Digital Humanities Scholars Launch Networking Initiative and Inventory Project

In late 2019, a collection of librarians and faculty engaged in digital humanities (DH) scholarship met at Indiana Humanities’ Indianapolis office to launch a statewide DH network. Christened the Indiana Digital Humanities Initiative (INDHI), this new effort aims to foster collaborations across disciplines and institutions in order to promote scholarship that applies digital technologies to humanities questions. INDHI also aims to serve as a clearinghouse for information about DH-related student opportunities, funding sources, and activities.

At the opening meeting, as well as a follow-up meeting of the group’s steering committee early in 2020, we set an agenda for INDHI that includes:

• Highlighting Indiana DH scholarship;
• Creating an inventory of DH scholarship, broadly defined, from around the state;
• Staging public events and workshops that will help build community and facilitate the expansion of DH scholarship in Indiana; and
• Developing resources that help students learn more about DH-related career opportunities.

The Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted our work, but we are pleased to launch one part of our plan, the establishment of a networked inventory of DH-related scholarship from across Indiana. You can find links to compilations of DH research, student projects, and collections from institutions around the state here. We expect this list to expand regularly, so we encourage you to visit often. And if you are aware of DH projects that are under way or completed in Indiana but not listed here, please let us know.

For more information about INDHI, contact James Connolly at jconnoll@bsu.edu.

Dr. James Connolly is the George and Frances Ball distinguished professor of history and the director of the Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University