Current Research in Digital History 2018

March 17, 2018 — George Mason University, Arlington, VA

Plenary session, 9:00–9:45 a.m.

Location: Founders Hall 113

This roundtable features three scholars in the field reflecting on developments in digital history in the preceding year, with commentary and discussion from conference attendees. Participants:

• Elizabeth Bond, Ohio State University
• Micki Kaufman, City University of New York
• Andy Urban, Rutgers University

Paper session 1, 10:00–11:00 a.m.

Session 1.1 (Founders Hall 118)

• Michael J. Kramer, “When Mississippi John Hurt’s Head Moved: Glitching Region and Race at the 1964 Berkeley Folk Music Festival”
• Simon Appleford, “Revealing Political Bias: A Macroanalysis of 8,480 Herblock Cartoons
• Commentator: Michael O’Malley

Session 1.2 (Founders Hall 120)

• Jaimie Murdock, Colin Allen, and Simon DeDeo, “The Development of Darwin’s Origin of Species”
• Tom Ewing, “‘The Two Diseases are in No Way Connected’: Using Digital Humanities Tools to Advance Scholarship in the Global History of Medicine”
• Commentator: Jeffrey S. Reznick

Session 1.3 (Founders Hall 121)

• Joshua Catalano, “Digitally Analyzing the Uneven Ground: Language Borrowing Among Indian Treaties”
• Peter Carr Jones, “Mining the ICC: Macroanalysis of the Indian Claims Commission”
• Commentator: Taylor Arnold

Paper session 2, 11:10–12:10 p.m.

Session 2.1 (Founders Hall 118)

• Scot French, “Notes on the Future of Virginia: The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson and William Short, 1785–1826”
• Daniel Runyon, “Last Seen: Information Wanted Advertisements as a Tool in the Reconstruction of the Black Family”
• Commentator: Sheri Huerta

Session 2.2 (Founders Hall 120)

• Mary Wise, “Sites of Sovereignty: American Indian Protest Movements in the American Midwest, 1890–1960”
• Josh Howard, “Talk-Back Boards and Text Mining: New Digital Approaches in Museum Visitor Studies”
• Commentator: Joseph Genetin-Pilawa

Session 2.3 (Founders Hall 121)

• Erin Bush, “‘Attracted by the Khaki’: War Camps and Wayward Girls in Virginia, 1918–1920”
• Atiba Pertilla, “Mapping Mobility: Spatial and Class Change in the Gilded Age Wall Street Workforce”
• Commentator: Robert Nelson

Paper session 3, 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Session 3.1 (Founders Hall 118)

• Marcy L. Galbreath and Amy L. Giroux, “Researching Genres in Agricultural Communities: The Role of the Farm Record Book”
• George Oberle, “Growing Strong: The Institutional Expansion of Agricultural Knowledge in the Early Republic”
• Commentator: James Ambuske

Session 3.2 (Founders Hall 120)

• Elizabeth Bond, “Mapping the Media Landscape in Old Regime France”
• Jo Guldi and Benjamin Williams, “A Nested Topic Model of Property in Hansard”
• Commentator: Micki Kaufman

Session 3.3 (Founders Hall 121)

• Anelise H. Shrout, “(Re)Humanizing Data: Navigating the Digital Almshouse Project”
• James Perry, “Geo-Locating Census Micro-Data: Segregation, Clustering, and Residential Behaviours of Migrant Communities in London, 1881–1911”
• Commentator: Tyler Anbinder

Unconference session, 3:00–4:15 p.m.

Location: Founders Hall 113

The final time slot will be devoted to sessions proposed on the day by participants at the event. Ending the event in this way will provide an opportunity to bring into focus the discussions stimulated by the sessions, and to address questions that span sessions.

Venue and lodging

The conference will be held in Founders Hall on GMU’s Arlington campus, located at 3351 Fairfax Dr, Arlington, VA 22201. A map of the Arlington campus is available here. The venue is located one mile east of the recommended hotel, a 20 minute walk along Fairfax Drive. You can also walk 5 minutes to the Ballston Metro Station, and ride the Metro one stop in the direction of Washington, DC, to the Virginia Square-GMU stop; Founders Hall is a block east of the station. Paid parking is available at Founders Hall. Information about GMU Public Safety for the Arlington Campus is available on its website.

We recommend that participants who need lodging book rooms at the Holiday Inn Arlington at Ballston, 4610 N. Fairfax Dr, Arlington, Virginia 22203.

Presenters will have access to the classroom computers and projectors. You can plug a device into the projector directly via HDMI, or you can put slides or use a browser on the classroom computer. Presenters will each have 10 minutes to present their papers. Commentators will spend 5 minutes on each paper for a total of 10 minutes. The remainder of the time is reserved for discussion.