Brown University Library News

Please join the Library’s Center for Digital Scholarship this fall for the Digital Humanities (DH) Salons! The DH Salon series, hosted by the Center for Digital Scholarship, is a regular, informal presentation series bringing together digital humanities work across the Brown campus. Join us either in the Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab (Room 137) on the first floor of the Rockefeller Library (with lunch!) or on Zoom (https://brown.zoom.us/j/92485645421?jst=3). 

Please register to attend by clicking on the registration links next to the sessions listed below.

DH Salon Schedule

Documenting New Stories | Unfinished Conversations Series

Friday, September 19 at noon – Register

“Documenting New Stories,” the first DH Salon of fall 2025, is also the first installment of the Unfinished Conversations series, featuring:

• Shana Weinberg, Associate Director, Public Humanities Program, Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice
• Kiku Langford McDonald, Communications Manager, Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice
• Yannick Etoundi, UC Researcher, Documentary Project Manager, Associate Producer; PhD Candidate, History of Art & Architecture

The Unfinished Conversations series is a global oral history project in which individuals reflect on the history and legacies of racial slavery and European colonialism. Digitally archived at the John Hay Library with a forthcoming curated website created in partnership with the Center for Digital Scholarship, the Unfinished Conversations series is a living repository composed of more than 150 interviews that have taken place in nine languages across four continents.

Catalyzed by the Simmons Center with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, the project was created in partnership with museums and communities in Senegal; Liverpool (UK); Africatown (USA); Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); South Africa; Belgium; Kinshasa and the Kimbanguist Church in Nkamba (Democratic Republic of the Congo) as well as in Kingston and with the Charles Town Maroons (Jamaica).

The project is made possible through generous funding from the Abrams Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation.

Black Family Displacement on the East Side of Providence

Friday, October 17 at noon – Register

• Dannie Ritchie, Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine
• Tarika Sankar, Digital Humanities Librarian
• Khanh Vo, Digital Humanities Specialist

Black Family Displacement on the East Side is a digital project-in-progress that aims to shed light on the documented history of racial displacement in Lippitt Hill and the larger community, make the history of the community visible, and share the community’s work against gentrification. The project will be a site that demonstrates the general value system of supremacy that plays out around themes of studentification, wealth extraction, displacement, and accountability. It will feature oral history videos, an interactive map and timeline, and analytical narrative essays to bring forward the histories of the East Side of Providence to the larger community. The project will also double as a repository for community stories, art, and other materials collected and shared with the project along with continued community input and feedback.

Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past

Thursday, October 30 at noon – Register

• Renee Ater, Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies 
• Khanh Vo, Digital Humanities Specialist

Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past (CMSP) is a digital repository of commemorative works related to the slave past (monuments, memorials, and sites of slavery). It focuses primarily on three-dimensional objects, but also includes architecture that serves as memorial and museum such as the Mémorial ACTe on the island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. The term slave past covers the extended period of chattel slavery from the transatlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage to emancipation. Currently, the digital repository includes 117 commemorative works from West Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, Europe, and the United States.

In the Wake: Documenting Impact of Federal Government Policies on Rhode Island’s Marginalized Communities

Friday, November 14 at noon – Register

• Patsy Lewis, Professor of Africana Studies
• Tarika Sankar, Digital Humanities Librarian

This project proposes to establish the effects of federal government initiatives beginning in 2025 over a range of areas on communities of color in Rhode Island, and to document community responses. These include immigration, health, education, and the economy. The project builds on the work of the project, “In the Wake of George Floyd,” which centered on documenting protests against police violence across Rhode Island and identifying the interactions between communities of color and the state.

Brown University Digital Publications: Portfolio Overview 

Wednesday, December 10 at noon – Register

• Cosette Bruhns Alonso, Assistant Editor
• Crystal Brusch, Digital Publications Designer
• Allison Levy, Director
• Holiday Shapiro, Senior Library Technologist

Brown University Digital Publications creates exciting new conditions for the production and sharing of knowledge by advancing scholarly arguments in ways not achievable in a conventional print format, whether through multimedia enhancements or interactive engagement with research materials. BUDP partners with leading scholarly presses to bring peer reviewed, open access, multimodal content to global audiences.

The BUDP Team will present an overview of the portfolio and discuss current practices and concerns.