Finishing Up My Time at the DSL
For the last four months, I’ve had the pleasure to serve as the graduate assistant for the DSL. Though I had some previous experience with text encoding, before this semester I would never have described myself as a tech-savvy person. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work in the lab and broaden my own approaches to historical and theological research.
As a graduate student in Theology, I spend much of my time reading the works of people long dead, sometimes in languages that are long dead. In many respects, Theology has not lent itself to digital scholarship in the way that English or History has. Part of this, I think, stems from the text-centeredness of theological studies, but a bigger reason may be the concretized nature of theological discourse. Because theological research has been a part of the academy since the Middle Ages, it is very difficult for scholars to stray from established forms and practices. What qualifies as “research” today, looks very similar to what it did one hundred years ago.
But there are signs that things are changing. While the content of theological research remains consistent, the means by which this research can be presented has changed dramatically in the last decade. Take for example, Syriaca.org, a joint project between Marquette, Vanderbilt, Princeton, NYU, and Texas A&M. Syriaca is an enormous reference portal for the study of middle-eastern Christianity. Syriac is an Aramaic dialect that has existed since the first century CE, and it remains the primary religious language for several middle-eastern Christian groups. Syriaca serves as an introduction to this rich field, while also providing a research apparatus for specialists and scholars within this area, combing the best practices of digital humanities, history, philology (study of language), and theology.
My own personal project for this semester, The Wartburg Letters, attempts to present my research on Martin Luther and his 1521 exile, using the data visualization tool Palladio. Palladio allows for the data that I have collected to be manipulated in a variety of ways, meaning that my project can facilitate a number of different research questions for this time in Luther’s life. Over the next few months, I’m hoping to mine through Luther’s earlier letters, adding to my data sets and broadening the depth of my project. This kind of research helps to contextualize Luther’s theological insights, giving a comprehensive view of this time in his life, while also allowing for specific topics to be singled out and their developments traced.
During my time at the DSL, I’ve been able to contribute to a brand-new joint project between the lab and the University Special Collections. Hopefully most of you know that Marquette has one of the largest collection of Tolkien artifacts in the world. Included in the collection are sets of “fanzines,” self-published periodicals by fans of Tolkien and fantasy literature from the 1950s through the 60s and 70s. Our project, FellowsHub, dives into this early Tolkien reception history, looking at how his fan culture developed in these decades. It is a tight-knit community, with an established hierarchy of leaders and authority figures. Various interpretive schools formed over the nature of elvish languages and the underlying mythology to Tolkien’s work. Though many of the ‘zines focus on Middle-Earth, they also explore Science-fiction and Fantasy literature more generally, commenting on writing or plot structures, comparing and ranking the various authors in these genres. Though it is in its beginning stages, FellowsHub will serve as a reference portal for this world of early Tolkien fan-culture, allowing for research on particular topics within this community and the tracing of particular figures and their contributions to the fanzines. It has been fun to get in on the ground floor of this project, and I’m excited to see where it goes!
I’ll be taking all of these experiences from this semester with me as I start a PhD in History this Fall. My time at the DSL has opened up a world of possibilities for shaping my research. I look forward to using the tools and skills that I’ve acquired in my future scholarship and teaching.
