Welcome to the Humanities in a Digital World website!
This site shares news about the Humanities in a Digital World fellows and digital humanities events at USC.
CFP: Immersive Technologies and Cultural Heritage Symposium 2024
The USC Mellon Humanities in a Digital World Program and the Ahmanson Lab of the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study in the USC Libraries invite applications for the second annual Immersive Technologies and Cultural Heritage (ITCH) Symposium. The symposium will take place on Friday, September 20, and Saturday, September 21, at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
We seek innovative projects rooted in the humanities or humanistic social sciences that rely on immersive technologies (including but not limited to augmented reality, mixed reality, virtual reality, photogrammetry or 3D modeling) to enable close engagement with cultural heritage materials, or open new possibilities for research, teaching, and learning. We particularly seek projects that realize the benefits of working at the intersection of digital technologies and the liberal arts.
Participants will:
- Pre-circulate materials related to their current project (such as a draft article, website, VR/AR experience, 3D model, or other format) two weeks prior to the symposium.
- Give a 10-15-minute presentation summarizing their project’s context, goals, and implications for humanities scholarship at the symposium.
- Lead a hands-on project demonstration and engage in conversation with users.
- Offer comments on another participant’s pre-circulated project.
- Participate in a concluding roundtable discussion of the promise and perils of immersive technologies for humanities research, teaching, and learning.
Workshop discussions will foreground interdisciplinary elements and user experience in project development.
The Humanities in a Digital World Program at USC will provide round-trip domestic economy airfare, 3 nights lodging at a hotel near USC in downtown Los Angeles, and up to $200 in reimbursement for ground travel to and from the airport.
To apply, send a single PDF document containing your name, title, affiliation; project or presentation title; 300-word abstract; and any relevant URLs to digitalhumanities@usc.edu by July 1, 2024.
Immersive Technologies and Cultural Heritage Symposium 2023
The Ahmanson Lab, third floor Leavey Library, USC
The USC Mellon Humanities in a Digital World Program and the Ahmanson Lab invite you to join the Immersive Technologies and Cultural Heritage (ITCH) Symposium. This two-day event will bring together humanities researchers working with immersive technologies to showcase innovative projects, engage in feedback, and build community. The sessions will elucidate benefits of working at the intersection of digital technologies and the liberal arts.
View the schedule and list of speakers on the symposium webpage.
Learn more about our 2022–2024 Fellows.
Julia Brown-Bernstein is a Ph.D. candidate in the USC Van Hunnick Department of History. Her dissertation is a history of the Eastern San Fernando Valley as it underwent demographic shifts and economic restructuring from the 1970s to the early 2000s.
Grace Franklin is a Provost Fellow and Ph.D. candidate in English at USC. Her dissertation is titled “Power Play: Gas Infrastructure in Literature and Culture.”
Featured Projects
Booksnake
Booksnake lets you explore digitized archival items in the real world. Just aim your iPhone or iPad at a flat surface, tap the screen to place your item, and move to explore.
Capitalism’s erasure of Tayrona culture in 21st-Century Colombia
Will Young, Doctoral Candidate in Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture, USC
Using Virtual Reality to Explore 15th-Century Illuminated Manuscripts
USC Dornsife’s Sabina Zonno and Lynn Dodd receive a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to develop an immersive experience around a Renaissance-era manuscript.
