Members of the Syracuse University community are invited to take part in the inaugural Digital Humanities Research Symposium to be held on Tuesday, April 24, from 4-6 p.m. in room 304 of the Schine Student Center. For more information, email organizers at dh.symposium.syr@gmail.com

The first symposium of its kind at Syracuse, the event aims to showcase the wide-ranging, interdisciplinary work being done in the digital space by both undergraduate and graduate students. Projects featured in the one-day event include work from African American studies, art and music histories, English and creative writing classes, as well as graduate-level research emerging from the School of Information Studies—all framed through the use of digital technology such as Google Fusion Tables, Omeka, Python, Voyant and Wordpress.

“I envision this symposium becoming a premiere event at Syracuse University in the future, and that it will serve as an international conference where students can share their work,” explains Casarae Gibson, assistant professor of African American studies and co-organizer of the event.

Rounding out the trio of College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) faculty who are leading the charge are Sarah Fuchs Sampson, assistant professor of music history and cultures, and Meina Yates-Richard, assistant professor of English. All three expect that the event will help to further engage faculty members to include more innovative digital research projects in their courses.

“I think that this event is meaningful for the Syracuse community because it shows how various technological innovations can be used to advance humanistic inquiry,” says Yates-Richard. “Our hope is that the student participants will be affirmed in the value of their work, and that attendees will begin conversations about student engagement, innovative assignments and future-oriented humanities scholarship at SU.”

Fuchs Sampson, whose most recent work uses digital technologies to visualize the social networks in late 19th- and early 20th-century French musical culture, concludes that bringing more faculty into the fold of the digital humanities can open up tremendous future opportunities for student-based research.

“By bringing together students and faculty from a wide array of departments, programs and schools across the University, the Digital Humanities Research Symposium will also open up an opportunity for conversations around technologies—and how these tools can be influential in humanities research and scholarship.”

The symposium is co-sponsored by the departments of African American studies, art and music histories and English, along with the Digital Humanities Faculty Working Group and the College of Arts & Sciences.