Bard College Awarded $68,445 NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant for the Center for Experimental Humanities

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Bard College is pleased to announce that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a $68,445 grant in support of the Center for Experimental Humanities (EH) at Bard. The grant will support Solar-Powering the Humanities: Archiving for the Future, a new initiative by EH to creatively re-envision archives and the reliance of small institutions on external data storage providers. The project will redesign and migrate EH’s current digital archive, currently hosted on Amazon web services, to a “solar server” that the center will design, prototype and self-host.

“Experimental Humanities at Bard College is grateful to receive funding from National Endowment for the Humanities to support the creation of a solar-powered server to host our extensive archives,” said Krista Caballero and Susan Merriam, codirectors of EH. “This project is important because recent research is clear that the environmental cost of our digital infrastructures is enormous; the Cloud has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry. Solar-Powering the Humanities: Archiving for the Future emerged out of conversations regarding ways EH might incubate projects that explicitly address this ecological crisis. A collaboration among faculty in Computer Science, Physics, and the Arts as well as students, and staff, our designs will be made available so that other institutions can reimagine their archives to be self-sustaining and environmentally responsible.”

Bard’s Experimental Humanities is an interdisciplinary center for experimentation with digital, analog, and conceptual methods of learning, research, and public engagement. EH works with media and technology from across historical periods, and is committed to the notion that embracing experimental approaches is essential to fostering practices that are inclusive for all learners and transformative for the societies in which we live. To learn more, visit https://eh.bard.edu/. 

The team includes project co-directors Krista Caballero, co-director of the Center for Experimental Humanities and artist in residence; Valerie Barr, Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and director of the Bard Network Computing Initiative; Beate Liepert, visiting professor in physics and environmental studies and director of environmental studies; Susan Merriam, co-director of the Center for Experimental Humanities and associate professor of art history and visual culture; as well as Misha Awad, developer for digital arts and humanities at the Center for Experimental Humanities; Sean Maguire, systems administrator in information technology; and Anna Hallett Gutierrez, project coordinator at the Center for Experimental Humanities.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year, residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in more than 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 13 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 164-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
 

This event was last updated on 09-09-2024

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