippi Libraries where she is the Digital Initiatives Librarian.
Link to: Mapping Memphis
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Bodies and Structure 2.0: Deep Mapping Modern East Asian History
Peter Thilly
Dr. Peter Thilly, Assistant Professor of History, is one of 17 contributors to this project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. From the multimedia project's final white paper: "Bodies and Structures 2.0 (http://bodiesandstructures.org) is a digital platform for researching and teaching spatial histories of modern East Asia and the worlds of which it has been a part. The project brings together the various engagements with critical human geography that are taking place in our fields – history, literature, and art history in general, and East Asian studies in particular. It consists of 17 individually authored modules, which examine a diverse range of topics, such as histories of disease and vaccination; narcotics trafficking; colonialism; migration; and urban life. These modules feature cutting-edge research on Japan (including Okinawa), Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Mongolia. (See Appendix for a complete list.) On top of this, the site uses tags, annotations, links, and visualizations to connect and cut across the modules, giving contributors and users the opportunity to think comparatively about space, place and power."
Link to: Bodies and Structures 2.0
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Project Andvari
Nancy Wicker
Dr. Nancy Wicker, Distinguished Professor of Art History, is a co-director of Project Andvari, an ongoing Digital Humanities project to create an online portal for searching simultaneously multiple collections of early medieval (4th-12th centuries) Northern art and artifacts. Its Andvari Iconographic Thesaurus (AIT) is available as a plugin for other digital projects, such as the Gotlandic Picture Stones project in Sweden.
Link to: Project Andvari and Gotlandic Picture Stones