Dr. Alyson Gill receives NEH Digital Humanities grant
JONESBORO — Dr. Alyson Gill, associate professor of Art History at Arkansas State University and Director of ASU’s Center for Digital Initiatives (CDI), has received one of the top five awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities (ODH) for an Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities.
This summer institute is entitled, “Humanities Heritage 3D Visualization: Theory and Practice,” and will take place at ASU and the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville (UAF) in summer 2013, and will bring 20 humanities scholars together from across the country to learn practical and theoretical approaches to 3D real-time visualization of cultural heritage sites. The award is in the amount of $198,503.
“This institute, in which the CDI will partner with Dr. David Fredrick at UAF, allows scholars a unique opportunity to work with a team of experts from both institutions, as well as with an impressive group of scholars who will present hands-on training, providing participants with a digital toolbox that they will be able to take away with them as well as access to a community of scholars with whom they can collaborate in the future,” said Dr. Gill.
“Participants will also travel to ASU Heritage Sites, which will be used as case studies for 3D modeling projects, including the recently modeled boyhood home of JohnnyCash in Dyess, AR. This award raises the profile of ASU and the CDI and casts a spotlight on some of the incredible work our team has been doing over the past few years.”
Other heritage sites in the Mississippi Delta region that have been modeled by the CDI, include the Lakeport Plantation in Lake Village, the Hemingway-Pfeiffer house and studio in Piggott, and the Japanese-American internment camp at Rohwer.
The grants are part of a larger slate of 244 grants announced by the NEH. Over the last four years, almost 600 participants have participated in one of 20 opportunities through this program.
The other four Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities awards are Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.: “Early Modern Digital Agendas,” project director Owen Williams, $159,056; George Mason University, Fairfax, Va., “Another Week/Another Tool—A Digital Humanities Barnraising,” project director Joseph Scheinfeldt, $230,000; University of Maryland, College Park, Md.; “Digital Humanities Data Curation, project director Trevor Munoz, $248, 721; and University of Texas, Austin, Texas, “Institute for High Performance Sound Technologies for Analysis and Scholarship” (HiPSTAS), project director Tanya Clement, $235,000.
Digital modeling of ancient sites is one of Dr. Gill’s research interests at ASU, and this grant follows a 2007 NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up grant, “Ashes2Art: Virtual Reconstructions of Ancient Monuments” that paved the way for the creation of the Center for Digital Initiatives, a Center of Excellence at ASU.
For additional information, click on the following link: http://www.neh.gov/divisions/odh/grant-news/announcing-5-new-institutes-advanced-topics-in-the-digital-humanities-july.
