2026 20.2
Community, Activism, and Innovation in Latin American and Latinx Public Digital Humanities
Editors: Sylvia Fernández Quintanilla, Clayton McCarl, Siobhan Meï, and Jonathan Michael
Square
Front Matter
[en] Introduction to Community, Activism, and Innovation in Latin American and Latinx Public
Digital Humanities[ht] Entwodiksyon sou Kominote, Aktivis, ak Inovasyon nan Syans Imanitè Nimerik Piblik
an Amerik Latin ak Latino[fr] Introduction à La Communauté, l’Activisme et l’Innovation dans les Humanités Numériques
Publiques Latino-américaines et Latinx[es] Introducción a la comunidad, el activism y la inovacción en las humanidades digitales
públicas latinoamericanas y latinx[pt] Introdução à Comunidade, ativismo e inovação nas humanidades digitais públicas latino-Americanas
e latinxSylvia Fernández Quintanilla, University of Texas at San Antonio; Clayton McCarl,
University of North Florida; Siobhan Meï, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Jonathan
Michael Square, Parsons School of Design
Abstract
[en][ht][fr][es][pt]
This special issue proposes that the use of digital tools to achieve objectives that
are not fundamentally digital is a central and defining activity in the context of
Latin American and Latinx digital humanities. In many cases, those outcomes relate
to highlighting and correcting injustice, promoting solidarity, and altering the ways
we teach about Latin America and Latinx populations in the U.S. We do not argue that
all digital work related to Latin America and Latinx communities should be understood
as “public digital humanities” or “digital public humanities.” Instead, we suggest
that the commitment to advocacy and social justice that informs scholarship in these
areas frequently leads to the use of digital tools to achieve goals that focus not
on technology but on building connections beyond academic spaces and engaging with
real problems faced by actual people.
Edisyon espesyal sa a pwopoze ke itilizasyon zouti nimerik pou reyalize objektif ki
pa nimerik nan baz yo, se yon aktivite santral e prensipal nan kontèks syans imanitè
nimerik nan Amerik Latin ak Latino. Nan plizyè ka, rezilta sa yo gen rapò ak mete
aksan sou korije enjistis, ankouraje solidarite, ak chanje fason nou anseye popilasyon
Amerik Latin ak Latino Ozetazini. Nou pa kont tout travay nimerik ki gen rapò avèk
Amerik Latin ak kominote Latino yo ke yo ta dwe pèsevwa yo tankou "syans imanitè nimerik
piblik" oswa "nimerik piblik syans imanitè." Okontrè, nou sijere ke angajman anvè
defans ak jistis sosyal ki enfòme rechèch nan domèn sa yo, souvan mennen nan itilizasyon
zouti nimerik pou atenn objektif ki pa konsantre sou teknoloji men sou bati koneksyon
pi lwen pase espas akademik yo epi angaje yo ak pwoblèm reyèl moun reyèl yo ap fè
fas.
Ce numéro spécial défend l’idée que l’usage d’outils numériques au service d’objectifs
qui ne sont pas fondamentalement numériques constitue une activité centrale et définitoire
des humanités numériques latino‑américaines et Latinx. Dans de nombreux cas, ces résultats
consistent à mettre en lumière et à corriger des injustices, à promouvoir la solidarité
et à transformer la façon dont nous enseignons l’Amérique latine et les populations
Latinx aux États‑Unis. Nous ne soutenons pas que tous les travaux numériques liés
à l’Amérique latine et aux communautés Latinx relèvent des “humanités numériques publiques”
ou des “humanités publiques numériques”. Nous suggérons plutôt que l’engagement en
faveur de la défense des droits sociaux et de la justice sociale qui façonne la recherche
dans ces domaines conduit fréquemment à mobiliser des outils numériques pour atteindre
des objectifs axés non pas sur la technologie elle‑même, mais sur la création de liens
au‑delà des espaces académiques et sur la prise en compte de problèmes réels vécus
par des personnes.
