Research Support

The Forum for Digital Culture supports digital projects in all fields of study through all phases of research, from the initial acquisition of a project’s data through the stages of integrating, analyzing, publishing, and archiving the data.

The staff of the Forum for Digital Culture provide consultation, software training, data management, and other technical support for the digital projects of faculty and students. For more information or to schedule a consultation, contact the Forum’s Director of Technology, Sandra Schloen (sschloen@uchicago.edu).

The Forum for Digital Culture primarily supports research projects in the humanities and related social sciences but may also support work in the natural sciences. Computational support and guidance is provided through all phases of a project, from the initial acquisition of data through the stages of integrating, analyzing, and publishing the data and then preserving it over the long term. This is done in a cost-effective and sustainable manner by means of two powerful and professionally maintained computational platforms that were designed by University of Chicago researchers and are well suited for computational work in the humanities and social sciences.

The Forum for Digital Culture also gives researchers and artists a way to publish digital materials as durable, citable, and peer-reviewed Web publications via the University of Chicago’s new Online Publication Service.

Projects Supported by the Forum

The following projects involving scholars affiliated with the University of Chicago have received computational support from the Forum for Digital Culture (external projects supported by the Forum are not listed here):

Antiwar Sabotage in Russia (Ania Aizman, Dept. of Slavic Languages & Literatures, University of Chicago)
ARTFL: American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (Robert Morrissey and Clovis Gladstone, Dept. of Romance Languages & Literatures, University of Chicago)
Beshrew Me! Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Early Modern Domestic Culture (Ellen MacKay, Dept. of English Language & Literature and Committee on Theater & Performance Studies, University of Chicago)
Capturing the Stars: Women’s Networks and the Advancement of Science at Yerkes Observatory, 1895–1940 (Richard Kron, Dept. of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago; Kristine Palmieri, Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, University of Chicago)
The CEDAR Initiative: Critical Editions for Digital Analysis and Research (Ellen MacKay, Dept. of English Language & Literature and Committee on Theater & Performance Studies, University of Chicago; Jeffrey Stackert, Divinity School, University of Chicago)
Center for Ancient Middle Eastern Landscapes (Mehrnoush Soroush, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Chapakhana: Mapping the Spread of Print in South Asia (Ulrike Stark, Dept. of South Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago)
The Chicago Demotic Dictionary (Janet Johnson and Brian Muhs, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
The Chicago Hittite Dictionary (Theo van den Hout and Petra Goedegebuure, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Cinemetrics (Yuri Tsivian and Maria Belodubrovskaya, Dept. of Cinema & Media Studies, University of Chicago)
CLEMENT: Commerce and Law in Early Modern England, Transcribed (Emily Kadens, Pritzker School of Law, Northwestern University)
The Craft Almanac (Erica Warren, Dept. of Art History, University of Chicago)
CRANE: Computational Research on the Ancient Near East (Timothy P. Harrison and David Schloen, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago; Lisa Cooper, University of British Columbia; Michel Fortin, Laval University, Québec; Sturt Manning, Cornell University; Graham Philip, Durham University, U.K.)
Cyrillic Unicode font conversion (Meng Li, Dept. of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago)
Database of Afro-Asiatic Basic Lexicon (Brendan Hainline, Ph.D. student, Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
DeepScribe: AI for Cuneiform Tablets (Sanjay Krishnan, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Chicago; Susanne Paulus, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago; Miller Prosser, Sandra Schloen, and Jeffrey Tharsen, Forum for Digital Culture, University of Chicago; Edward Williams, independent scholar)
Demotic Ostraca Online (Foy Scalf and Brian Muhs, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago)
Digital Dictionaries of South Asia (Gary Tubb and James Nye, Dept. of South Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago)
Digital Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese 古漢語詞源字典 (Jeffrey Tharsen, Forum for Digital Culture, University of Chicago)
Dispersed Chinese Art Digitization Project (Wu Hung and Katherine Tsiang, Dept. of Art History, University of Chicago)
The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Foy Scalf and Brian Muhs, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago; Rita Lucarelli, University of California, Berkeley)
The Energy History Visualization Project (Elisabeth Moyer, Dept. of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago)
The Excavation of Antioch-on-the-Orontes 1932—1939 (Alan Stahl and Julia Gearhart, Princeton University; Andrea De Giorgi, Florida State University; Asa Eger, University of North Carolina, Greensboro; Tasha Vorderstrasse, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Ashkelon, Israel (Lawrence Stager†, Harvard University; Daniel Master, Wheaton College; David Schloen, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Cerro del Villar, Spain (José Suárez Padilla, University of Málaga, Spain; David Schloen, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago; Carolina López-Ruiz, Divinity School and Dept. of Classics, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Corral Redondo, Peru (Maria Cecilia “Nené” Lozada, Dept. of Romance Languages & Literatures, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Dalverzin Tepe, Uzbekistan (Harrison Morin, Ph.D. student, Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Gezer, Israel (Steven Ortiz, Lipscomb University; Samuel Wolff, Israel Antiquities Authority)
