Library Guides: Digital Humanities: Notable DH Projects

Notable Projects

What makes a DH project notable? There are many aspects that might characterize one as such. Is it innovative? Does it make a major impact on or contribution to the field? Typically a notable project will bring new insights to a complex question or shine a light on some hidden but important piece of The Humanities Puzzle. Sometimes, they're just really well put together, demonstrating an impressive capacity for empathy, attention, curiosity, and talent. The following are just a few examples.

Virtual Angkor
"In the decade since it commenced, the Virtual Angkor project has evolved organically to encompass new technologies and approaches in an effort to present a comprehensive reconstruction of the city and its inhabitants. Virtual Angkor is a collaboration between archaeologists, historians and Virtual History specialists based in Australia, Cambodia and the United States. The project received the American Historical Association’s Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Innovation in Digital History in 2019, the 2021 Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Prize from the Medieval Academy of America and a Gold Medal from the QS-Wharton Reimagine Education Awards in 2021."

Virtual Paul's Cross Project: A Digital Recreation of John Donne's Gunpowder Day Sermon
"The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project provides the experience of hearing John Donne’s sermon for Gunpowder Day, November 5th, 1622 in Paul’s Churchyard, the specific physical location for which it was composed. The user can hear Donne’s sermon from 8 different positions in Paul’s Churchyard and in the presence of 4 different sizes of crowd. Using digital modeling technology, we can experience preaching in Paul’s Churchyard as an event that unfolds over time.

The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project received the John Donne Society’s Award for Distinguished Publication in 2013.

The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project also received the Award for Best DH Data Visualization from DH Awards in 2014."

Let Them Speak/In Search of the Drowned
"Let them Speak is the epigraph of this digital monograph and the name of the collaborative project between three institutions that gave rise to it. Let them Speak is symbolic; it expresses my intention to give voice to millions of murdered Holocaust victims, to the Drowned, as Primo Levi, the Italian writer and Holocaust survivor, named them. In Search of the Drowned is a hybrid publication with various components bringing together survivors’ testimonies, digital history, computer science, philosophy, and personal memory."