Este número especial propone que el uso de herramientas digitales para alcanzar objetivos
que no son fundamentalmente digitales constituye una actividad central y definitoria
en el contexto de las humanidades digitales latinoamericanas y latinx. En muchos casos,
esos resultados se relacionan con visibilizar y corregir injusticias, promover la
solidaridad y transformar las formas en que enseñamos sobre América Latina y las poblaciones
latinx en Estados Unidos. No sostenemos que todo el trabajo digital relacionado con
América Latina y las comunidades latinx deba entenderse como “humanidades digitales
públicas” o “humanidades públicas digitales”. En cambio, sugerimos que el compromiso
con la defensa y la justicia social que informa la investigación en estas áreas conduce
con frecuencia al uso de herramientas digitales para alcanzar objetivos que no se
centran en la tecnología, sino en construir conexiones más allá de los espacios académicos
y en involucrarse con problemas reales que enfrentan personas reales.
Esta edição especial propõe que o uso de ferramentas digitais para alcançar objetivos
que não são fundamentalmente digitais é uma atividade central e definidora no contexto
das humanidades digitais latino-americanas e latinas. Em muitos casos, esses resultados
relacionam-se à divulgação e correção de injustiças, à promoção da solidariedade e
à alteração das formas como ensinamos sobre a América Latina e as populações latinas
nos EUA. Não defendemos que todo trabalho digital relacionado à América Latina e às
comunidades latinas deva ser entendido como “humanidades digitais públicas” ou “humanidades
públicas digitais.” Em vez disso, sugerimos que o compromisso com a defesa e a justiça
social que norteia a pesquisa nessas áreas frequentemente leva ao uso de ferramentas
digitais para alcançar objetivos que se concentram não na tecnologia, mas na construção
de conexões para além dos espaços acadêmicos e no engajamento com problemas reais
enfrentados por pessoas reais.
Articles
[en] Digital Storytelling, Vulnerable Migrant Communities, and Undergraduate EducationRobert McKee Irwin, University of California, Davis
Abstract
[en]
Humanizing Deportation is a participatory audiovisual project that since early 2017
has documented and disseminated the repercussions of contemporary migration and border
control laws and policies on vulnerable migrants in the United States and Mexico.
Through on the ground collaborations with deported migrants and asylum seekers in
Tijuana and elsewhere, we have published over 500 digital stories (testimonial audiovisual
shorts) on our bilingual website. While fieldwork has been realized principally in
Tijuana and elsewhere in Mexico by faculty and graduate students, we have increasingly
developed strategies for incorporating undergraduate students at the University of
California, Davis, into our research team, by training them in our audiovisual production
techniques. This has allowed these students, many of whose families are affected directly
by such laws and policies, to become directly and meaningfully involved in helping
migrants communicate their experiences and concerns to the world. This article lays
out the methods we use in involving undergrads directly, albeit remotely, in our deeply
collaborative production processes, highlighting both the rewards and the risks in
this endeavor. For many of our students, their participation in Humanizing Deportation
constitutes one of the most meaningful experiences they obtain in college.
[en] Fostering Transborder Thinking at the Intersection of Digital-Public Humanities and
Border Epistemologies with United FronterasSylvia Fernández Quintanilla, University of Texas at San Antonio; Carolina E. Alonso,
Fort Lewis College; Maira E. Álvarez, University of Toronto; Laura Gonzales, University
of Florida
Abstract
[en]
In this article, we delve into the intersection of digital and public humanities and
border epistemologies, offering pedagogical frameworks that leverage the analysis
and engagement of tools, practices, and ethical knowledge production to challenge
dominant narratives of the Mexico-U.S. border. The article presents and explores the
creation and impact of the online directory and memory project, United Fronteras (2020), which offers a framework for transborder thinking. The authors analyze diverse
projects and digital materials to reveal the complexities of border communities through
research, teaching, archives development, and/or lived experiences. Through this analysis,
the authors offer pedagogical models that can help continue expanding transborder
digital humanities work. This collaborative approach amplifies underrepresented voices,
thus challenging common misconceptions and advocating for a more inclusive understanding
of the Mexico-U.S. border. The article demonstrates the application of border epistemology
and United Fronteras within border communities and academic settings across multiple universities and
disciplines to foster the theory, praxis and pedagogy of transborder digital and public
humanities across different borderlands.
