Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative

Category: Uncategorized

  • (Un)Mapping the Settler Colonial Forest

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    In my last post I briefly introduced myself (#PrimaDeAfuera), described the work I do, and highlighted some of the people who help make my time here at MSU possible. In this post, I share more about the project I want to work on for the remainder of the CHI Fellowship. To start, I’ll share that…

  • News as Cultural Heritage

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    One of the questions that has challenged me as a CHI fellow is, “What qualifies as cultural heritage?” As a journalism and media scholar, I am often confronted with the tension-filled role journalism fills, a perhaps self-imposed role that is situated between the public and institutions, between individual lived experiences and collective storytelling, and between…

  • Angélica De Jesús // CHI Fellow 2023-24

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    Hi there, I’m Angélica De Jesús; a doctoral student in the MSU Sociology Department and /literal/ mami currently living in Nkwejong (aka Lansing, Michigan). During a recent chat with my abu Eréndira, she asked detailed questions about what I do at MSU. Our conversation about my work stood out to me because it was a…

  • Launching the Stratford Heritage Guide

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    I am excited to announce the launch of my ‘22-’23 CHI project, the Stratford Heritage Guide. The presentation of Shakespeare’s legacy has evolved over the centuries, and narratives regarding the greatness of the playwright have been curated in very specific and intentional ways to cement him as an English cultural icon. Although Shakespeare wrote all…

  • Midwives to the Countryside Launch

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    As we close finals week here at Michigan State University, I am excited to be launching my CHI project: “Midwives to the Countryside.” The aim of creating this project was to map midwife training programs with the express purpose of demonstrating what the rural-urban gap in midwife care looked like in the early years of…

  • Introducing “Mapping Forensic Anthropology Research”!

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    Welcome to the launch of my new website, Mapping Forensic Anthropology Research (MFAR), the result of the project I worked on as a 2022-2023 CHI Graduate Fellow! This website is an exploratory resource for students and professionals in forensic anthropology. It is aimed at helping to understand what United States-based documented skeletal collections are used…

  • Call for 2023-2024 Cultural Heritage Informatics Graduate Fellowship Applications

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    The Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative invites applications for its 2023-2024 Cultural Heritage Informatics Graduate Fellowship program. The Cultural Heritage Informatics Fellowships offer MSU graduate students the skills to creatively and thoughtfully apply digital methods and computational approaches to cultural heritage collections, materials, data, questions, and challenges.

  • Switching Gears

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    Whenever working on a digital project, I try to be open to the fact that my initial plan will not always be possible to follow through all the way to the end. I’ve often had issues with my code since I’m primarily self-taught, or sometimes things just don’t turn out the way I imagined once…

  • A Learning Curve!

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    Getting the “Mapping Nzulezo” project going is exciting as it is equally challenging. As a novice in the I.T. world, I am expected to grapple with some technical issues as I figure out how to create an interactive story map. Yes, an interactive story map! That is how I envisioned the “Mapping Nzulezo” project. My…

  • The Best Laid Plans

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    After learning from my experiences with unforeseen delays (read: code struggles) during last year’s CHI fellowship project, I’ve been developing my project management skills this year: carefully delineating the scope of the final product, mapping the time allocated to each element of the project, and resisting the temptation to add more components when they would…