Excavations at Gobero, Niger (Paul Sereno, Dept. of Organismal Biology & Anatomy, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Idalion, Cyprus (Pamela Gaber, Lycoming College; Andrew Wright, Forum for Digital Culture, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Nippur, Iraq (Augusta McMahon, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Tell el-Judaidah, Turkey (Lynn Swartz Dodd, University of Southern California)
Excavations at Tell Keisan, Israel (David Schloen, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago; Gunnar Lehmann, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Bernd Schipper, Humboldt University of Berlin)
Excavations at Tell Qarqur, Syria (Rudolph Dornemann, Milwaukee Public Museum; Jesse Casana, Dartmouth College)
Excavations at Tell Tayinat, Turkey (Timothy P. Harrison, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Tel Yaqush, Israel (Yorke Rowan, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Tiwanaku, Bolivia (Alan Kolata, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Chicago)
Excavations at Zincirli, Turkey (David Schloen, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago; Virginia Herrmann, University of Tübingen; Kathryn Morgan, Duke University)
FIORE: The “Florence Illuminated” Online Research Environment (Niall Atkinson, Depts. of Art History and Romance Languages & Literatures, University of Chicago; Anne Leader, University of Virginia; George Bent, Washington and Lee University; Peter Sposato, Indiana University; Lorenzo Vigotti, University of Bologna)
Gathering and Researching Images from Orlando Furioso (Federica Caneparo, Dept. of Romance Languages & Literatures, University of Chicago)
Genomes, Migrations, and Culture in the Early Civilizations of the Middle East (John Novembre and Maanasa Raghavan, Dept. of Human Genetics, University of Chicago; James Osborne and David Schloen, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
HARP: Hoard Analysis Research Project [for ancient Greek coin hoards] (Alain Bresson, Dept. of Classics, University of Chicago)
Hebrew Bible Critical Edition (Jeffrey Stackert, Simeon Chavel, Sarah Yardney, and Doren Snoek, Divinity School, University of Chicago; Ronald Hendel, University of California, Berkeley)
An Index to the Chant of the Mozarabic Rite (Don Randel, Dept. of Music, University of Chicago)
Indigenous American Sign Systems (Edgar Garcia, Dept. of English Language & Literature, University of Chicago)
Intertextuality: Zhuangzi versus the Taishō (Haun Saussy, Dept. of East Asian Languages & Civilizations and Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago)
LEM: Language, Events, and Mind Lab (Monica Do, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Chicago)
Marathi Online (Philip Engblom†, Dept. of South Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago)
Megiddo 3: Final Report on the Stratum VI Excavations (Timothy P. Harrison, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Melville Electronic Library (John Bryant, Hofstra University, emeritus; Christopher Ohge, University of London; Wyn Kelley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Eric Slauter, Dept. of English Language & Literature, University of Chicago)
Messkataloge Digital Database (David Kretz, Ph.D. student, Dept. of Germanic Studies and Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago)
Metapictures (W. J. T. Mitchell, Depts. of Art History and English Language & Literature, University of Chicago)
METEOR: Middle Egyptian Text Editions for Online Research (Janet Johnson, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Modern Philology Metadata (Timothy Campbell, Timothy M. Harrison, and Josephine McDonagh, Dept. of English Language & Literature, University of Chicago)
An Organon for the Information Age (David Schloen, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago; Samuel Volchenboum, Dept. of Pediatrics, University of Chicago Hospital; Malte Willer, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Chicago)
Ottoman Inscriptions Project (Hakan Karateke, Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Persepolis Fortification Archive Project (Matthew Stolper, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago; Annalisa Azzoni, Vanderbilt University; Mark Garrison, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas; Wouter Henkelman, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris)
Perseus under PhiloLogic (Helma Dik, Dept. of Classics, University of Chicago)
Piers Plowman and Late Medieval England (Ian Cornelius, Loyola University Chicago; Timothy Stinson, North Carolina State University; Julie Orlemanski, Dept. of English Language & Literature, University of Chicago)
Power, Identity, Resistance: The Smart Guide (Jennifer Spruill, The College, University of Chicago)
Primed to (Re)act: Can Changes in Procedural Language Prevent Adverse Events between Police and Minority Male Youth? (Christopher Graziul, Dept. of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago)
Ras Shamra Tablet Inventory (Miller Prosser, Forum for Digital Culture, University of Chicago; Dennis Pardee, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago)
Shang Clan Signs Project (Yung-ti Li, Dept. of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago)
Sign and Gesture Archive (Diane Brentari, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Chicago; Susan Goldin-Meadow, Dept. of Psychology, University of Chicago)
Slavic Graduate Student Resource List (Anne Eakin Moss, Dept. of Slavic Languages & Literatures, University of Chicago)
South Side Home Movie Project (Jacqueline Stewart, Dept. of Cinema & Media Studies, University of Chicago)
Spoken Yucatec Maya (John Lucy, Dept. of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago)
Textual Optics Lab (Hoyt Long, Dept. of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago; Robert Morrissey and Clovis Gladstone, Dept. of Romance Languages & Literatures, University of Chicago)
Thinking Music: Global Sources for the History of Music Theory (Thomas Christiansen, Dept. of Music, University of Chicago; Carmel Raz, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics; Lester Hu, University of California, Berkeley)
Village Harmony: South African Choral Music (Mollie Stone, Dept. of Music, University of Chicago)
Washo Documentation Project (Alan Yu, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Chicago)

Digital Collections Supported by the Forum

In addition to the projects listed above, the Forum for Digital Culture provides staff support and software for managing the following digital collections in the University of Chicago Library and the Visual Resources Center of the Department of Art History: