News
Mapping the Medieval Countryside
A new project at the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London which will allow researchers to explore the lands of medieval England as never before has received over half a million pounds in funding.
Paul Spence, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Digital Humanities, is leading a team at King’s which will work with Professor Michael Hicks and colleagues at the University of Winchester to digitise hundreds of years worth of records showing the land held by tenants at the time of their death. The ‘Mapping the Medieval Countryside: The Fifteenth Century Inquisitions Post Mortem’ project has been made possible by a £528,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Inquisitions post mortem (IPMs) are the single most important source for the study of landed society in later medieval England and to a lesser extent of Tudor and Stuart England, with thousands held in the National Archives at Kew.
The project will digitise 29 volumes covering periods between 1236 and 1447 and from 1485 to 1509 and publish them on British History Online where any researcher, archaeologist or amateur historian can view them for free.
The most recently published volumes, covering the years 1399 to 1447, will be converted into a fully interactive database which allows users to search and analyse all of the data, which is unusable in its current form. In addition, map-based statistical analysis will allow researchers to trace changes in land usage and provide new insights into the people and places mentioned in the texts.
Paul Spence said: ‘King’s is internationally renowned for its digital humanities research and this project will build on ground-breaking research in digital historical studies, computer-based text modelling and visualisation.
‘The project will allow people to access this key resource in a manner which previously required direct access to the documents themselves and specialist knowledge.’
Following the completion of the project the researchers intend to enhance other volumes to the same standard and fill the gap between published IPMs between 1447 and 1485.
For more details contact Anna Mitchell on 0207 848 3092 or at anna.i.mitchell@kcl.ac.uk.
For further information about King’s see our ‘King’s in Brief’ page.
Recent Publication by Professor Andrew Prescott
'Consumers, creators or commentators?: Problems of audience and
mission in the digital humanities' has just been published in a special
double issue of 'Arts and Humanities Research' 11 (1-2, Feb-Apr 2012) on
the theme of 'Digital Humanities, Digital Futures'.
Culture and Technologies Dialogue
Dr Tim Jordan has been participating in an international reseach group on digitalisation and its effects on cultural production. As part of this he participated in a dialogue with Dr Gina Neff University of Washington and Dr Joshua McVeigh-Shultz USC on the nature of technologies and their cultures.
Decoding Digital Humanities London
Decoding Digital Humanities London (DDHL) is a series of informal monthly meetings for anyone interested in research at the intersection of computational technologies and the humanities. These gatherings provide an opportunity to discuss readings and raise questions, but also to mingle and share ideas with others in the field of digital humanities. The series was founded at University College London and is now co-organized by students and staff at UCL, King's College London and Goldmisth's University of London.
The first meeting will be on January 31st at 6.30pm at The Plough (upstairs), 27 Museum st, WC1A 1LH. We will discuss the Digital Humanities Manifesto: http://tcp.hypotheses.org/411.
No registration is needed but an email would be appreciated. Please write to decodindh@ucl.ac.uk.
Centre for e-Research joins Digital Humanities
The Department of Digital Humanities at King's, Britain's first such academic department, will join with the Centre for e-Research (CeRch) to create one of Britain's largest academic units specialising in digital studies. Read more ...
PhD course 'Medieval Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age'
The Institute of English Studies (London) is pleased to announce the fourth year of 'Medieval Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age', an intensive course for PhD students jointly funded by COST and the AHRC, and run in collaboration with King's College London, the Warburg Institute, and the University of Cambridge. Read more...
Radio Four's Click On and Hacktivism Research at King's College London
BBC Radio 4's flagship technology show Click On features politically motivated hacking, or hacktivism, on Monday31st October 4.30pm. Dr Tim Jordan will be on the programme discussing his ongoing research into groups like Anonymous, Lulzsec and other hacktivist activities. The programme was recorded at the OccupyCityofLondon protest camp at St Paul's Cathedral. Tim will be linking hactivisit political actions with current broader political struggles such as the protest camp and more widely in the Arab Spring. He will also try to connect the current wave of hacktivist action with earlier online political protest.
If you miss the programme on Monday it will remain available on the BBC
website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016lbpp
Prospective PhD Student event
1 December 6 to 8pm in S3.41 Strand Campus
Are you thinking of doing a MPhil/PhD in Digital Humanities or Digital Humanities with Hellenic Studies, Classics, Comparative Literature, History, English, French, German…?
If the answer is yes, come to our event and meet potential supervisors and current PhD students. There is also a research clinic, followed by a drinks reception.
Additionally, this event open to all University of London MA students and current MPhil/PhD students who would like to add a digital component to their PhD.
PhD Seminars - All invited to attend
PhD seminars are open to all. If you're interested in Digital Humanities, why not discover what subjects the PhD students are exploring. The calendar lists all dates, times and participants.
The new venue is the Anatomy Theatre Museum from 5 to 7 same days as in the schedule. Title and abstract of each seminar will be circulated in advance.