Digital Humanities

The Alevi and closely related Bektashi communities represent a marginalized ethno-religious minority, accounting for approximately fifteen percent of Turkey's population, with extensions in the Balkans and a significant Alevi diaspora in Europe. Their presence in historical rural settlements, along with their artistic, cultural, and religious traditions, has experienced a rapid decline since the mid-20th century due to the pressures of modernization, assimilationist policies, and the migration of Alevis to major cities and Western countries for economic or political reasons. This has put Alevi villages and sacred sites at risk of disappearing or being subject to cultural appropriation. Furthermore, Alevi written sources, preserved in the private archives of Alevi dede (spiritual leaders) families, and items of Alevi material culture, including sacred objects, are also at risk of deterioration, destruction, or loss due to various factors, including natural disasters like fires or earthquakes. The primary objective of the Alevi-Bektashi Digital Archive project is to establish a comprehensive web-based archive dedicated to documenting and safeguarding the endangered historical and cultural heritage of Alevi-Bektashi communities in Anatolia and the Balkans, making it accessible to a broader audience through a user-friendly digital platform.

Much of Cuba’s media culture has been hidden from view, particularly for those in the U.S. At William & Mary, we have been working to change this, showcasing the island’s films, filmmakers and graphic designers through our collections and innovative collaborations. Our broad network of partnerships, developed over the past quarter-century, has positioned us to amass a robust collection of physical and digitally-born materials. In addition to collecting videos, we have been creating an expansive array of resources, among them filmed interviews, subtitled documentaries, translated film scripts, original videos and curricula. The Cuban Media Project at W&M Libraries is making these resources freely and widely available.

The Judeo-Arabic Love Poems Project introduces nearly one hundred Arabic poems that circulated in and around the western Algerian port city of Oran in the seventeenth century. Written down in Hebrew script by members of the city’s Jewish community, these Arabic songs—some of them laments, others descriptions of nature, but most of them about worldly and divine love—were integrated into Jewish worship, where they were woven together with Hebrew para-liturgical texts to form long musical suites, each of them called a ṭarīq or path.

The project provides digital access to this unusual collection of Arabic texts, as well as transcriptions, translations, and commentary. These poems have much to teach us about musical and poetic repertoires among Arabic speakers of the region in the seventeenth century, Maghribi Jewish liturgical practice, Muslim-Jewish intimacy, and the porous boundary between Spanish-ruled Oran and its Muslim hinterlands.

The Lemon Project is a multifaceted and dynamic attempt to rectify wrongs perpetrated against African Americans by the College through action or inaction. An ongoing endeavor, this program will focus on contributing to and encouraging scholarship on the 300-year relationship between African Americans and the College, and building bridges between the College and Williamsburg and Greater Tidewater area.

This student research project, proceeding under faculty guidance, and in collaboration with multiple community partners across Virginia, aims to better understand, chronicle, and preserve the history of LGBTIQ people and cultures in the Commonwealth, and make these histories accessible through placing digitized materials and oral histories online.

OI is the oldest organization in the United States exclusively dedicated to advancing the study, research, and publication of scholarship bearing on the history and culture of early America, broadly construed, from circa 1450 to 1820. Their scope of inquiry includes North America and related histories of the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. Since 1943 the Institute has published the William and Mary Quarterly and books, and sponsored conferences and fellowships.

The Russian Movie Theater Project is an archive and a study of film exhibition in St. Petersburg during the twentieth century: a portrait of film exhibition and movie-going scene in Soviet Leningrad and Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Inspired by recent initiatives in the Digital Humanities at William and Mary, University of Pittsburgh, and other universities, Russian Movie Theater Project hopes to serve as a lab for collaborative scholarly work for William and Mary undergraduates and faculty.

The World of James Monroe Online (WMJO) assembly of documents brings together and provides free, open access to materials starting with archives from three Virginia-based institutions: William & Mary, the University of Virginia, and the University of Mary Washington.