[en] Social Media as a Digital Humanities Platform? A conversation between Rendering Revolution
co-founders, Jonathan Michael Square and Siobhan MeïSiobhan Meï, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Jonathan Michael Square, Parsons
School of Design
Abstract
[en]
This article offers an overview of the digital humanities methods and theories that
inform the project Rendering Revolution: Sartorial Approaches to Haitian History.
In this article, project co-founders Jonathan Square and Siobhan Meï engage in a conversation
about their collaborative model for doing public-facing scholarship at the intersections
of black and Caribbean digital humanities. Specifically, Meï and Square critically
consider the role of social media in building and sustaining their project, which
uses the lens of fashion and material culture to trace the aesthetic, social, and
political reverberations of the Haitian Revolution. Through the collaborative effort
of a team whose expertise lies in translation, visual culture, and cultural theory,
Rendering Revolution uses Instagram to connect the past and present in ways that are
visually compelling and exemplify the power of social media as a tool for scholarly
communication.
[en] Voces y Caras: Community Building through the Collection of StoriesConstanza López Baquero, University of North Florida
Abstract
[en]
This article discusses the trajectory and impact of the digital oral history project
Voces y Caras: Latinx Communities of North Florida, which has played an important role in building community and advocating for the
Latinx populations at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida. My
paper argues that the project represents a model that can be adapted by others who
work with Heritage speakers and U.S. Hispanic/Latinx communities. To do so, it reviews
the history of the project, connects it to a larger movement related to Latinx oral
history in the U.S., and considers the ways the digital and non-digital components
complement each other and enable the project to have a vibrant life not only online
but also in physical spaces. Most importantly, it reflects on the power of projects
focusing on digital oral history and building connections between people, as tools
to create learning experiences that motivate students and help them to engage with
their communities.
[en] Baobabs, Networks and Digital Sovereignty: Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Community
Digital Territories as Communitarian DHEduard Arriaga-Arango, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Language, Literature
and Culture, Clark University
Abstract
[en]
Baobáxia is an initiative developed by the Afro-Brazilian network Rede Mocambos that
serves as a model of community digital organizing so they can propose data justice,
digital sovereignty and autonomy. Baobáxia is a technology that interconnects diverse
communities in Brazil (i.e, Quilombos, Indigenous communities and Favelas, among others),
and also creates a structure to store, curate and disseminate local knowledge, traditions,
histories and representations. This infrastructure demonstrates how non-expert communities
can use digital strategies to defend their territory, preserve their cultural production,
and affirm their human condition. Throughout this article I discuss how Baobáxia and
Rede Mocambos work, as well as a collaborative project to connect with other quilombos,
Black and Indigenous communities in the Americas. The collaborations described herein
are part of community digital humanities initiatives that go beyond the boundaries
of the university and the academia expanding their scope and contributing to a humanization
of technology.
[en] Building on the Margins: Salt & AloesLauren Baccus, Founder, Salt & Aloes
Abstract
[en]
This paper examines Salt & Aloes, a digital humanities project founded in 2020 to explore and circulate Caribbean
material culture through alternative digital spaces. Originating from a creative inquiry
into a single colonial object, the planter’s chair, the project challenges the silences
and distortions embedded within colonial archives. Salt & Aloes operates as a form of fugitivity, working beyond traditional academic institutions,
relying on limited resources, and sustained by vibrant networks of artists, scholars,
and community members. This work illustrates the potential of digital humanities tools
to reframe Caribbean histories in plural and emergent ways, while also confronting
systemic barriers such as colonial legacies, funding limitations, and institutional
gatekeeping. After a period of rapid growth, the project now pauses to reflect and
recalibrate, focusing on deepening meaningful connections and its own limited capacity.
