Researching for the Future
Researching for the Future represents a new initiative that recognizes that the digital age dramatically changes the way we read, see, interpret and create. Whereas the first wave of technological innovation simply produced tools to enhance existing patterns of research and creativity, Digital Humanities 2 embraces the openness and transformative quality of digital studies. Our growing cluster of research projects is intent on promoting technologies for the study and teaching of the Holocaust. The projects bring together enabling technologies for scholarly exploration and civic engagement about the Holocaust and its remembrance.
Our new endowment RFTF2 is designed to support existing and new projects.
Watch a brief overview of the personal impetus behind RFTF2: Researching for the Future.
Projects
Digital Studies of the Holocaust
Archival materials of the Holocaust are exceptionally voluminous. Not only did the Nazis keep detailed records, but institutions such as Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have compiled vast and accessible digital databases on every aspect of the Holocaust. In order to analyze such a massive scale of data, digital technologies allow us to simultaneously study the larger shifting patterns in the process of mass murder. Our project aims to dissect this complex process of mass killing and its constantly changing implementation within a large and shifting geographical space. The efficient implementation of the Holocaust required a sophisticated infrastructure and constant adjustment. To understand the development of a genocidal practice, it is important to simultaneously analyze the design of concentration camps, the transportation system, the geographical locations involved such as gathering points in urban centers, the ghettos, and the concentration camps all over Europe. Moreover, since time is a significant factor in the Holocaust, our project aims to comprehend the chronological development to better understand the unfolding of the Holocaust within the changing landscape of World War II.
Confronting Our Past
“Confronting the Past” is a digital exhibition project that aims to explore, document, and curate discrimination and racial/ethnic violence in Dallas-Fort Worth in order to promote a wider public debate about the lasting legacies of hatred in our communities. It utilizes visual material and verbal and written testimonies collected from official sources to address and promote an understanding of the short and long-term ramifications of violence and hatred. By documenting our history, conflicting memories are captured and clarified, crimes and intolerance are acknowledged, and victims and witnesses of hate, isolation, exclusion and inequality are empowered and given a voice.