The Humanities Go Digital at FSU

Campus News

The Humanities Go Digital at FSU

English major Haley Hadge ’24 was simply looking to satisfy her second math requirement when she came across the new Introduction to Digital Humanities course during
her sophomore year at Framingham State.

“That class opened up a whole new world for me at FSU,” says Hadge, who has a concentration in Professional Writing and a minor in Digital Humanities. “I’ve learned about all these different tools that I see as being invaluable no matter where my career takes me. Being able to take data and make sense out of it is a tangible skill in pretty much any field.”

Since launching in 2019, Framingham State University’s interdis-ciplinary minor in Digital Humanities has become one of the most popular options for students to pair with their major.

It is housed in the English Department with Digital Humanities courses currently offered by faculty in English and History, and allied courses are available through computer science and other humanities departments. The minor launched shortly before the University received a $192,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to launch a Digital Humanities Center in the Henry Whittemore Library.

Since launching the Digital Humanities Center, the University has received additional grants, including a second $154,000 award from the NEH to explore race through digital humanities approaches. The new resources have been a boon for students and faculty alike.

One of the former FSU NEH Digital Humanities Fellows, Professor of Art History Erika Schneider, PhD, has launched an ambitious project to digitally catalogue all of the works of world-renowned African American sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877–1968), who lived in Framingham.

The Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller archives are on permanent display at Framingham State’s Danforth Art Museum, and additional pieces of her work are also on exhibit throughout the country.

“She has works in Baltimore, at Yale, Colby College up in Maine, Howard University, the Smithsonian and Washington State,” says Schneider. “It has really become much larger than what I originally expected.”

Hadge has had the opportunity to intern with English Professor Kristen Abbott Bennett, PhD, on her Kit Marlowe Project, which is an open digital resource for the public to learn more about Christopher Marlowe in his literary and historical contexts.

Marlowe is considered one of William Shakespeare’s most interesting contemporaries.

Like Hadge, English major Riley Cormier ’24 also decided to pursue a minor in Digital Humanities after taking the introductory course with Dr. Bartholomew Brinkman, Founding Director of the Center for Digital Humanities and an English professor teaching in the Digital Humanities minor who also directs the Modern American Poetry Site.

“I realized it was something that was really in my wheelhouse,” Cormier says. “I love working within spreadsheets and doing organizational work. I find archiving really interesting.

It’s definitely providing me with a different skillset that should come in handy after I graduate.”

In addition to serving FSU faculty and students through training and other professional opportunities — including a recent yearlong faculty institute on race and digital humanities — Brinkman says the Digital Humanities Center is also intended to be a community resource. Institutes on race and digital humanities have recently been conducted for local high school teachers and regional librarians, and students in Brinkman’s Introduction to Digital Humanities courses have recently completed digital projects in collaboration with the Danforth Art Museum, the Framingham

History Center and FSU archives, many of which can be found on DigitalFramingham.org.

“I envision the center as a central resource to aid and promote Digital Humanities teaching and scholarship throughout MetroWest,” he adds.