Embracing the inherent messiness of creative work at the margins, Salt & Aloes models a practice of digital marronage that negotiates space alongside institutions
without losing its autonomy. Ultimately, this project highlights the human and scholarly
possibilities of caring, daring, and decolonial approaches to knowledge production
in Caribbean digital scholarship.
[en] Fanm Rebèl: Digital and Public Heritage Assemblages of Women in the Haitian RevolutionNicole Willson, University of Greenwich
Abstract
[en]
This article critically reflects on the creation, scope and scholarly implications
of Fanm Rebèl, an engaged research and digital and public heritage project that reassembles the
occluded histories of women in the Haitian Revolution and the period of early Haitian
state-making. Centred on the recovery and reimagining of the manifold articulations
of women-led resistance, Fanm Rebèl explores how fragments of women’s lives dispersed across archives, embedded in oral
histories and reimagined through creative and expressive practice can be mobilised
to generate alternative genealogies of revolutionary memory. Drawing on Haitian ideas
of rasanblaj (re/-assembly), the project integrates a range of digital and material
“imprints” – from an open-access and bilingual online gallery and archive to commemorative
heritage plaques and a YouTube documentary – each constituting an exercise in communal
caretakership and decolonial praxis.
Through an examination of its collaborative, engaged and inter- and antidisciplinary
methodologies, the article interrogates how digital assemblages can resist archival
silences and model forms of radical stewardship. While it ponders the ethical and
emotional labour demanded by such work and the problems of ephemerality in creating
digital outputs in particular, it advocates for a “constellation” of assemblages that
have multiple afterlives across digital, material and community spaces. In tracing
the multiple trajectories of Fanm Rebèl, this article proposes an insurgent and resilient
framework for digital and public humanities practice undergirded by ethics of collaboration
and care.
[en] Documenting the Movement for Mexican American Studies (MAS) in Texas Through Critical
Latinx Public Digital Humanities (DH) and Chicanx FeminismsSylvia Mendoza Aviña, Assistant Professor of Mexican American Studies, University
of Texas, San Antonio
Abstract
[en]
This essay introduces the MAS Muxeres Oral History Project, a digital storytelling
project that uses ArcGIS StoryMaps to share the oral histories and intimate archival
materials of the muxeres who build and sustain Mexican American Studies (MAS) programs
in Yanawana/San Antonio, Texas. The focus of this essay is twofold: 1) to introduce
the project, and 2) to explore the transformational possibilities of incorporating
critical Latinx public digital humanities (DH) approaches into MAS research. In this
current moment of anti-DEI, anti-critical race theory, and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation,
particularly within the state of Texas where this project is based, critical Latinx
public DH approaches provide the opportunity to engage in community-based and feminist
research within MAS that 1) centers women, their activism, and contributions; 2) visually
documents the larger movement for MAS and ethnic studies in Texas through the experiences
of muxeres; 3) fosters partnerships with the community to produce public research
that is accessible beyond the confines of academia; and 4) offers hands-on digital
training through the development of digital public research. In this essay, I explore
how incorporating critical Latinx public DH within MAS research helps to not only
address the intentional gaps in both U.S. and traditional Chicano history that erase
the contributions of women and queer/communities of color but also helps to address
contemporary issues in MAS and ethnic studies.
Articles
[en] Mapping Public Housing in LiteratureCrystal Rudds, University of Utah; Theadora Soter, University of Utah, Marriott Library
Abstract
[en]
GIS tools have the power to elevate overlooked locations while democratizing mapping
practices in the digital humanities. In this article, we discuss metadata and ethical
concerns related to an ArcGIS Storymap of 100 works of creative literature about public
housing, one of the most contested locations in the twentieth century. Given that
Black tenants have made up the largest and most stigmatized population in this geography,
Black Digital Humanities and Black Spatial Humanities help us think through the implications
of this work. We relied on mixed methods, from analyzing MARC records to interviewing
current and former residents, to expand our database into a participatory mapping
project that we hope contributes to the rich cultural history of public housing.
