Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: How Google Book Search Got Lost

When it started almost 15 years ago, it also seemed impossibly ambitious: An upstart tech company that had just tamed and organized the vast informational jungle of the web would now extend the reach of its search box into the offline world. By scanning millions of printed books from the libraries with which it partnered, […]

Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: Exploring the Local Impact of the NEH

Recent budget proposals by the Trump administration have allocated zero funding to a number of independent federal agencies concerned with education, democracy, cultural preservation, and public-facing scholarship. Among them are the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which supports NPR and […]

Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: Exploring Indigenous Data Sovereignty through Water Governance

Aquay (Hello), I am a PhD student in Comparative Public Policy in the Department of Political Science focusing on Indigenous water security and its climatic, territorial and governance underpinnings. I am an enrolled citizen of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, a federally-recognized Tribal Nation located on the southern shores of Paumanok (Long Island, NY). Shinnecock means […]

Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: On Co-Teaching and Digital Humanities

For me, co-teaching is the ultimate teaching experience. I’ve been fortunate to find several opportunities for it over the years. During graduate school, I co-taught a number of short courses, several DH classes, and a couple workshops. Here at W&L I’ve been able to teach alongside faculty from the history department and the Library. Each […]

Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: Against the Computational Creep

In this short post I want to think about the limits of computation, not the limits theoretically of the application or theorisation of computation itself, but actually the limits to which computation within a particular context should be contained. This is necessarily a normative position, but what I am trying to explore is the limit […]

Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: Map the History of Redlining, It works

The history of redlining matters. For decades, the government sponsored Home Owners’ Loan Corporation created maps that defined African American neighbourhoods as high risk, which resulted in people not having access to a Federal Housing Administration insured mortgage in these districts. Ta-Nehisi Coates used the research…to develop the case for reparations in his 2014 cover story in the Atlantic. He convincingly argued […]

Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: Stream 8,000 Vintage Afropop Recordings

Stability or cultural vitality: many nations seem as if they can only have one or the other. The Republic of Guinea, for instance, has endured quite a turbulent history, yet its musicians have also enjoyed roles as “pioneers in the creation of African popular music styles and as the voice of a new Africa.” That’s the view […]

Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: How to Use the Trump Archive to Find TV News Appearances, Fact Checks, and Share Clips

The experimental Trump Archive, which we launched in January, is a collection of President Donald Trump’s appearances on TV news shows, including interviews, speeches, and press conferences dating back to 2009. Now largely hand-curated, the Trump Archive is a prototype of the type of collection on a public figure or topic possible to make with material from our library of […]