From exploring Pompeii with an iPad to digitally mapping 19th-century Paris, a Five College colloquium will present work in progress from faculty members and students carrying out research at the intersection of technology and culture. Entitled “Of Roman Walls and Lace Shawls, iPads and Interactive Maps” the colloquium will offer Five College community members an update on work in a multi-year grant-funded effort.

Part of the Curricular Innovations project, a four-year, $1.5 million effort funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, “Embedding the Digital in the Humanities” is investigating ways to use digital humanities resources and technologies as a tool for teaching humanities to liberal arts students, supporting student scholarship and preparing them for the increasingly technological environment of the working world. The colloquium takes place in Webster 102 at Amherst College on November 2 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The event starts with panel discussions by Five College faculty members and students. At 10 a.m. “What happens (or should happen) at the intersection of Humanities and Technology?” features a conversation among UMass History Professor Jon Berndt Olsen, Hampshire College School of Social Inquiry and Technologies Librarian Caro Pinto and Mount Holyoke Professor and Five College Women’s Studies Research Center Director Karen Remmler.

At 10:45 a.m. UMass Classics Professor Eric Poehler will lead a talk entitled “2000-year-old walls and 21st century technology: Pompeii and the iPad.”

At 12 p.m., attendees are offered lunch and a panel discussion with Five College students entitled “Student Perspective and Knowledge.”

After lunch, attendees will view the progress of a variety of digital humanities projects at tables set up around Webster 102. Called “Digital Technologies, New Ways of Learning and Knowing” presentations will include projects exploring Parisian architecture, 19th century American clothing, Emily Dickinson, film history and work with interactive maps.

The colloquium will run from 10 am until 3:00 p.m. on Friday, November 2, in Room 102 of Amherst College’s Webster Hall. The event is free and open to the public. Those planning to attend the lunch should RSVP to mmuir@fivecolleges.edu.

Based in Amherst, Massachusetts, Five Colleges, Inc., is a nonprofit educational consortium created in 1965 to advance the extensive educational and cultural objectives of its member institutions— Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

For more information, contact
Kevin Kennedy
kkennedy@fivecolleges.edu
413.542.4017