[en] Good Women, Mediocre Men: Hierarchy in Narrative and Digital ProsopographyJennifer Buckley, University of Galway; Kandice Sharren, University of Saskatchewan
Abstract
[en]
Creating a prosopography of people who engaged with the Georgian theatre requires
interrogating mixed media sources, including archival documents; print materials including
anecdotal magazine articles, playbills, and biographies; digital authority records
like those compiled by the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF); other databases;
and traditional scholarship about theatre history. Embedded within this ecosystem
of sources is a hierarchy of information which often privileges the cultural capital
that comes with celebrity and notoriety. In this article, we use the careers of the
actor Alexander Pope and his two wives, Elizabeth Younge and Maria Ann Campion, as
case studies to investigate how these hierarchies are inscribed and reinscribed first
in historical documents and subsequently in modern scholarship. In a period with five
prominent theatrical Popes, we argue for digital prosopography as a methodology that
can counter these hierarchies. When incorporated into a project like ‘Theatronomics:
The Business of Theatre, 1732-1809’, which links people to their earnings and their
box office power, digital prosopography enables us to illuminate the labour of individuals
that might otherwise be concealed by the mythos of celebrity, and the institution
of the theatre more generally.
[en] The (Im)possibility of Autonomous Feminist InfrastructuresCécile Chevalier, University of Sussex; Irene Fubara-Manuel, University of Sussex;
Sharon Webb, University of Sussex
Abstract
[en]
Scaling-up, speeding-up, and powering-up of technology are all coterminous to the
hegemonic cycle of infrastructural development. These capitalist impulses shrink the
possibilities of building technology from critical perspectives. As such, this paper
explores the (im)possibility—the possibility and impossibility—of autonomous feminist
infrastructures. We focus specifically on feminist servers as a case study of these
infrastructures, critically reflecting on our experimentation to build a prototype
server. We contextualise this experiment with our work on Full Stack Feminism in Digital
Humanities (DH), drawing a line from feminist histories in computing to development
of feminist servers. Orienting our movement towards our own prototype server, we outline
our theoretical framework of queer phenomenology. We expand on queer and feminist
theorisation of infrastructure, outlining the relational role of infrastructure, in
bridging and walling out communities. From our historical context and theoretical
framing, we draw insights from experimentations. We outline the possibilities and
negotiations with existing infrastructures in building autonomous feminist servers.
Through our experimentation and reflections, we emphasise the need for a plurality
of infrastructures and an exploration of the socio-technical entanglements in which
such infrastructures exist.
[en] Visions in the Machine: Automated Tagging of
the William Blake ArchiveGrant Glass, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University
Abstract
[en]
This paper investigates how multimodal AI can support — not replace — scholarly
description of William Blake’s visual art. Using the William Blake Archive as a
foundation, I develop a conceptual framework that distinguishes three levels of
visual analysis (pattern recognition, motif identification, and iconographic
interpretation) and use it to evaluate a working retrieval prototype built on
Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training (CLIP) embeddings and Facebook AI
Similarity Search (FAISS) indexing over a 200-work stratified corpus. The paper
defends three claims. First, that AI-assisted tagging is best understood as
retrieval support rather than automated interpretation: it surfaces candidate
matches that scholars then validate. Second, that performance degrades
predictably across the three tiers: strong at object-level detection, moderate
at motif-level pattern recognition, weak at Blake-specific iconography, and that
this gradient is itself a useful empirical finding for archives weighing
adoption. Third, that the responsible integration of AI tags into an existing
scholarly archive requires explicit provenance, confidence scoring,
human-in-the-loop validation, and audit logging, and that these requirements can
be operationalized concretely. The paper does not claim to automate iconographic
interpretation, to provide ground-truth identifications, or to generalize beyond
the 200-work pilot; results should be read as alignment with the Archive’s
descriptive practice on a stratified sample, not as validated interpretation.
