UF’s Digital Humanities Working Group (DHWG) relies on Co-Convenors to facilitate and organize efforts for DHWG events and activities.
The DHWG Co-Convenor position is a role for a graduate student to work in collaboration with the other Co-Convenors (Sophia Acord, Center for the Humanities & the Public Sphere, and Matt D’Apice and Megan Daly, Libraries).
Current Co-Convenors
Tiffany Esteban is Digital Scholarship Associate in the George A. Smathers Libraries. With her expertise in digital humanities and library and information science, she advises students and faculty on projects ranging from digital collections of late Victorian children’s literature to concepts for a virtual recreation of 19th century Jerusalem. Her endeavors—including a collaborative presentation on the Japan Disasters Digital Archive at Harvard University, and a guide to digital humanities tools at the University of Florida—center the work of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) in the field. Her efforts build relationships throughout campus around a shared interest in the intersection of human cultures and digital technologies.
Alexandra Cenatus holds an M.A in Latin American Studies and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Florida. Cenatus’ research interests center on how gender, religion, race, and class interact, with a focus on Haiti. In 2015, she received funding from the UF-Duke National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to explore the social role of priestesses in Haitian Vodou. Her M.A. thesis builds on this research and analyzes the ways in which Haiti’s social changes affect the economic livelihood of Haitian Vodou priestesses. Cenatus is currently working on creating an online exhibit that will showcase the experiences of Haitian immigrants in the United States: The Haitian American Dream, a project from the Intersections on Global Blackness and Latinx Identity group
Former DHWG Co-Convenors
Jessica Aberle is the Architecture Librarian at the Architecture and Fine Arts Library. Her interest in DH developed as a CLIR Fellow at Lehigh University where she co-chaired a THATCamp planning committee, researched digital preservation, and helped develop the project, Still Looking for You: A Bethlehem Place + Memory Project, hosted by Lehigh University Libraries. The project examines the intersection between place, memory, and identity. Her current research project explores the application of DH methodologies and tools for collection assessment. As a co-convenor, Jessica seeks to not only raise awareness of DH but to also contribute to a community of practice.
Poushali Bhadury is a PhD candidate and graduate instructor at the Department of English, University of Florida. Her dissertation investigates nationalism and global consciousness in Indian children’s publishing, focusing on the Kolkata publishing house Deb Sahitya Kutir’s literary output during the 1940s-60s. She is part of the UF ImageText editorial collective, and was a 2013-2014 CLIR Mellon Fellow for Dissertation Research in Original Sources. Her research and teaching interests are Children’s Literature, Media Studies, Book History, Digital Humanities and Postcolonial Studies. Her recent publications include articles in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, South Asian Review and The Lion and the Unicorn. She is especially invested in researching the dissemination of print/digital texts across various media (and cultural contexts), and past projects have focused on trans-media adaptations.
Tim Blanton is an M.A. student in the Department of History at the University of Florida, specializing in medieval history. His research interests include medieval intellectual and economic history, in particular medieval notions of virtue, punishment, poverty and wealth. He also has interests in early Christianity and Christian historiography. He is the Program Coordinator in the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, and earned his B.A. in Philosophy and History from the University of Central Florida in 2013.
Megan M. Daly is the Librarian of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at Library West. As a philologist, she is interested in how the digital humanities can bring Greek and Latin literature to life and aid in the learning of the languages. Her current DH research project involves using TEI to make the Latin version of de Bry’s History of Florida more accessible to Latin students across the state.
Holland Hall graduated from the University of Florid
a magna cum laude in Spring 2016 with a bachelor’s of arts in History. After graduating, she began working at the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. Holland co-founded the program’s Florida Queer History Project in June 2016, and served as the research coordinator for the program’s Women’s March on Washington Experiential Learning Fieldwork Trip in collaboration with the UF Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research. Holland is currently pursuing an M.Ed./ Ed.S. degree in Mental Health Counseling at the University of Florida, and is a Digital and Public Humanities intern at the George A. Smather’s Libraries at UF.
Hélène Huet is the European Studies Librarian at the University of Florida. She launched Mapping Decadence in 2014 (http://mappingdecadence.org), a website dedicated to her digital mapping project, which analyzes the role location played in shaping relationships between authors and publishers in late 19th century France. As the digital humanist and the Vice-Chair of the Florida Digital Humanities Consortium (FLDH), a collective of institutions in Florida that seeks to promote an understanding of the humanities in light of digital technologies and research, she is particularly interested in studying how digital tools can help facilitate students and faculty’s research. Finally, as the Chair of the Collection Development Working Group of the Collaborative Initiative for French Language Collections (CIFNAL), she is currently overseeing the creation of a list of French and Francophone Digital Humanities projects (http://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/frdhprojects). Website: https://helenehuet.org./
Twitter: @superHH
Laurie N. Taylor is the Digital Scholarship Librarian at the University of Florida. Her work focuses on data/digital curation, digital scholarship, and developing socio-technical supports (people, policies, technologies, communities) for scholarly cyberinfrastructure. This includes work to develop, sustain, and integrate digital scholarship across communities and to foster an environment of radical collaboration that values and supports diversity, equity, and inclusivity. She is the Digital Scholarship Director for the international collaborative Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC). Website: www.laurientaylor.org
Twitter: @laurien
Dhanashree Thorat is a PhD student and instructor in the Department of English at the University of Florida. Her dissertation research focuses on the representation of Muslims in American nationalist projects after 9/11. Her research and teaching areas are Postcolonial Studies, Digital Humanities, and Asian American Studies. From 2013-2015, she acted as co-convenor for the Digital Humanities Working Group (DHWG) at the University of Florida, and co-lead DHWG’s organizing of the first THATCamp Gainesville in Spring 2014. She also serves on the founding Executive Council of the Center for Digital Humanities, Pune (www.cdhpune.com). In this capacity, she leads workshops on Digital Humanities in Pune and in December 2014, she co-organized the first Digital Humanities Winter School in India.
Twitter: @shree_thorat
Sophia K. Acord is Associate Director of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, and Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law. As a cultural sociologist, she studies the impact of digital technologies on knowledge making and scholarly communication in the humanities. She also works in program development and evaluation to increase and understand the profile of humanistic scholarship at UF and in the broader community.
DHWG Beginnings and Co-Convenors
Sophia Acord, Center for the Humanities & the Public Sphere, and Laurie N. Taylor, Libraries, began as the DHWG co-convenors in 2011. Dhanashree Thorat joined as a co-convenor in 2013, supporting UF’s first ever THATCamp-Gainesville in Spring 2014, THATCamp-Gainesville in Spring 2015, the regular DHWG Meet-Up events, DHWG sponsored trainings, DHWG sponsored speakers, and other activities to support and grow the DH community at and connected to UF. In Fall 2015, Poushali Bhadury joined as the new Co-Convenor.
With steady growth in the DH community and activities at and connected to UF, the Co-Convenor role became open for rotation for other volunteers in Fall 2015, established as a two-year opportunity for graduate students. At this time, this remains a service role without funding available; however, funds are being sought to ensure that this becomes a paid position given the level of responsibility. This is a professional development opportunity that directly connects to and supports humanistic inquiry and research. Description of DHWG Co-Convenor role and opportunity for graduate students.