The contribution is a conceptual framework, a tested prototype, and an
integration design that other archives confronting dense symbolic corpora can
adapt.
[en] Pre-revolution network connections of the 1989
Polish Round Table participantsKelly Bodwin, California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo; Gregory F.
Domber, California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo; Riley Sanders,
California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo
Abstract
[en]
Between the late 1940s and the collapse of Communism in 1989, the Polish United
Workers Party (PZPR) controlled nearly all facets of political and social life
in Poland. Communist rule was contested regularly, however, with a spontaneous
worker uprising in Pozńan in 1956, a national student uprising in 1968, worker
strikes in Gdańsk in 1970 and outside of Warsaw in 1976. These earlier uprisings
were precursors to the strikes along the Baltic Coast that led to the creation
of the independent, self-governing Trade Union “Solidarity” in August 1980.
Solidarity was forced into the underground by a declaration of martial law in
December 1981 but rebuilt itself as a broad-based social movement during the
1980s. When another round of strikes occurred in 1988, the Communist government
turned to Solidarity to find a political solution to Poland’s endemic
instability and the two groups joined Round Table meetings in early 1989. These
negotiations resulted in a peaceful transition to a Democratic government later
that year, the first revolution in a cascade of anti-Communist revolutions that
swept the region in 1989/1990. Using a dataset of the institutional affiliations
of the 567 Round Table participants, a purpose-built Shiny App for
longitudinally analyzing the dataset, and a penalized logistic model, this paper
shows that while the creation of the Solidarity Trade Union in August 1980 was
the most transformational moment for the network structure that linked Round
Table participants, events in 1968 were also highly predictive for whether an
individual would end up on the Government or Opposition side of the Round Table.
Beyond its specific argument, this paper documents the process of converting
analog records in physical archives to fully digitized data science tools for
quantitative study of longitudinal social connections, with three primary
contributions: (1) we discuss and present a rich data package consisting of
activities and organizational affiliations of 567 Round Table participants from
1945 to 1989; (2) we provide an overview of a purpose-built Shiny App for
longitudinally analyzing the Round Table datasets, paying particular attention
to the challenges of structuring data and analysis to reflect real-world
conditions; (3) we fit and assess a penalized logistic model to provide insight
into which activities and organizations are predictive of particular
affiliations at the 1989 Round Table.
[en] Speculative Recommendation: Reframing AI for
Interpretive Practice in the Digital HumanitiesRiver Rain, Amsterdam University College; Houda Lamqaddam, Institute of Logic, Language
and Computation, Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam
Abstract
[en]
This project investigates the potential of recommender systems as an generative
tool in humanities research using the case of aesthetic-driven recommender
system focused on animated films. Leveraging still frames from trailers and a
fine-tuned convolutional neural network (VGG16), we extracted aesthetic features
to develop a recommender system that uses visual characteristics as the sole
input. The system demonstrates high precision, identifying both expected and
surprising latent connections between films on the basis of visual similarities,
demonstrating how recommender systems can support the investigation of high
level concepts such as influence. This approach has broader implications within
DH, showing how recommender systems can facilitate exploratory, interpretive
research, how the stochasticity of AI models is well suited to support the
interpretative aspect of humanistic scholarship, and exploring the potential of
interdisciplinary cross-pollination in DH research.
[en] Making Marx More Readable: A Minimal Computing
Approach to a Community-Driven Edition of Capital Vol. 1
Steven Gotzler, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Avery Wiscomb, Virginia
Tech
Abstract
[en]
The following article presents MARXdown, a minimal digital reading edition of Karl
Marx’s Capital Vol. 1, as a retrospective case study in
applying minimal computing principles to create accessible, community-driven digital
humanities (DH) projects. Developed by graduate students at Carnegie Mellon
University in 2019–20, MARXdown demonstrates how framing minimal computing as
practical commitments can lower access barriers, demystify computing labor, and
facilitate knowledge sharing. The project leveraged lightweight, open-source tools
to
create a collaborative reading environment that addressed specific community needs.
This approach allowed for adaptability during the COVID-19 pandemic, transforming
MARXdown into a vital support for collaboratively reading Marx under lockdown. The
article argues that practical commitments to minimal computing can promote replicable
models for building digital reading editions, useful for distributing marginalized
or
banned texts in underserved communities. By unpacking some of MARXdown's development
process, this study offers insights into both the potential and limitations of
minimal computing in academic and community-driven contexts, contributing to
discussions about accessibility, sustainability, and ethics in DH.
Case Studies
[en] The Naxi Dongba MOOC: A Test Case for Digital
Revitalisation of Endangered Writing SystemsJue Wang Szilas, University of Geneva; PLIDAM, Inalco
Abstract
[en]
From 2019 to 2023, three universities – the National Institute of Oriental
Languages and Civilisations, the University of Geneva, and the Beijing Language
and Culture University – collaborated to produce a Massive Open Online Course
(MOOC) entitled Initiation to the Dongba Script.
The objective was to preserve and revitalise the Dongba script, an endangered
writing system used by the Naxi people in southwestern China. The course aimed
to engage learners around the world in learning the script and subsequently
contributing to the preservation of this unique cultural heritage. Hosted by the
French MOOC platform FUN, the MOOC ran for the first time from April to June
2023. Using a qualitatively led mixed research method integrating pre- and
post-course questionnaire data, forum discussions, informal feedback, and
fieldwork conducted in Lijiang in August 2023, this paper explores how
participants experienced the MOOC as a learning and cultural engagement
opportunity and which factors facilitated or constrained broader community
participation, particularly from the Naxi community itself. The findings show
that the MOOC successfully reached a highly educated, multilingual,
international audience with strong intrinsic motivation. It achieved a
completion rate more than double the global MOOC average, generating sustained
post-course engagement across academic, creative and professional domains. The
analysis reveals that, for many participants, the course functioned as a
cultural threshold experience, repositioning the script from that of an unknown
object to a personally meaningful one. Some learners went on to pursue academic
research, creative applications, or further study of the Naxi language,
suggesting the potential for longer-term engagement. These findings reveal a
tension in MOOC-based heritage education: Open platforms can reach global
audiences, yet local cultural transmission depends on sustained engagement with
the living communities the heritage belongs to. They also offer valuable
insights and lessons for digital heritage education initiatives in other
endangered script contexts.
Reviews
[en] Embracing the Ghost in the Machine: A Review of
Thinking with AI: Machine Learning the
Humanities (2025)Agustín Cosovschi, Inštitut za Novejšo Zgodovino, Ljubljana, Slovenija
Abstract
[en]
Hannes Bajohr’s Thinking with AI: Machine Learning the
Humanities argues that humanists need to test their own concepts
against the new phenomena that computer science and engineering throw at
them.
[en] What We Read
while Looking Up from the Book: A Review of The Routledge
Companion to Libraries, Archives, and the Digital Humanities
David Pruneda Senties, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Abstract
[en]
This review of The Routledge Companion to Libraries,
Archives, and the Digital Humanities, edited by Isabel Galina
Russell and Glen Layne-Worthey, highlights the book’s acute representation of
the work performed by librarians, archivists and digital humanists. By means of
the thoughtful selection and organization of more than thirty chapters, the
editors show that libraries and archives are spaces that function because of the
relations between five different systems: ethical-ideological, methodological,
public, epistemological, and social. The review summarises each one of these
systems and explains how they interact to showcase the complexities of academic
practices such as digital preservation, digitisation, and text mining.
